"BURST INTO THE FIELD LIKE A NOVA!" ISAAC ASIMOV Dawn of Flame & Other Science Fiction Stories reprints six acknowledged masterpieces by Science Fiction Hall of Fame author Stanley G. Weinbaum, whose short career changed the field forever. The stories in this collection showcase "the vigor and talent of the writer whose first story make him, as Isaac Asimov points out, 'Instantly recognized as the word's best living science fiction writer.'" (Lester del Rey). The title story, originally published as a full-length novel in the magazines, is a rare blending of science fiction and romance, featuring Black Margot, Margaret of Urbs, aka The Black Flame, the immortal woman warrior, one of the guardians of civilization who ruthlessly enforce peace after a nuclear apocalypse drives much of humankind back into barbarism. Forced to hold herself above love by both duty and her immortality, the Black Flame finds herself tempted when she meets idealist Hull Tarvish; but Tarvish loves another and has sworn to help free Earth of the yoke of Black Margot's iron rule and betray her to her enemies! "Dawn of Flame revealed Weinbaum as a completely mature literary craftsman, tremendously talented in dialogue, and superbly skilled in characterization. There is high poetry in the closing passages." (Sam Moskowitz in Explorers of the Infinite) In addition to the title novel, this collection features all three of the hilarious misadventures of that most hapless, if irrepressible, of inventors, Professor Haskel van Manderpootz: "The Worlds of If," "The Ideal," and "The Point of View" ("…a light touch-and genuine suspense." rejoiced. H. P. Lovecraft). Also includes two rarely reprinted Weinbaum novelettes, "Shifting Seas" and "Brink of Infinity." Stanley G. Weinbaum died in 1935, having altered the face of science fiction in only eighteen short months of writing.