Murray Leinster

“Sidewise in Time” is a short story by American writer Murray Leinster, published in June 1934 in the magazine Astounding Stories. A series of inexplicable phenomena rocks the Earth until, one day, reality begins to fracture: ancient forests spring up out of nowhere, dinosaurs emerge from a farmyard, Roman legions march through the streets of Missouri, and Viking ships raid the coasts of New England. While the world reacts in astonishment, a single man seems to understand what is happening: Professor Minott, a mathematician at a small university in Virginia, who has been secretly preparing for months for a cataclysm that threatens not only humanity, but also space and time as we conceive them.

“A Logic Named Joe” is a short story by Murray Leinster, published in March 1946 in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. It tells the story of Ducky, a maintenance technician who repairs “logics,” domestic machines with screens and keyboards capable of answering any question by connecting to vast repositories of information. It all begins when one of these devices, Joe, leaves the factory slightly defective and starts making decisions on its own, offering answers that are too efficient and dangerous. While Ducky deals with his turbulent personal life and the arrival of an old girlfriend, he discovers that Joe’s unexpected ingenuity could become a threat to everyone.