George Sanford has a gift for guessing right the first time and very little else going for him. When Ahmed and his other friends graduate school and got jobs in The City, George finds himself left behind. He never wanted to sign his name, let alone fill out appliations and reports.

Then George bumps into the Rescue Squad and is swept up in the excitement of a hunt for a trapped girl. It is George who finds her with his special talent for guessing right . . . and it is George who suddenly becomes the pride of the Rescue Squad. With a friend running interference for him with the bureaucracy, George lands a place for himself as a "consultant" - and the more he works, the more his strange talents begin to grow.

With each success George begins to change. Using his special talents to rescue a computer technician from a gang of revolutionaries, he finds he has become a pawn in a mad iconoclastic game. A game where his own talents pose the greatest threat to The City-and the world!

Katherine MacLean's thrilling debut novel, based on work originally published in Analog magazine!

As I recall this collection had "Operation Snowball" & "Pictures Don't Lie" those 2 stories make it worthwhile.The others were less memorable, but some of them were good. This book is the only book by a woman author my dad has. It is traditional sf therefore. I thought MacLean was dead, but I'm glad to see she's not.

As I recall this contained "Pictures Don't Lie" & "Operation Snowball" those two alone make it worth reading. As I recall this is the only woman author in my dad's collection ,well I think he has an Andre Norton, which also means its pretty traditional sf. If you don't like the old-style you probably won't like this. I'm embarrased to admit this, but I thought MacLean was dead. I'm glad to hear she isn't.

Katherine maclean was the first woman to write sf. Since her life story is so interesting and is necessary to understand her work I'll mention some elements of it. As a nurse in the civil war she used her free time to write the first batch of her action stories. These were published in Wells scientific Romance, the argosy, G. K. Chesterton, & Poe's world of weirdness. Chesterton was unwilling to publish her stories under her own name, but she persuaded him deftly. The most memorable story from this period ,that's in this collection, is "The Snowball Effect" (It is not called operation snowball) an amusing satire about sewing circles, the future of the railroad, & the fear of a southern victory. Actually she intended to have the sewing circle in the story take over the world, but southerners seemed more topical then. After those magazines I mentioned collapsed she went into a lull until the '40's when she moved to britain. During this period she produced most of the stories in this collection. These stories were part of the "Commonwealth of Man" series which detailed a declining galactic empire symbolic of the british empire. Then another lull until at a 150 yrs old she produced her best ,& last, story "Pictures don't lie" which the others mentioned. In a few short pages it manages to be one of the most impressive tale about the nature of reality ever written!!!!! Don't take my word for it after all it won the Hugo, Nebula, Ditmar, Asimov, Eidolon, Waldrop, Simak, & Sturgeon awards. This collection has n'all the stories I mentioned and a tribute by Margaret thatcher. It's hard to believe such a carreer could've existed, but hopefully if you've gotten here you know the truth.