Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920-2012) was a novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Bradbury's short story "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in 1941 in the pulp magazine Super Science Stories. The protagonist, Layeville, had built a time machine and invited the world’s top scientists to attend its first performance. Unfortunately, a massive explosion killed them all, and for his crime, Layeville was imprisoned in a glass pendulum for what seemed an eternity. The people called him The Prisoner of Time. But everything comes to an end....

Cynthia is a story published in Huxley's collection titled Limbo, published in 1920. "So she was absolutely, frozenly virginal; but she was made of a sort of burning ice, if you understand me. She was virginally passionate just the combination you’d expect to find in a goddess."

A Case of Premeditation is one of Freeman's inverted detective stories, also referred to as a "locked room mystery" featuring his favorite medical-forensic investigator, Dr. Thorndyke. It was first published in McClure's Magazine, August, 1910.

The story is told through a blood-stained notebook discovered on the edge of a farm in Withyham. The notebook is written by a Mr. Joyce-Armstrong, and the first two and last pages are missing; the notebook is thus dubbed the "Joyce-Armstrong Fragment".

Joyce-Armstrong, a brave aviator, had been curious over the deaths of certain pilots who tried to break the current height record of 30,000 feet. Recent casualties involve some strange deaths – one, Hay Connor, died after landing while he was still in his plane, while another, Myrtle, was discovered with his head missing. Joyce-Armstrong speculates that the answer to these deaths may be the result of what he calls "air-jungles":

Filmer is a short story by H. G. Wells. Herbert George "H. G." Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction," as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Written cooperatively by Forrest Ackerman and Ray Bradbury, this story was first published in Ray Bradbury's Futuria Fantasia, Summer 1939 where it was credited only as “by Forrest J. Ackerman”