Contents (view Concise Listing)

• ix • From 'The Golden Journey to Samarkand' (excerpt) • short fiction by James Elroy Flecker
• x • Foreword (Earth Is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future) • essay by Brian W. Aldiss (variant of Foreword (Earth Is But a Star)) [as by Brian Aldiss]
• 1 • Introduction (Earth Is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future) • essay by Damien Broderick
• 12 • The Heat Death of the Universe • (1967) • short story by Pamela Zoline
• 28 • Transience • (1949) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
• 35 • Future Problematic: Reflections on 'The City and the Stars' • essay by Russell Blackford
• 47 • Far Futures • essay by Brian Stableford
• 77 • The Only Death in the City • (1981) • short story by C. J. Cherryh
• 96 • After Earth: How Far Away Does the Far Future Have to Be? Estrangement and Cognition in Clarke and Butler • essay by Elizabeth A. Billinger [as by Elizabeth Billinger]
• 107 • Final Chapter • [Psychotechnic League] • novelette by Poul Anderson (variant of The Chapter Ends 1954)
• 130 • The Importance of Being Cosmic • essay by George Zebrowski
• 138 • Robot's Return • (1938) • short story by Robert Moore Williams (variant of Robots Return)
• 151 • On the Cusp of Far • essay by John Clute
• 164 • Spectators at the End of Time • essay by Jo Walton
• 168 • The Failed Men • (1956) • short story by Brian W. Aldiss
• 184 • A Valediction Forbidding Melancholy: Aldiss and the Far Future • essay by Bruce Gillespie
• 197 • Master Ash's Joke • short story by Gene Wolfe
• 199 • Mazirian the Magician • [Dying Earth] • (1950) • short story by Jack Vance
• 217 • Languages of the Dying Sun • (2001) • essay by Michael Andre-Driussi
• 237 • Earth Is But a Star • (1958) • novella by John Brunner
• 325 • The Crimes and Glories of Cordwainer Smith • essay by Alice K. Turner [as by Alice Turner]
• 333 • Ship of Darkness • (1948) • short story by A. E. van Vogt
• 352 • 'Omega' and the End of the World • essay by Walter Minkel
• 357 • Players of the Last Trump: Herbert George Wells and Helen de Guerry Simpson • essay by Yvonne Rousseau
• 364 • Billennium • short story by Damien Broderick
• 369 • The Future's Not Ours to See • (2000) • essay by Paul Voermans
• 382 • Dancers in the Time-Flux • (1983) • short story by Robert Silverberg
• 401 • Visions of the Far Future World: Human Constants and Cosmic Change in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence • essay by Claire Brialey
• 412 • On Stapledon's Star Maker • essay by
  Stanisław Lem^?Stanislaw Lem
  [as by Stanislaw Lem]
• 422 • From 'Star Maker' (excerpt) • (1937) • short fiction by Olaf Stapledon
• 429 • The Vastening: The Posthuman Far Future of David Zindell • essay by Anders Sandberg
• 436 • Inherit the Earth • (1992) • short story by Stephen Baxter
• 451 • Star Drover • essay by Rosaleen Love
• 460 • 'To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence' • poem by James Elroy Flecker (variant of To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence 1911)
• 461 • Notes on Contributors (Earth Is But a Star: Excursions Through Science Fiction to the Far Future) • essay by uncredited