The Martian Monster and Other Stories

Stories in this volume include "The Martian Monster," in which a 9-year-old boy befriends a Martian in the woods and asks him to kill his stepmother -- but the "Martian" convinces him that it's really his father who he should target. There's sharp social commentary in "...And Then There Were Two " (highly intelligent robots unveil a plan for world peace, but political opportunists launch an anti-robot campaign to discredit them) and "Prediction of Disaster " (an astronomer concludes that our sun is about to go nova and tries to warn the world).