Synopsis: From the front flap of the Frederick Fell first edition: "With pride, the publishers of Fell's Science-Fiction Library present the second annual volume that brings together in permanent book form the finest science-fiction novels of the year. In addition to the actual novels themselves, this volume contains a scholarly introduction by editors Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty, which analyses trends in the development of science-fiction and traces the background of the books and authors contained herein. The novels in this year's compendium provide diversity of theme, and the accent is on the fresh and unusual. The editors believe that science-fiction readers, oldtimers and newcomers alike, will find the stories highly literate, readable, entertaining and educational. Here are the year's best novels: Firewater by William Tenn - Injured egotism becomes the motivation of Earthmen's fight against the alien creatures. Category Phoenix by Boyd Ellanby - This might be best described as a problem in the ethics of immortality. Who is to say who will continue forever young, and who will wither and die? Surface Tension by James Blish - Read here of a two-inch wooden space ship that travels on land and of the tiny beings who travel through the vacuum of air. The Gadget had a Ghost by Murray Leinster - The paradoxes of time cast strange shadows across the centuries. Conditionally Human by Walter M. Miller, Jr. - If naturally born man can call himself human, what then of his laboratory created children? Everyone must be impressed with the rapidly burgeoning field of science-fiction. It is becoming evident that the rising level of quality will make science-fiction not only the "fiction of the future," but true literature in the future. The novels in this volume are fine, clear landmarks of that trend."