Since the golden age of John W. Campbell (editor from 1938-72), Analog magazine has been renowned for editorials that provoke, prod, inspire, anger, and ignite the magazine's readers into thinking, questioning their own assumptions, and looking at the world with fresh insights.

From 1978 to the present, the man challenged to light a fire under the readers month after month has been editor Stanley Schmidt. He has succeeded in exemplary fashion, which helps to explain why he's a twenty-two-time nominee for the best editor Hugo Award. Now, for the first time, thirty-five of his stimulating essays have been gathered in book form.

In "King of the Hill (No Matter What)" he considers the questions of animal and machine intelligence. "The Fermi Plague" offers a frightening answer to Enrico Fermi's famous paradox about the apparent absence of alien civilizations. "Invisible Enemies, Intelligent Choices" examines the proper role of science in public policy.