Overruled

ORDER IN THE COURT! A new anthology of science fiction stories that explores what the future of jurisprudence might well be like, with thrilling, hilarious, and downright entertaining results! So much fun, it oughta be illegal! Stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more.


Lawyers—pardon me, attorneys—may be portrayed in fiction as the good guys (and gals) or as greedy conniving shysters.


In mundane fiction, the former are represented ably by Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason and by Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (we’ll pass over her other novel, Go Set a Watchman, with a less inspiring portrait—consider it obviously set in a parallel world). The less favorable view was expressed by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his SF classic, A Princess of Mars, in which his doubly immortal John Carter observes that the Martians are very fortunate in that, while they may behave with savage cruelty, and are constantly at war, at least they have no lawyers.


Both views of the legal profession have been explored in science fiction and fantasy since John Carter set foot on the Red Planet, as well as looking into possible ways that future punishment for crimes may change, not necessarily for the better. Some of science fiction’s greatest talents are included in this book, including classics by Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Silverberg, and more, and newer stories by Sarah A. Hoyt, Alex Shvartsman, and Alvaro Zinos-Amaros, and still other stellar talents bringing down the judge’s gavel with a verdict of excellent entertainment.


At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).


Praise for the contributors:


Robert A. Heinlein: “[Stories] as sleekly engineered as a starship.” –Publishers Weekly


Larry Niven: “[A] writer of supreme talent . . .” –Tom Clancy


Clifford D. Simak: “[W]armth, imaginative detail . . . finely rendered . . .” –John Cllute, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction


Robert Silverberg: “. . . when Silverberg is at the top of his form, no one is better.” –George R. R. Martin


Sarah A. Hoyt: “. . . fanciful and charming.” –Library Journal


Hank Davis is Senior Editor at Baen Books. He served in Vietnam in the Army and has had stories in Analog Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and anthologies If and Orbit, as well as Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions.


Christopher Ruocchio is the author of the Sun Eater Chronicle, a space opera series from DAW Books, the first novel of which, Empire of Silence, is available now. He is also the Assistant Editor at Baen Books and a graduate of North Carolina State University. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.