Weird Science Annual #3

Andrew Harmon and Miss Landers find themselves drawn to each other while working together to teach Buster, an electronic brain, about human emotions—only to realize their growing connection is complicating the machine’s own awakening mind.

In "Why Papa Left Home," Raymond Williams Jr. finds himself thrust 25 years into the past, chasing the mystery behind his father’s sudden departure. As he navigates a world shaped by secrets, he encounters Doctor Vandeveer Hybolt, Martha Anders, and Mr. Axel—each tied to a truth that reshapes his understanding of family and identity. The past holds a revelation that will echo into the present, leaving Raymond to confront a truth he never saw coming.

When a crash-landed spaceship brings Captain Becker and crew to a colossal alien world, engineer Vaughn finds himself facing a terrifying truth: the planet’s monstrous space worm isn’t just a predator—it’s a victim of the crew’s own cruelty. As the line between hunter and hunted blurs, Vaughn must confront the consequences of their actions before the worm turns on them all.

When Captain Harold Dexter and his crew aboard the Polaris-B encounter a planet where pets are the dominant species, they’re unprepared for the truth: the Gobl, an alien leader, and the Knogs, his enigmatic masters, have a bond that turns the idea of companionship on its head. With Hawkins’ dog barking through zero gravity and the crew struggling to make sense of a world ruled by animals, one thing becomes clear—friendship here is not what anyone expected.

In the quiet aftermath of a planet-ending explosion, Larry—once a man chasing the sky—comes down to a world reduced to silence, only to find the one person who might still be alive: his sister. With the sky still scarred and the earth broken, the two survivors face a future no one could have imagined.

Ron Martin is smitten with his new secretary, Ellen Corwin—until he learns she’s an android. When his friend Cal Tennis suggests creating an android duplicate of Ron so he can escape his marriage and be with Ellen, Ron jumps at the chance. But as the plan unfolds, the line between man and machine begins to blur in ways no one saw coming.

In "Chewed Out!", a well-meaning farmer's amateur radio call to the stars accidentally draws the attention of tiny alien visitors—tiny enough to be swallowed whole. When the military scrambles to secure the site of their anticipated arrival, they’re stunned to discover the extraterrestrials were never on Earth at all: they were already inside a jar of sauerkraut, and the whole invasion was just a hotdog bite away.

In "Saving for the Future," Dr. Brewster’s revolutionary serum 129-A offers the power to freeze time for any living being—perfect for a couple seeking to skip decades of heartache. When Lloyd and his lover use the serum to escape a failing marriage, they awaken five centuries later to a world transformed, only to find their long absence has set off a chain of unforeseen consequences.

In the year 2963, astronaut Jerome Kraft lands on a distant planet to study its life forms, carrying only four years’ worth of supplies. As he tends to a primitive society with his advanced knowledge, healing the sick and feeding the hungry, the people begin to see him as a divine savior—until the high priest declares his miracles heresy and demands he serve only the powerful. When Jerome refuses, he becomes a symbol of faith, his legacy enduring across millennia. Long after he’s gone, a new generation of explorers finds a thriving civilization, where a mysterious symbol—once a stretch rack—has become a sacred relic.

In "Say Your Prayers," two intelligent preying mantises arrive on Earth to study humanity, only to be terrified when they encounter a human bug collector’s display of pinned mantis specimens—mistaking the preserved insects for evidence of a planet ruled by giant predators. Their mission quickly turns to panic as they flee back to their homeworld, convinced Earth is a deadly threat.

In the quiet hum of a distant star system, Commander Morrison and his crew make first contact on the alien world of Gastropodia, where the people live in shell-like dwellings and move with a slow, deliberate grace. Drawn to the graceful Luwana, Morrison finds himself torn between duty and desire as he begins to understand the strange, shifting nature of the planet’s inhabitants—only to face a revelation that upends everything he thought he knew.

In "Inside Story!", a mysterious medical phenomenon baffles authorities: criminals die with no heart, lungs, or stomach, while terminally ill patients miraculously recover—only to learn their organs were replaced from elsewhere. When the enigmatic Smedley Throbbins reveals he entered the fourth dimension to perform these surgeries without a single incision, he vanishes into another realm, leaving behind a legacy of impossible healing and unanswerable questions.

In the year 2152, a group of aliens dissect a human mind, convinced they’ve uncovered Earth’s greatest threat—only to find it’s the ramblings of a delusional man who believes he’s Napoleon Bonaparte. Misreading his fantasies as a real military strategy, they plan an invasion based on 19th-century tactics, unaware they’re following the delusions of a mental patient. When Earth’s forces respond, the aliens are effortlessly defeated—proving that even the most advanced plans can crumble under the weight of mistaken assumptions.

In a remote lab, a nuclear leak sparks an unexpected evolution in the local rat population. As two scientists push the limits of their time machine, they witness a future where rats have risen to dominance—speaking English, wearing clothes, and ruling over a world where humans and cats no longer exist.