https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-second-if-reader-ed-frederik-pohl/

An anthology of ten stories from the sf magazine Worlds of If, all published between 1963 and 1967, all by white men (though two at least were British). Several of these were familiar to me from their appearances in other collections, mostly chosen by their authors; the one exception, published only here and in its original magazine appearance, is a spooky-little-girl story, “Toys for Debbie”, by Dave Kyle, who is better remembered for his activities in fandom but published three authorised Lensman novels in the 1980s, ten short stories between 1941 and 1994, and contributed art including the cover of the first edition of Asimov’s Foundation. Most of these are effective enough, but there are noticeably few women (Brian Aldiss scores here, with his tough warrior girl in “In the Arena”).

My copy, the 1951 Sphere edition, has no table of contents or index, and clearly the publishers struggled to squish the material into 256 pages. ( )

Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers, and J. G. Ballard with Time Tombs; those days were just fun. ( )