Searching for more science fiction from 1951 I came across [Space on my Hands] by Frederic Brown. Instead of getting a second hand copy shipped from America I took the easier option of downloading on my kindle the Frederic Brown Megapack of 33 of his short stories, five of which were featured in Space On My Hands. Apparently Brown has attracted a cult following being as popular now as he was when he produced most of his short stories between 1939 and 1964. He wrote mostly science fiction and mystery stories, which found their way into the pulp magazines and later were collected in book form. This is from his wiki page:

According to his wife, Fredric Brown hated to write. So he did everything he could to avoid it. He'd play his flute, challenge a friend to a game of chess, or tease Ming Tah, his Siamese cat. If Brown had trouble working out a certain story, he would hop on a long bus trip and just sit and think and plot for days on end. When Brown finally returned home and sat himself in front of the typewriter, he produced work in a variety of genres: mystery, science fiction, short fantasy, black comedy–and sometimes, all of the above.

His stories typically have a twist at the end, It is all about the story: there is hardly time for character development and so his tales depend on originality, surprise, mystery and in some of the longer ones suspense. All of which Brown handles pretty well. If you were a reader of comic books and magazines in their heyday of the 1950's I think you would always be on the look out for a Frederic Brown story. This collection opens with Arena one of his best which has suspense and a well thought out story: two representatives of equally matched battleship armadas are randomly selected to fight in a hostile environment with an invisible force field between them. Letter to Phoenix is a story that demonstrates that mankind's basic insanity will ensure the survival of the species. There are stories highlighting problems of time travel, others feature mysterious artefacts. I would imagine that many aficionados of these types of stories would guess the twist at the end, but might not have done at the time they were written. I enjoyed most of them and Brown can make you laugh as well as providing food for thought. Little science in the science fiction, as the mood tends to be fantasy but with a dark edge.
Here is one of his very short stories The Sentry:

Sentry
by Fredric Brown
He was wet and muddy and hungry and cold and he was fifty thousand light-years from home.
A strange blue sun gave light, and gravity, twice what he was used to, made every movement difficult.
But in tens of thousands of years this part of war hadn’t changed. The flyboys were fine with their sleek spaceships and their fancy weapons. When the chips are down, though, it was still the foot soldier, the infantry, that had to take the ground and hold it, foot by bloody foot. Like this damned planet of a star he’s never heard of until they’d landed him there. And now it was sacred ground because the aliens were there too. The aliens, the only other intelligent race in the Galaxy...cruel, hideous and repulsive monsters.
Contact had been made with them near the centre of the Galaxy, after the slow, difficult colonization of a dozen thousand planets; and it had been war at sight; they’d shot without even trying to negotiate, or to make peace.
Now, planet by bitter planet, it was being fought out.
He was wet and muddy and hungry and cold, and the day was raw with a high wind that hurt his eyes. But the aliens were trying to infiltrate and every sentry postwas vital.
He stayed alert, gun ready. Fifty thousand light-years from home, fighting on a strange world and wondering if he’d ever live to see home again.
And then he saw one of them crawling toward him. He drew a bead and fired. The alien made that strange horrible sound they all make, then lay still.
He shuddered at the sound and sight of the alien lying there. One ought to be able to get used to them after a while, but he’d never been able to. Such repulsive creatures they were, with only two arms and two legs, ghastly white skins and no scales.

Come on then who guessed the ending? Good pulp stories from the 1950's and so 3.5 stars. ( )