Subject: Science Fiction | Page #4
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Postsingular Rudy Rucker
It all begins next year in California. A maladjusted computer industry billionaire and a somewhat crazy US President initiate a radical transformation of the world through sentient nanotechnology; sort of the equivalent of biological artificial intelligence. At first they succeed, but their plans are reversed by... read more »
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Prince of Peril Otis Adelbert Kline
Through the discoveries of the scientist, Dr. Morgan, a young Martian's astral body is projected into the body of one Harry Thorne on Earth, and from Earth to Venus, or Zarovia, where the man of Mars becomes Prince Zinlo of the mighty empire of Olba. Zinlo is instructed by Morgan's fellow-scientist Vorn Vangal in... read more »
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Pygmalion's Spectacles Stanley G. Weinbaum
Dan Burke steps out of a stuffy New York City party hoping to get some air and peace in Central Park, but instead he meets a gnomelike man who asks him, "But what is reality?". Sci-fi luminary Stanley G. Weinbaum first broke through with the hugely influential story A Martian Odyssey, one of the first to depict an... read more »
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Realware Rudy Rucker
It's 2054, and Phil Gottner doesn't know where his life is. His girlfriend is hooked on merge, a drug used in 'bacteria-style' sex. His father has just been swallowed by a hyperspatial anomaly that materialized from a piece of art designed to project images of four-dimensional objects into three-dimensional space... read more »
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Sabotage in Space Carey Rockwell
This, the seventh and final book in the Tom Corbett series is, like all these books, something special. It's another tale of the three young men who serve in the Solar Guard as Space Cadets. It starts with cadet Roger, urm, nicking a study spool for use in a competitive exam -- but that leads all of our cadets into... read more »
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Scratch Monkey Charles Stross
Oshi Adjani works for the Boss doing odd jobs, fomenting a revolution here, confronting a mass murderer there. Her field of operations is the Milky Way galaxy, and the Boss is a Superbright, one of the man-created super-intelligent artificial intelligences who regard this galaxy as their property. She has been... read more »
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Second Stage Lensmen E. E. "Doc" Smith
Kim Kinnison, Number One man of his time, had faced challenges before - but rarely one as daunting as this. To him fell the perilous task of infiltrating the inner circle of Boskone, stronghold of galactic civilization's most deadly foe. Kinnison had to become a local Boskonian in every gesture, deed - and thought... read more »
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Second Variety Philip K. Dick
An influential short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953. It is one of Dick's many stories in which nuclear war has rendered the Earth's surface to an uninhabitable, gray ash pile, and the only things remaining are killer robots. (source: Wikipedia) read more »
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Seeds of Life John Taine
This is the story of Neils Bork, an alcoholic and failure raised to supernal heights of scientific genius and altruism by a scientific accident. And it is the story of what became of his golden dream of free, limitless energy for all, and of the marriage he thought would be crowned with glorious offspring. This... read more »
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Sirius Olaf Stapledon
Sirius is Thomas Trelone's great experiment - a huge, handsome dog with the brain and intelligence of a human being. Raised and educated in Trelone's own family alongside Plaxy, his youngest daughter, Sirius is a truly remarkable and gifted creature. His relationship with the Trelones, particularly with Plaxy, is... read more »
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Skeleton Men of Jupiter Edgar Rice Burroughs
Skeleton Men of Jupiter is intended as the first in a series of novelettes to be later collected in book form, in the fashion of Llana of Gathol, it ends with the plot unresolved, and the intended sequels were never written. Several other writers have written pastiche endings for the story. This story is the second... read more »
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Skylark DuQuesne E. E. "Doc" Smith
Scientists Dick Seaton and Marc DuQuesne were the deadliest enemies in the galaxy and their feud had blazed among the stars and challenged the history of a thousand planets. But now a threat from outside the galaxy drove them into a desperate alliance as hordes of strange aliens stormed through space on a collision... read more »
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Skylark Of Valeron E. E. "Doc" Smith
Our hero's family are in deep space when they are attacked by the intellectuals. In order to survive the attack they rotate into the 4th dimension and are captured. They must make it back to 3space and find their way home. Unfortunately they find themselves hopelessly lost but are able to save another race and make... read more »
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Skylark Three E. E. "Doc" Smith
In this exhilarating sequel to The Skylark of Space, momentous danger again stalks genius inventor and interplanetary adventurer Dr. Richard Seaton. Seaton’s allies on the planet Kondal are suffering devastating attacks by the forces of the Third Planet. Even worse, the menacing and contemptuous Fenachrones are... read more »
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Snake Eyes Tom Maddox
This story was originally published in Omni Magazine, April, 1986; and in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology,1986. Dark meat in the can--brown, oily, and flecked with mucus--gave off a repellent, fishy smell, and the taste of it rose in his throat, putrid and bitter, like something from a dead man’s stomach. ... read more »
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Software Rudy Rucker
Cobb Anderson created the 'boppers,' sentient robots that overthrew their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little boppers--and eventually every human--into a giant, melded consciousness. Some of the little boppers aren't... read more »
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Spacehounds of IPC E. E. "Doc" Smith
When the Inter-Planetary Corporation’s crack liner Arcturus took off on a routine flight to Mars, it turned out to be the beginning of a most unexpected and long voyage. Attacked by a mysterious spaceship, the liner crash-landed on Ganymede. The survivors first had to master that world’s primeval terrors, then... read more »
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Space Platform Murray Leinster
Space Platform tells of man's first step into outer space ... of the difficulties and dangers of reaching for the stars. It is also an exciting adventure. When young Joe Kenmore came to Bootstrap to install pilot gyros in the Platform he hadn't bargained for sabotage or murder or love. But Joe learned that ruthless... read more »
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Space Viking H. Beam Piper
Get set for rip-roaring adventure in this tale from the imagination of science fiction luminary H. Beam Piper. In the aftermath of a massive war, many once-developed planets have been reduced to rubble, and the few survivors have lost all vestiges of civilization. A group of so-called 'Space Vikings' have begun to... read more »
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Stand by for Mars! Carey Rockwell
When we hear a work has been written by person or persons unknown under a house pseudonym, was part of a series that ran simultaneously in the newspaper comics, on TV, on radio, and in cheesy-looking off-size paperback books, we feel safe we can assume that the content will be not just forgettable, but something... read more »
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Star Begotten H. G. Wells
In The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells imagined aliens from Mars descending to Earth with violent intentions. In Star Begotten, the suspicion arises that the Martians may have returned - this time using cosmic rays to alter human chromosomes. The protagonist Joseph Davis, an author of popular histories, grows... read more »
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Star Born Andre Norton
When Raf Kurbi's Terran spaceship burst into unexplored skies of the far planet Astra and was immediately made welcome by the natives of a once-mighty metropolis, Kurbi was unaware of three vital things: One was that Astra already harboured an Earth colony--descended from refugees from the world of the previous... read more »
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Starfish Peter Watts
A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew--people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater--down to live and work in this weird, fertile... read more »
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Star Hunter Andre Norton
Vye Lansor, an orphan down on his luck until Ras Hume arrives, bringing danger and adventure with him. Vye quickly finds himself cast as the pawn in a complex plot to defraud an inter-galactic trading combine by reprogramming him to believe he is the long-lost heir of the company’s fortunes, the sole survivor of a... read more »
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Storm Over Warlock Andre Norton
Normally, Shann Lantee, most menial of the Terrans attached to the survey camp on the planet Warlock, and Ragnar Thorvald, an officer in the elite First-In Scouts, would never had been friends, or even speaking acquaintances. Now, as sole survivors of the invasion of the planet by bettlelike Throgs, their only hope... read more »
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Subspace Explorers E. E. "Doc" Smith
Bursting right through the four-dimensional travel zone of subspace, Tellurian psiontists make an amazing discovery on the other side. Beyond the bounds of subspace, a parallel universe is cruelly ruled by a violent, murderous empire, the Justiciate, where psiontists are ruthlessly hunted down and fed to giant... read more »
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Subspace Survivors E. E. "Doc" Smith
NOTE: this is the original short story. For the full length novel, see the link below. There has always been, and will always be, the problem of surviving the experience that any trained expert can handle...when there hasn't been any first survivor to be an expert! When no one has ever gotten back to explain what... read more »
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Swords of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs
John Carter reprises his role of hero as he vows to bring an end to the Assassins Guild. He ventures in disguise to the city of Zodanga in a fierce attempt to overthrow Ur Jan, the leader of the Assassins. His adventures embroil him in the rivalry of two competing scientist-inventors, and eventually leads him to the... read more »
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Synthetic Men of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs
John Carter, mighty Warlord of Mars, rides to new and terrifying adventures. Captured by deadly warriors mounted on huge birds he is taken to the ill-omened city of Morbus. There he meets Ras Thavas, evil genius and master surgeon. A man who has succeeded in his nightmare wish of creating life in his own beings... read more »
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Tama of the Light Country Ray Cummings
Are all the artificial satellites circling the earth ours? How can we be sure that these little metal globes, these observational devices with their top-secret interiors, were all made on earth? Perhaps there is one up there that was not? When such a space satellite was located, it caused a furore. But that was... read more »