In a tale of the year 2430 A.D. -- a time somewhat farther beyond our present-day era than we are beyond Columbus' discovery of America. My desire has been to create for you the impression that you have suddenly been plunged forward into that time -- to give you the feeling Columbus might have had could he have read... read more »
Miracles to order was a fine way for the paratimers to get mining concessions--but Nature can sometimes pull counter-miracles. And so can men, for that matter... read more »
What will happen when we first encounter sentient beings from outer space? In this action-packed account of first contact between the human denizens of Earth and an alien species, Murray Leinster details the tense early interactions between clashing spaceships. Is long-term coexistence possible? Read The Aliens to... read more »
A classic novel of time travel into the future. Mankind is extinct and two other intelligent races fight for control of Earth. In this far-future Earth where mankind is extinct, new intelligent species have thrived. George encounters the Amphibians, the troglodytic Dwellers Underground, and the giant Dwellers, who... read more »
Vonnegut's short work, "The Big Trip Up Yonder," is a genre science fiction tale originally published in the magazine "Galaxy Science Fiction" in 1959 -- "If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it ... it is much too good for anyone else!" An insight into one family's struggle in their overcrowded... read more »
Civilization had died screaming in a blaze of nuclear and biological warfare. Gradually, during the Dark Centuries that followed, secrets were re-discovered, and new knowledge gained. Finally, the key to immortality is found, and the preternaturally beautiful Margaret Smith becomes Margot of Urbs and, with her... read more »
A freak storm on Mars throws Tara, Princess of Helium and beautiful daughter of John Carter, wildly off course after she embarks on an imprudent flight. Gahan, Jed of Gathol, her new admirer, takes off in pursuit and they soon find themselves in a land of bodies without heads and heads without bodies. In Chessmen of... read more »
Set in the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, an unnamed narrator investigates a local area known as the 'blasted hearth.' After failing to extract any information from the Arkham locals, the narrator encounters an old man, Ammi Pierce, who relates the story of a farmer who once lived there. The hearth, he... read more »
During the System States' War, Poictesme was the general HQ and supply depot for the final thrust at the enemy. When the war ended, the buildings, the munitions, the freeze-dried food supplies, were all abandoned without a thought. Now the colony world is a poverty-stricken agricultural society with only two... read more »
Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet. Only one super-intelligence is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond infinity--to the formless, deathless creature out to... read more »
Stark terror ruled the Inner-Flight ship on that last Mars-Terra run. For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. In the distant future, when Earth and Mars are on the verge of war, the last Earthmen departing the red planet are held up by Martian soldiers searching... read more »
After a devastating war between the United States and the Soviet Union mankind has taken refuge beneath Earth’s surface. But the war continues above ground, with robots called “leadys” fighting on our behalf, or so the humans think. The Defenders was later expanded into a full-length novel entitled The... read more »
Travis Fox, once the unwilling captive of the runaway spaceship Galactic Derelict, has volunteered - eagerly this time - for the mission to colonize Topaz. But when he and his fellow Apaches find themselves reverting to the ways their ancient warrior-race, just as the expedition from Russia has been transformed into... read more »
The Disintegration Machine is a short story written about Professor Challenger by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Professor Challenger is arguing with people who are persistently calling him on the telephone when his young friend Malone, a reporter for the Gazette, enters and requests Challenger accompany him to inspect the... read more »
The Door in the Wall, considered by both readers and critics, to be Wells's finest tale, examines an issue to which Wells returned repeatedly in his writing: the contrast between aesthetics and science and the difficulty of choosing between them. This collection also includes The Star, A Dream of Armageddon, The... read more »
Part of this prolific author's popular Terra-Human Future History series, this tale takes place just prior to the devastating world war that occurs in 1973, wiping out much of humanity and leading to the ascendance of a new world order. The story focuses on a protagonist who is plagued by brief glimpses of the... read more »
Celebrated playwright Nicholas Martin didn’t read the small print in his Hollywood options contract. Now he’s facing five years of servitude to a conceited director named Raoul St. Cyr, who’s taken a thoughtful play about Portuguese fishermen and added dancing mermaids. When it seems the plot has changed to... read more »
When a girl who said she had been kidnapped from the year 1777 appeared in modern New York, she was either deluded or the victim of an incredible time-spanning plot. And when it turned out the strange man with a mechanical servant who had kidnapped her had been seen in other centuries, it became clear that a... read more »
Nobody blends satire and science fiction like renowned luminary of the genre Philip K. Dick. This short but utterly memorable tale tells the story of a man who is utterly convinced that the world is being overrun by aliens. Is he correct, or wildly off-base? read more »
She spoke in a tongue dead a thousand years, and she had no memory for the man she faced. Yet he had held her tightly but a few short years before, had sworn eternal vengeance—when she died in his arms from an assassin's wounds. read more »
While searching for lost Inca treasure in South America, American mining engineer, Nicholas Graydon encounters Suarra, handmaiden to the Snake Mother of Yu-Atlanchi. She leads Graydon to an abyss where Nimir, the Lord of Evil is imprisoned in a face of gold. While Graydon's companions are transformed by the face... read more »
Settle in for a rollicking science-fiction adventure from golden-era star Murray Leinster. In The Fifth-Dimension Tube, a prominent scientist and his beloved daughter have become stranded in another dimension. In order to survive, they must cast their lot with rogue mathematician Tommy Reeves. To succeed in this... read more »
The invasion began innocently enough when the meteor crashed to earth. Then a glow began to emanate from the meteor and everything that entered the light was destroyed. The fate of the Earth is now in the hands of Bob Trevor, a newspaperman, Professor Newland, and others. Would the Earth be saved from the invaders... read more »
When penniless businessman Mr. Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr. Cavor, an absentminded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford that the invention makes possible... read more »
The Flames was Stapledon's last major work of fiction before he died. After having narrowed his scope from the huge cosmic histories of Last and First Men (history of humanity) and Star Maker (history of the universe, Dante-esque cameo by God at the end) to the earthbound Odd John (super-man) and Sirius (super-dog)... read more »
Beneath dense gray clouds through which no sun shone lay a forgotten planet. It was a nightmare world of grotesque and terrifying animal-plant life. Gigantic beetles, spiders, bugs and ants filled the putrid, musty earth-ready to kill and devour anything in sight. There were men amidst this horror-men who cringed... read more »
They were four of the greatest minds in the Universe: Two men and two women, all Psionic Primes, lost in an experimental spaceship billions of parsecs from home. And as they mentally charted the cosmos to find their way back to Earth, their own loves and hates were as startling as the worlds they encountered. read more »
Varta, the last priestess of Asti, lives alone with Lur, a telepath of the lizardfolk, in Asti's isolated mountain retreat. Decadent Memphir has long since drifted away from the austere paths of Asti, and now the barbarians of Klem are sacking the city, and the smoke of its burning drifts up to the temple. read more »
The tale of a scientist who sees a beautiful woman in the atoms of his mother's wedding ring (and his adventures when he shrinks himself down to join her microscopic world), The Girl in the Golden Atom is a classic of science fiction. read more »
At the end of A PRINCESS OF MARS, the first volume in Burroughs's Mars series, John Carter managed to get the factory that produces oxygen for Barsoom working again -- and collapsed. When he came to, he found himself back on earth, and separated from his beloved Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium. It's a decade... read more »