Speed never hurt anybody--it's the sudden stop at the end. It's not how much change that signals danger, but how fast it's changing... 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 »
"Old Rambling House" is a short story by science fiction author Frank Herbert which first appeared in Galaxy magazine in 1958 and later in Herbert's 1985 short story collection The Worlds of Frank Herbert. It is notable for its atmosphere and the dystopian multiverse in which no hope of freedom is left, which is... read more »
Conger is given a chance to be released from prison on the condition that he completes one job—he must travel back in time and kill a man who, if allowed to live, will later change the world. read more »
This is a wonderful story about 'Slippery' Jim DiGriz, later to be known as The Stainless Steel Rat. We first see DiGriz and his two companions in this book when he beats a Casino Planet to win money so they can purchase weaponry to defend themselves against their home planet, the planet Pyrrus. This story is a... read more »
"Missing Link" is vintage Frank Herbert. It tells the story of Lewis Orne, junior I-A field man, on the planet Gienah III. He is there to investigate a missing ship, and the natives are nothing but trouble... Originally published in "Astounding Science Fiction" under the editorship of John W. Campbell, Jr. here is a... read more »
Imagine an advanced spacecraft powered by the human brain. That's the remarkable technology at the heart of this fascinating short story by science fiction mastermind Philip K. Dick. A professor nearing the end of his natural lifespan donates his brain to the cutting-edge research effort -- but will he ultimately... read more »
Garin Featherstone, a wartime pilot now searching for a job. He is hired as a pilot on an Antarctic expedition to investigate an anomaly near the South Pole. When the three planes of the expedition reach the area, Garin's mind is possessed by a strange power, which guides his airplane deep within a crater. There he... read more »
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 »
A flying plane dropped out of the night. It seemed a spectral ship. Silently and quickly it landed behind Sanoma Tora and Sil Vagis. Warriors sprang from its low cabin. Sanoma Tora was seized roughly from behind. With the sudden mysterious disappearance of Sanoma Tora, one of the richest heiresses of Mars, begins... read more »
Former Earthman Ulysses Paxton served Barsoom's greatest scientist, until his master's ghoulish trade in living bodies drove him to rebellion. Then, to save the body of the woman he loved, he had to attack mighty Phundahl, and its evil, beautiful ruler. read more »
One man against the basic energy of the universe, unleashed in ravening fury that was Storm Cloud. Unique was the only way to describe him, yet alone in his single-handed battle. The appalling destructiveness of a loose atomic vortex could be cancelled out only by destroying the vortex itself. While not even the... read more »
The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free... read more »
In Anthem, Rand examines a frightening future in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. Equality 7-2521 lives in the dark ages of the future where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, and all traces of individualism have been wiped out. Despite such a... read more »
The sequel to Plague Ship, Voodoo Planet features Dane Thorson, a young man fortunate enough to land a job on the Free Trader ship, the "Solar Queen." Plying their trade among the stars, Free Traders visit planets--known and unknown--in search of profit. Captain Gaelic and the ship's medic, Tau, are invited to... read more »
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 »
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 »
Jason is kidnapped by a self-righteous enemy out to bring him to justice for his various crimes. He forces a crash-landing on a planet where the human population has regressed. The technology is extremely primitive and knowledge is split up among many small clans, each one jealously monopolizing what it knows. Jason... read more »
Brion Brandd is the superhuman champion of the Twenties, a competition of 20 tasks, both physical and cerebral. He also works for the Cultural Relationships Foundation, a private body which exists to 'promote peace and ensure the sovereign welfare of independent planets. His task in this story is two avert war... read more »
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 »
Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe, aided by a Polynesian girl and her team of telepathic dolphins, probe the mystery of the sea-planet men have named Hawaika. Its cities and civilizations have vanished, but our agents are snatched back through a Time Gate and marooned in the midst of the struggle for power... read more »
Deathworld centres on Jason dinAlt, a professional gambler who uses his somewhat erratic psionic abilities to tip the odds in his favour. He is challenged by a man named Kerk Pyrrus (who turns out to be the ambassador from the planet Pyrrus) to turn a large amount of money into an immense sum by gambling at a... read more »
Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate. Steena is a computer programmer who spends her life in the background, a woman in plain gray clothing who speaks little but her knowledge of odd bits of... 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 »
Readers will remember Cargo-master-apprentice Dane Thornson and his ill-fated ship, the Solar Queen, with its motley crew, from Sargasso of Space. Now the Solar Queen is on the look out for new business, and buys the right to trade on Sargol, a planet rich in exotic gems and valuable oils, inhabited by a sly feline... 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 »
It's hard to ferret out a gang of fanatics; it would, obviously, be even harder to spot a genetic line of dedicated men. But the problem Orne had was one step tougher than that! Field Agent Lewis Orne must contend with genetic manipulation and dig deep into a complex political situation to untangle deep embedded... read more »
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 »
2BR02B is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in the pulp digest magazine Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1962. The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B" and refers to the telephone number one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination. The... read more »
A Princess of Mars is the first of eleven thrilling novels that comprise Edgar Rice Burroughs' most exciting saga, known as The Martian Series. It's the beginning of an incredible odyssey in which John Carter, a gentleman from Virginia and a Civil War veteran, unexpectedly finds himself on to the red planet, scene... read more »