Subject: Classic Science Fiction
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne
A mission to rid the seas of a monstrous creature becomes a terrifying nightmare when Professor Arronax, Conseil and Ned Land are thrown overboard. The huge marine animal which has haunted the water is no living beast, but a spectacular man-made vessel, and the three men find themselves the helpless prisoners of Cap…Read More »
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A Journey to the Centre of the Earth Jules Verne
As irascible scholar Professor Lidenbrock pores over a rare Icelandic tome, he discovers a scrap of parchment with cryptic writing tucked away between the ancient pages. And when his nephew, Axel, finally breaks the writing’s secret code, he learns of a hidden underground passageway that may lead deep into the centr…Read More »
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All Around the Moon Jules Verne
Both From the Earth to the Moon and All Around the Moon ('Round the Moon) are available together, in a fully illustrated edition, here.
_NOTE: this Edward Roth translation has been vilified by Verne scholars for the large amo…Read More »
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A Modern Utopia H. G. Wells
Wells' uncanny ability to highlight the problems which are now most acute and supply tentative solutions that allow a maximum of individual freedom merits serious consideration. A Modern Utopia is one of the first important blueprints for the modern welfare state and an early major statement of Wells' idea of the Wo…Read More »
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Eureka Edgar Allan Poe
In this remarkable work, master story-teller Edgar Allan Poe builds on known scientific truths to propound a universe governed by the immutable laws of attraction and repulsion, i.e., expansion and a return to unity. The irascible, vindictive God of the Old Testament and the Deists' Master Clockmaker are routed by P…Read More »
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Flatland Edwin A. Abbott
How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful "romance of many dimensions" explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing the gospel of the third…Read More »
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From the Earth to the Moon and 'Round the Moon Jules Verne
This is the legendary novel of technological speculation and social satire that launched an entire genre of adventure fiction: Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and 'Round the Moon is the first story of space exploration and remains a beloved work of daring exploits-and surprisingly accurate scientific conjectu…Read More »
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In the Days of the Comet H. G. Wells
A provocative novel by H.G. Wells. In the midst of a world war, the tail of a comet brushes the atmosphere of earth, causing everyone to lose consciousness for a few hours. When the world awakens, everyone has an expanded understanding of the meaning of things. The war is quickly ended; a new utopia is created; even…Read More »
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Micromegas Voltaire
Micromegas is an inhabitant of the star Sirius, 120,000 feet tall and accompanied by a dwarf from Saturn who is 6000 feet tall. During a grand tour of the universe they visit Earth in 1737 and, using makeshift microscopes, they detect a boating party of tiny human philosophers.
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News from Nowhere William Morris
One of the most literary and readable of utopian novels, News from Nowhere chronicles the impressions of a nineteenth-century visitor to the twenty-second century, who finds England transformed into a socialist paradise. Morris’ idyllic society echoes themes from the writings of Ruskin and Marx but forms a distinc…Read More »
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Off on a Comet Jules Verne
One of Jules Verne's strangest and most controversial novels, Off on a Comet tells the story of a small band of people on a tiny world torn from earth by a grazing comet and their struggles to survive in the wilderness of interplanetary space. A strange mixture of dream-like fantasy and hard science.
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Robur the Conqueror Jules Verne
At the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, a mob of zealous balloon enthusiasts plans to conquer the sky in a state-of-the-art dirigible. When a stranger, the mysterious Robur, declares that the future belongs not to balloons but to heavier-than-air flying machines, the Institute scornfully dismisses the idea. But Rob…Read More »
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Tales of Space and Time H. G. Wells
Tales of Space and Time is a fantasy and science fiction collection of three short stories and two novellas written by H. G. Wells between 1897 and 1898. It was first published by Doubleday & McClure Co. in 1899.
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The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth H. G. Wells
Two scientists devise a compound that produces enormous plants, animals — and humans! The chilling results are disastrous. First published in 1904, this gripping, newly relevant tale of science fiction combines fast-paced entertainment with social commentary as it considers the ethics involved in genetic engineering.
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The Invisible Man H. G. Wells
Spine-tingling and entertaining, The Invisible Man is a science fiction classic–and a penetrating, unflinching look into the heart of human nature. To its author, H. G. Wells, the novel was as compelling as "a good gripping dream." But to generations of readers, the terrible and evil experiment of the demented scien…Read More »
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The Island of Dr. Moreau H. G. Wells
A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before–it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travel…Read More »
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The Last Man Mary Shelley
A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romantici…Read More »
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The Master of the World Jules Verne
It was seen first in North Carolina, or something was, smoking up from a mountain crater. With blinding speed, it roared past cars on a Pennsylvania road. It skimmed the Atlantic, then - the flick of its captain's will - dove beneath the waves…
It was the Terror - ship, sub, plane, and land vehicle in one, and …Read More »
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The Moon Voyage Jules Verne
This [1877 Ward Lock] edition includes both From the Earth to the Moon and 'Round the Moon, combined into one volume and without illustrations. A fully illustrated edition can be found here.
The Moon-Voyage is an amazing work o…Read More »
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The Mysterious Island Jules Verne
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne’s masterpiece. Here is the enthralling tale of five men and a dog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island …Read More »
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The Sleeper Awakes H. G. Wells
A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance he is horrified to disco…Read More »
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The Stolen Bacillus H. G. Wells
The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents is a collection of fifteen fantasy and science fiction short stories written by the English author H. G. Wells between 1893 and 1895. It was first published by Methuen & Co. in 1895 and was Wells's first book of short stories. All of the stories had first been published in …Read More »
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The War in the Air H. G. Wells
This thrilling tale is H. G. Wells at his modernist, visionary best. In 1907, a naive Londoner named Bert Smallways finds himself an unwitting passenger on a fleet of German airships heading over the Atlantic to attack New York. What unfolds in characteristically Wellsian fashion is a clash of early flying machines …Read More »
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The World Set Free H. G. Wells
This chilling, futuristic novel, written in 1913, was incredibly prophetic on a major scale. Wells was a genius and visionary, as demonstrated by many of his other works, but this book is clearly one of his best. He predicts nuclear warfare years before research began and describes the chain reactions involved and t…Read More »
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Vril: The Power of the Coming Race Edward Bulwer-Lytton
From Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth to Rudy Rucker's The Hollow Earth, subterranean worlds have been a source of both fascination and fear for the literary imagination, and The Coming Race is no exception. An evolutionary fantasy first published in 1871, the story draws upon ideas of Darwinis…Read More »
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When the Sleeper Wakes H. G. Wells
The Sleeper is just an ordinary man, no one special, just someone going about his everyday business. Until one day he awakes, and finds that the world around him has changed. No longer a nobody, he has been catapulted into the unenviable position of a pawn in a dangerous conspiracy where the stakes are high and the …Read More »