A collection of short stories of travel, this is a great read for anyone and considered a classic by some; it captures the magic of the open road. 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 »
Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee is a professor of political economy at Miskatonic University. Following a fainting spell in 1908 he returns to his senses in 1913 with no recollection of the last five years of his life. As he endeavors to discover the truth about his lost years, he becomes increasingly tormented by vivid... read more »
In this thoroughly entertaining story collection, the renowned Dr. Percy travels the world searching for unique animal specimens -- and keeps an eye on attractive examples of the fairer sex, as well. Will his dedication to these dual quests ever pay the dividends he's looking for? Equal parts romantic farce and... read more »
The Army had a new theme song: 'Anything you can do, we can do better!' And they meant anything, including up-to-date hornpipes! read more »
The Prussian Officer tells the narrative of a captain and his orderly. Having wasted his youth with gambling, the captain has been left with only his military career, and though he has taken on mistresses throughout his life, he remains single. His young orderly is involved in a relationship with a young woman, and... read more »
Far in the future, Earth's empire has grown to include dozens of different civilizations, many of which have been subjugated to serve humanity's growing need for cheap labor. In the short story Tony and the Beetles, a young boy hatches an unlikely friendship with some of the insect-like creatures that are treated as... read more »
This classic short story from sci-fi luminary Harry Harrison offers a sympathetic glimpse into the inner lives of robots. In the future, society has grown ever more dependent on these super-intelligent machines, but despite their increasing autonomy, robots are still looked down on as second-class citizens. The... 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 »
A collection of short stories by Robert W. Chambers, author of The King in Yellow. A collection of light romantic tales in which Chambers' love of fishing and hunting and natural scenery prevails. The stories are all set in America. A Young Man in a Hurry brings together some of Chambers' most engrossing shorter... read more »
James's subtle mastery of the art of fiction is nowhere more evident than in The Beast in the Jungle, regarded by many as his greatest achievement in short fiction, a gripping portrait of a man alienated from life and love. The author's uncanny ability to communicate the inner lives of his characters is also richly... read more »
Take an intergalactic trip with renowned science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. In The Gun, the crew of a spaceship are sent out to recover a remarkable weapon that seems to be capable of causing nearly inconceivable levels of damage. How will they protect humanity from the deadly device? read more »
Shadows in the Moonlight is full of barbarian craftiness, magic, fierce fighting, and Conan's incredible strength. The story begins with Conan and his companions trapped and slaughtered by the merciless Shah Amurath, the great Lord of Akif. Conan is one of the very few who escapes. A lucky break allows him the... read more »
With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of a monstrous and suppressed book which brings fright, madness and spectral... read more »
The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. In the involuntary confinement of her bedroom, the... read more »
The Call of Cthulu, the tale of a horrifying underwater monster coming to life and threatening mankind, is H.P. Lovecraft's most famous and most widely popular tale, spawning an entire mythology, with the power to strike terror into the hearts of even the Great Old Ones. Between these pages you will find things... read more »
Queen of the Black Coast is one of the original short stories about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan becoming a notorious pirate and plundering the coastal villages of Kush... read more »
In the mood for a thought-provoking read from the golden age of science fiction? Dip into Arm of the Law from mid-century SF virtuoso Harry Harrison. In this tale, Harrison recounts an experiment in robotic law enforcement that goes awry -- with an array of horrifying unforeseen consequences. read more »
Quartermain (the main character from the many adventures found in the Alan Quartermain series) was a progressive Victorian big game hunter in Africa who championed the cause of the natives. Although Haggard often portrays Quatermain as being racist (at least in the light of our modern thinking), this short story... read more »
In the stories in this volume Dostoevsky explores both the figure of the dreamer divorced from reality and also his own ambiguous attitude to utopianism, themes central to many of his great novels. In White Nights the apparent idyll of the dreamer's romantic fantasies disguises profound loneliness and estrangement... read more »
When noted English writer William Somerset Maugham set off for the South Seas to regain his health, he gathered the materials and wrote the stories represented here. These are among Maugham's best, and the best stories ever written about the exotic South Seas. read more »
TV repairman Ed Loyce sets out for what he thinks will be a typical day at work -- and finds himself in a world in which everything has been turned topsy-turvy. The first indication that things are amiss occurs when Loyce spies a stomach-turning abomination in the town park -- and none of his fellow citizens seem to... read more »
The story is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan leading the demoralized army of Khoraja against an evil sorcerer named Natokk, the Veiled One. read more »
Dostoyevsky's short stories show him to be equally adept at the short story as with the novel. Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from... read more »
When Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot's first novel, was published anonymously in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1857, it was immediately recognized, in the words of Saturday Review, as `the production of a peculiar and remarkable writer'. The first readers, including Dickens and Thackeray, were struck by... read more »
Spaceman Peterson buys a "wub" from a local before his departure from Mars and takes it back aboard the ship on which he is a crew member. But the captain Franco cites his concerns about the extra weight of having this huge pig-like creature on-board, although he really seems more interested in how it might taste... read more »
Ostensibly a tale of sexual androgyny, the power of love, and its bitter aftermath, this volume is in fact a study of the force of art on society and the deadly immortality of beauty. The nameless narrator attends a ball held by a wealthy Parisian family whose fortune comes from a work of art, and there meets an... 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 »
This early work on The night born is a fascinating novel of the period and still an interesting read today. Classic Jack London short stories, including The Night-Born - By Jack London - Classic Jack London. Short Stories including: The Night-Born - The Madness of John Harned - When the World was Young - The Benefit... read more »
Under extreme duress, the human mind can come up with an array of impossibly complex coping mechanisms. Is that what's behind the strange epidemic that army physician Henry Harris has noticed overtaking soldiers who have returned from the distant celestial body known as Asteroid Y-3? Harris makes a trip to the... read more »