Although best known for his novels, it was in his early short fiction that H. G. Wells first explored the relationship between the fantastical and everyday. Here horror meets humor, man-eating squids invade the sleepy Devon coast, and strange kinks and portals in space and time lead to other worlds-a marvelous... read more »
Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these introductions are inevitably both mono-tonous and unavailing. A sense of literary honesty compels the Editor to keep repeating that he is the Editor, and not the author of the Fairy Tales, just as a distinguished man of science is only the Editor, not the... 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 »
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who ages in reverse: He is born a feeble 70-year-old and becomes younger as the years progress. This faithful graphic-novel adaptation chronicles Benjamin Button's many adventures: He falls in love with a woman who ages... read more »
This engrossing tale presents as its central theme the ultimately unknowable -- and untameable -- essence of nature and the natural world. Told from several different perspectives, the story focuses on a freak fatal accident that is written off as a wild animal attack. But does that description get at the truth of... read more »
The Darling is a short story by Russian author Anton Chekhov, first published in 1899 in London, it follows the life of a woman who is referred to as darling. Olenka Plemyannikova, the daughter of a retired collegiate assessor, falls in love with the theater owner, Kukin. Olenka’s father dies and she marries... read more »
The Day's Work I by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of short stories featuring mostly non-humans as main characters of each story. It contains some of Kipling's best and worst writings. However, the failures are set among some of his best, including The Bridge Builders and The Brushwood Boy, making this collection... 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 »
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 »
An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events. Edmond Hamilton. For most people, this name conjures visions of two-fisted space opera -- pure pulp science fiction. And Hamilton -- known as the author of the Captain Future series -- was indeed one of the foremost writers of pulp... read more »
The story follows Walter Gilman, who takes a room in the Witch House, an accursed house in Akham, Lovecraft's fictional New England town. The house once harbored Keziah Mason, an witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692. Gilman discovers that over the centuries most of its occupants have died... read more »
Six selections from the famed Russian showcase his natural aptitude for detail, dialogue, humor, and compassion. Includes The Darling, a poignant piece supporting the claim that life has no meaning without love; as well as The Kiss, Anna on the Neck, The Man in a Case, The Malefactor, and the title story. Chekhov's... read more »
In the degenerate, unpopular backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy’s arrival simply precedes that of a true horror — One of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night... 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 »
The eight strokes of the clock is a collection of stories of Maurice Leblanc featuring the adventures of Arsene Lupin, all of which have a common thread. To distract and seduce a young woman, Hortense Daniel, Arsene Lupin, with the identity of Prince Serge Renin, will focus on solving eight puzzles. Working with... 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 »
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar tells the tale of a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death to see if he can communicate with him after he is dead. While a tale of suspense and horror, it was also, at the time of its publication, a bit of a hoax since it was published... read more »
Follow the macabre events that sweep the narrator into the haunted world of Roderick Usher--a morbid recluse and slave to fear--whose descent into madness inevitably brings the great House of Usher to its most sinister fate. read more »
The Frost-Giant's Daughter is one of the original short stories about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard, but not published in his lifetime. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and details Conan pursuing a spectral nymph across the frozen snows of Nordheim. Rejected as a... 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 »
Hanaud at his best he sets out to solve one of the cleverest cases in his typical diligent fashion. A mystery drawing heavily on Mason’s knowledge of and affection for cats, the feline protagonist was in fact based on one of Mason's actual pets. read more »
Believing William Legrand to have gone insane following an insect bite, his friend initially decries his quest for gold as the ramblings of a madman. Yet when Legrand's conviction fails to waiver, they set off on a bizarre journey, accompanied by Jupiter, Legrand's loyal and equally sceptical servant. What follows... read more »
This anthology contains the strangest nautical tales. These are not your typical ghost stories; rather, they walk the line between science, the supernatural, and the bizarre. These stories have everything from invisible sea monsters to rabies-infected crews turning the ship into a blood bath, odd twins, and... read more »
These tales are derived from many countries; Lithuania, various parts of Africa, Germany, France, Greece, and other regions of the world. They have been translated and adapted by Mrs. Dent, Mrs. Lang, Miss Eleanor Sellar, Miss Blackley, and Miss Hang. ‘The Three Sons of Hali' is from the last century ‘Cabinet... 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 »
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 »
This beautiful and remarkable little wonder of a book includes "The Happy Prince," "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Selfish Giant," "The Devoted Friend," and "The Remarkable Rocket." Wilde is a man remembered for plays like "The Importance of Being Ernest," works like De Profundis and the scandal that attended... read more »
Lytton has presented a wicked and malicious persona that fulfills all demonic characteristics. This It is a fantastic epic romance is referred to as a ghost story as it is written in gothic style. The mysterious, exciting actions and shadowy atmosphere successfully ensnare reader's attention. read more »
Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his... read more »