Fiction Books

I was a spy for the FBI—the Fantasy Bureau of Investigation! Learning of a monster meeting of science fiction "fen" in New York, I teleported myself 3,000 miles from the Pacificoast to check the facts on the monsters. And it was true—the 14th World SciFi Con was tremonstrous. In all seriousness, the Newyorcon was one of the greatest aggregations of s.f. enthusiasts I have ever seen. A far... more...

PREFACE This selection of "One hundred best books" is made after a different method and with a different purpose from the selections already in existence. Those apparently are designed to stuff the minds of young persons with an accumulation of "standard learning" calculated to alarm and discourage the boldest. The following list is frankly subjective in its choice; being indeed the... more...

OUT OF NO MAN'S LAND On the muddy verge of a shallow little pool the man lay prone and still, as still as those poor dead whose broken bodies rested all about him, where they had fallen, months or days, hours or weeks ago, in those grim contests which the quick were wont insensately to wage for a few charnel yards of that debatable ground. Alone of all that awful company this man lived and, though... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LONE CANOE A light canoe of bark, containing a single human figure, moved swiftly up one of the twin streams that form the Ohio. The water, clear and deep, coming through rocky soil, babbled gently at the edges, where it lapped the land, but in the center the full current flowed steadily and without noise. The thin shadows of early dusk were falling, casting a pallid tint over the world,... more...

PREFACE. There is but one consideration of much moment necessary to be premised respecting these legends and myths. It is this: they are versions of oral relations from the lips of the Indians, and are transcripts of the thought and invention of the aboriginal mind. As such, they furnish illustrations of Indian character and opinions on subjects which the ever-cautious and suspicious minds of this... more...

There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. Standing on a corner of the Avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-disdain. The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored... more...

PART ONE FOREWORD: In this strange story of another day, the author has "dipped into the future" and viewed with his mind's eye the ultimate effect of America's self-satisfied complacency, and her persistent refusal to heed the lessons of Oriental progress. I can safely promise the reader who takes up this unique recital of the twentieth century warfare, that his interest will be... more...

CHAPTER I Which is Not a Chapter at All It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten me out of a difficulty—or into one; I am far from certain which. Ordinarily—I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling romances, which is, or was, my trade—I swear I never have called it a... more...

"After us, the deluge!" said Louis XV of France. He died in 1774, and the remaining quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed social changes the most radical, the most widespread which had convulsed civilization since the fall of Rome. "As soon as our peasants seek education," said Catharine II of Russia to one of her ministers, "neither you nor I will retain our places."... more...

PART I RIGHT ROYAL An hour before the race they talked togetherA pair of lovers in the mild March weather,Charles Cothill and the golden lady, Em. Beautiful England's hands had fashioned them. He was from Sleins, that manor up the Lithe;Riding the Downs had made his body blithe;Stalwart he was, and springy, hardened, swift,Able for perfect speed with perfect thrift,Man to the core yet moving like... more...