Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. MY YOUTHFUL CREED. I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not until I was fourteen that I gained any definite idea of a "scheme of doctrine," or could have been called a "converted person" by one of the Evangelical School. My religion then... more...

LOVE OF LIFE “This out of all will remain—   They have lived and have tossed:So much of the game will be gain,   Though the gold of the dice has been lost.” They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks.  They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. ... more...

He had quite a rum-blossom on him for a kid, I thought at first. But when he moved closer to the light by the cash register to ask the bartender for a match or something, I saw it wasn't that. Not just the nose. Broken veins on his cheeks, too, and the funny eyes. He must have seen me look, because he slid back away from the light. The bartender shook my bottle of ale in front of me like a Swiss... more...

It was not very large, as asteroids go, but about it clung a silvery mist of atmosphere. Deeper flashes through the mist betokened water, and green patches hinted of rich vegetation. The space-patroller circled the little world knowledgeably, like a wasp buzzing around an apple. In the control room, by the forward ports, the Martian skipper addressed his Terrestrial companion. "I wissh you joy of... more...

Interplanetary Press, Circa 2022—Septimus Spink, the first Earthman to reach and return from New Mu in a flying saucer, threw a hydroactive bombshell into the meeting of the leading cosmogonists at the University of Cincinnatus today. The amazing Spink, uninvited, crashed this august body of scientists and laughed at a statement made by Professor Apsox Zalpha as to the origin of Earth and other... more...

THE SCHOOLMASTER FYODOR LUKITCH SYSOEV, the master of the factory school maintained at the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for the annual dinner. Every year after the school examination the board of managers gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementary schools, all who had conducted the examinations, and all the managers and foremen of the factory were present. In spite of their... more...

INTRODUCTION. Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educating their sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of... more...

When top Hollywood star and bad girl Clarise Chalmers met a writer of trashy military science fiction William Moreland by chance in a bar she knew he was not her type at all. Anyway, she had a boyfriend, another top star and heart throb for millions of female fans. But Will made a lot of sense suggesting solutions to problems that had been plaguing her so she hired him as a business consultant warning... more...

ungrily, the cradled vessel's great steel nose pointed up to the distant stars. She was the Cosmos XII, newest and sleekest of the Space Service's rapidly-expanding wing of interstellar scout ships, and she was now ready for operational work. Major Lance Cooper, a big man with space-tanned features, stood in the shadow of the control bunker and watched the swarm of ground crewmen working at... more...

I I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the train. Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie's translation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read among such distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I was eagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and my work as a journalist gave me... more...