Fiction Books

t was a great pity, Space Marshal Wilbur Hennings reflected, as he gazed through the one-way glass of the balcony door, that the local citizens had insisted upon decorating the square before their capitol with the hulk of the first spaceship ever to have landed on Pollux V. A hundred and fifty years probably seemed impressive to them, amid the explosive spread of Terran colonies and federations.... more...

The 1,000-foot tower that formed the focal point and central feature of the Universal Exposition of 1889 at Paris has become one of the best known of man’s works. It was among the most outstanding technological achievements of an age which was itself remarkable for such achievements. Second to the interest shown in the tower’s structural aspects was the interest in its mechanical organs. Of these,... more...

DRUMMOND 1851—1897 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD[1] [Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of James Pott & Co.] Tho I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, &c.—I Cor. xiii. Everyone has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of the modern world: What is the summum bonum—the supreme good? You have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the... more...

Once upon a time, a large caravan moved slowly over the desert. On the vast plain, where nothing was to be seen but sand and sky, might have been heard in the far distance the tinkling bells of the camels and the ringing hoof beats of horses. A thick cloud of dust that moved before it indicated the approach of the caravan; and when a breeze parted this cloud, gleaming weapons and brilliantly colored... more...

CHAPTER I For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite. For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress—although the latter was by no means an agreeable person. Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without... more...

Not long after Lent, Fulkerson set before Dryfoos one day his scheme for a dinner in celebration of the success of 'Every Other Week.' Dryfoos had never meddled in any manner with the conduct of the periodical; but Fulkerson easily saw that he was proud of his relation to it, and he proceeded upon the theory that he would be willing to have this relation known: On the days when he had been... more...

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Captain Mayne Reid was born at Ballyroney, County Down, on the 4th April, 1818, and was the son of the Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid. Mayne Reid was educated with a view to the Church, but finding his inclinations opposed to this calling, he emigrated to America and arrived in New Orleans on January, 1840. After a varied career as plantation over-seer, school-master, and actor, with a... more...

avir gingerly fitted the round opening in the bottom of the silvery globe over the top of his hairless blue skull. He pulled the globe down until he felt tiny filaments touching his scalp. The tips of the wires were cold. The moderator then said, "Dreaming Through the Universe tonight brings you the first native Martian to appear on the dreamwaves—Gavir of the Desert Men. With him is his... more...

He listened in the silence of the Exploration ship's control room. He heard nothing but that was what bothered him; an ominous quiet when there should have been a multitude of sounds from the nearby village for the viewscreen's audio-pickups to transmit. And it was more than six hours past the time when the native, Throon, should have come to sit with him outside the ship as they resumed the... more...

â–  The tumult in Convention Hall was a hurricane of sound that lashed at a sea of human beings that surged and eddied around the broad floor. Men and women, delegates and spectators, aged party wheelhorses and youngsters who would vote for the first time that November, all lost their identities to merge with that swirling tide. Over their heads, like agitated bits of flotsam,... more...