Science Fiction Books

The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped a card into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer. "Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!" He read the card. It was pink. "Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac. "An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14. "Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination.... more...

Out of the twenty only one managed to escape the planet. And he did it very simply, merely by walking up to the crowded ticket window at one of the rocket ports and buying passage to Earth. His Army identification papers passed the harassed inspection of the agent, and he gratefully and silently pocketed the small plastic stub that was handed him in exchange for his money. He picked his way with... more...

Mr. Jonathon Chambers left his house on Maple Street at exactly seven o'clock in the evening and set out on the daily walk he had taken, at the same time, come rain or snow, for twenty solid years. The walk never varied. He paced two blocks down Maple Street, stopped at the Red Star confectionery to buy a Rose Trofero perfecto, then walked to the end of the fourth block on Maple. There he turned... more...

STORY OF THE DOOR Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which... more...

He stole a ride to the Moon in search of glory, but found a far different destiny. His eyes were a little feverish—as they had been of late—and his voice held a continuous intensity—as though he were imparting a secret. "I've got to get on that ship! I've got to, I tell you! And I'm going to make it!" Different members of the group regarded him variously, some with... more...

THE STATUS CIVILIZATION Chapter One His return to consciousness was a slow and painful process. It was a journey in which he traversed all time. He dreamed. He rose through thick layers of sleep, out of the imaginary beginnings of all things. He lifted a pseudopod from primordial ooze, and the pseudopod was him. He became an amoeba which contained his essence; then a fish marked with his own peculiar... more...

He was afraid—not of the present or the future, but of the past. He was afraid of the thing tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, companion to dead worlds and silent space. 1. Something tiny went wrong, but no one ever knew whether it was in an electric relay or in the brain of the pilot. The pilot was Lieutenant Charles Wandek, UNRC, home... more...

On a bleak, distant unchartered world two ships lay wrecked and a lone man stared at a star hyacinth. Its brilliance burned into his retina ... and he knew that men could easily kill and kill for that one beauty alone. The robbery of the Dosey Asteroids Shipping Station in a remote and spottily explored section of space provided the newscasting systems of the Federation of the Hub with one of the... more...

Evan Winford leaned wearily against the controls of the little space sphere, and stared out of the window at the planet, Mercury, which lay a million miles sunward. Fail now? He gritted his teeth. No! He would wrench victory from Fate after all, even though at this moment mine guards must be searching the nearby mountains, for him and his companions, and a warning was being broadcast to all the planets... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Go on, Astro," shouted the young Space Cadet. "Boot that screwy ball with everything you've got!" The three cadets of the Polaris unit raced down the Academy field toward the mercuryball, a plastic sphere with a vial of mercury inside. At the opposite end of the field, three members of the Arcturus unit ran headlong in a desperate effort to reach the ball first. Astro,... more...