Science Fiction Books

The Red Spot ommander Stone, grizzled chief of the Planetary Exploration Forces, acknowledged Captain Brand Bowen's salute and beckoned him to take a seat.What is the mystery centered in Jupiter's famous "Red Spot"? Two fighting Earthmen, caught by the "Pipe-men" like their vanished comrades, soon find out.Brand, youngest officer of the division to wear the triple-V for... more...

"You're a fascinating person," the girl said. "I've never met anyone like you before. Tell me your story again." The man was short and stocky, with Asiatic features and a long, stringy mustache. "The whole story?" he asked. "It would take a lifetime to tell you." He stared out the window at the yellow sun and the red sun. He still hadn't gotten used to... more...

For some forty years critics of the U.S.S.R. have been desiring, predicting, not to mention praying for, its collapse. For twenty of these years the author of this story has vaguely wondered what would replace the collapsed Soviet system. A return to Czarism? Oh, come now! Capitalism as we know it today in the advanced Western countries? It would seem difficult after almost half a century of State... more...

My dear son:— The doctors have left and I am told that in a few hours I shall die. In my lifetime the world has progressed from the chaotic turmoil of the early Atomic era to the peacefulness and tranquility of our present age, and I die content. For ten years I have instructed you in all that you will need for the future. One final lesson remains to be taught. On the wall of my bedchamber hangs a... more...

he cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before... more...

THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION We were both of us not a little stiff as the result of sleeping out in the open all that night, for even in Grand Canary the dew-fall and the comparative chill of darkness are not to be trifled with. For myself on these occasions I like a bit of a run as an early refresher. But here on this rough ground in the middle of the island there were not three yards of level to be... more...

Albrecht and I went down in a shuttleship, leaving the stellatomic orbited pole-to-pole two thousand miles above Alpha Centauri's second planet. While we took an atmosphere-brushing approach which wouldn't burn off the shuttle's skin, we went as swiftly as we could. A week before we had completed man's first trip through hyperspace. We were now making the first landing on an... more...

The Take-offHigh into air are the great New York buildings lifted by a ray whose source no telescope can find.It seemed only fitting and proper that the greatest of all leaps into space should start from Roosevelt Field, where so many great flights had begun and ended. Fliers whose names had rung—for a space—around the world, had landed here and been received by New York with all the pomp of... more...

"Don't let the old goat rattle you, Pheola," I said as we rode the elevator to the penthouse. "He'll try. Just remember, he is the one who has to say O.K. if we are to give you some training." Her eyes rolled and she moaned softly, clinging to my arm. "Oh, Billy Joe!" she whispered. "I don't want to fail you!" Maragon has some pretty creepy types in his... more...

Twenty-five years ago Cyril Bezdek and E. Carter Dorwin would have met in a private railway car belonging to one of them. They might even have met in a private train. At any rate they would have met in absolute privacy. But it being the present, they had to be content with a series of adjoining rooms taking up less than one half of a car on the Super-Sachem, fastest coast-to-coast train in the country.... more...