Science Fiction Books

By July 1, 1916, the war had involved every civilized nation upon the globe except the United States of North and of South America, which had up to that time succeeded in maintaining their neutrality. Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Austria Hungary, Lombardy, and Servia, had been devastated. Five million adult male human beings had been exterminated by the machines of war, by disease,... more...

It was the lack of sense in the ad that made him go back to it again. He was having his breakfast coffee in the cafeteria next to the midtown hotel where he lived. The classified section of the New York Times was spread before him. WANTED: Live wire Real Estate broker—No selling—30-40. Room 657 Silvers Building—9-12 Monday morning. The ad made no sense for several reasons. One: you just... more...

Eddie Hibbs reported for work and was almost immediately called out on an emergency. It was the third morning in succession for emergencies. This time a section of distribution cable had blown in West Los Angeles. Blown cable was routine, but each instance merited the attention of an assistant underground supervisor. Eddie climbed down the manhole with the foreman of the maintenance crew. There were... more...

CHAPTER 1 On the morning the radar reported something odd out in space, Lockley awoke at about twenty minutes to eight. That was usual. He'd slept in a sleeping bag on a mountain-flank with other mountains all around. That was not unprecedented. He was there to make a base line measurement for a detailed map of the Boulder Lake National Park, whose facilities were now being built. Measuring a base... more...

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed... more...

ord Barrick Sorban, Colonel, H.I.M.O.G., Ret., sipped gently at his drink and looked mildly at the sheaf of newsfacsimile that he'd just bought fresh from the reproducer in the lobby of the Royal Hotel. Sorban did not look like a man of action; he certainly did not look like a retired colonel of His Imperial Majesty's Own Guard. The most likely reason for this was that he was neither. Not... more...

The sky was black, with myriads of stars. The ground was white. But it was not really ground at all, it was ice that covered everything—twenty miles north to the Barrier, and southward to the Pole itself, past towering mountains and howling emptiness and cold beyond imagining. The base was almost buried in snow. Off to one side of the main building a faint yellowish glow was the plastic dome of the... more...

Jim Carter read the news dispatch thoughtfully and handed it back to his chief without comment. “Well, what do you make of it?” Miles Overton, city editor of , shoved his green eye-shade far back on his bald head and glanced up irritably from his littered desk. “I don’t know,” said Jim. “You don’t know!” Overton snorted, biting his dead cigar impatiently. “And I suppose you don’t... more...

The Ciriimian ship was passing in hyperdrive through a classic three-body system, comprising in this case a fiercely white sun circled by a fainter companion and a single planet that swung in precise balance, when the Canthorian Zid broke out of its cage in the specimen hold. Of the ship's social quartet, Chafis One and Two were asleep at the moment, dreaming wistful dreams of conical Ciriimian... more...

CHAPTER I. A MESSAGE FROM MARS. While I was glancing at the Times newspaper in a morning train for London my eyes fell on the following item:— A STRANGE LIGHT ON MARS.—On Monday afternoon, Dr. Krueger, who is in charge of the central bureau at Kiel, telegraphed to his correspondents:— "Projection lumineuse dans région australe du terminateur de Mars observée par Javelle 28 courant, 16... more...