Science Fiction Books

By accident Bobby discovered the rocket was about to be shot to the Moon. Naturally he wanted to go along. But could he smuggle himself aboard?Illustrated by Lloyd RognanDad had already gone when Bobby got up. This disappointed Bobby a little but then he remembered—this was the big day. Naturally Dad would get over to the project early. And at four o'clock— Bobby shivered deliciously at the... more...

The troupers of the Big Time lack no art to sway a crowd— or to change all history! ITo bring the dead to lifeIs no great magic.Few are wholly dead:Blow on a dead man's embersAnd a live flame will start.—Graves I dipped through the filmy curtain into the boys' half of the dressing room and there was Sid sitting at the star's dressing table in his threadbare yellowed undershirt, the... more...

I watched Don Phillips, the commercial announcer, out of the corner of my eye. The camera in front of me swung around and lined up on my set. "... And now, on with the show," Phillips was saying. "And here, ready to test your wits, is your quizzing quiz master, Smiling Jim Parsons." I smiled into the camera and waited while the audience applauded. The camera tally light went on and the... more...

â–  He was an old man and very drunk. Very drunk or very sick. It was the middle of the day and the day was hot, but the old man had on a suit, and a sweater under the suit. He stopped walking and stood still, swaying gently on widespread legs, and tried to focus his eyes. He lived here ... around here ... somewhere around here. He continued on, stumbling up the street. He finally made it... more...

SECTION 1 Of the Nature of Flatland I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power... more...

"But what is reality?" asked the gnomelike man. He gestured at the tall banks of buildings that loomed around Central Park, with their countless windows glowing like the cave fires of a city of Cro-Magnon people. "All is dream, all is illusion; I am your vision as you are mine." Dan Burke, struggling for clarity of thought through the fumes of liquor, stared without comprehension at the... more...

Lincoln said it eons ago.... It took a speck of one-celled plant life on a world parsecs away to prove it for all the galaxy.The following manuscript was discovered during the excavation of a lateral connecting link between the North-South streamways in Narhil Province near Issahar on Kwashior. The excavator, while passing through a small valley about 20 yursts south of the city, was jammed by a mass of... more...

et away from me!" screamed Dr. Berry at the approaching figure. "But Ah got to feed an' water the animals an' clean out the cages," drawled the lanky, eighteen-year-old boy amiably. "Get out of this laboratory, you hoodoo," shrilled Berry, "or I swear I'll kill you! I'll not give you the chance to do me in!" Tow-headed Dolliver Wims regarded chubby Dr.... more...

The Archer Five came in a big packing box, bound with steel ribbons and marked, This end up—handle with care. It was delivered at a subsidized government surplus price of fifty dollars to Hendricks' Sports and Hobbies Center, a store in Jarviston, Minnesota, that used to deal mostly in skin diving equipment, model plane kits, parts for souping up old cars, and the like. The Archer Five was a bit... more...

Savagely cursing, Luke Fenton reeled backward from the porthole, his great hairy paws clapped over his eyes. No one had warned him, and he did not know that total blindness might result from gazing too earnestly into the sun's unscreened flaming orb, especially with that body not more than twenty million miles distant in space. He did not know, in fact, that the ethership was that close: Luke had... more...