Science Fiction Books

Nemra, 2555 CE The crash must've been more realistic than he'd planned, Ranger Esteban Tarlac thought groggily as he regained consciousness. His head hurt where something had hit it, and his body ached in a pattern that matched the crash webbing's. But at least one thing was going according to plan: he'd obviously been captured by the rebels, since he was hanging by his wrists with... more...

What thrill is there in going out among the stars if coming back means bitter loneliness?Frankston pushed listlessly at a red checker with his right forefinger. He knew the move would cost him a man, but he lacked enough interest in the game to plot out a safe move. His opponent, James, jumped the red disk with a black king and removed it from the board. Gregory, across the room, flicked rapidly through... more...

A note about this story This story is from my collection, "A Place So Foreign and Eight More," published by Four Walls Eight Windows Press in September, 2003, ISBN 1568582862. I've released this story, along with five others, under the terms of a Creative Commons license that gives you, the reader, a bunch of rights that copyright normally reserves for me, the creator. I recently did the... more...

There are—and very probably will always be—some Terrestrials who can't, and for that matter don't want, to call their souls their own.... Xanabar lays across the Spiral Arm, a sprawling sphere of influence vast, mighty, solid at the core. Only the far-flung boundary shows the slight ebb and flow of contingent cultures that may win a system or two today and lose them back tomorrow or a... more...

A young and very beautiful girl with golden blond hair and smooth skin the color of creamed sweet potatoes floated in the middle of the windowless metal room into which Wayne Brighton drifted. The girl was not exactly naked, but her few filmy clothes concealed nothing. Wayne cleared his throat, his apprehension changing rapidly to confusion. "You are going to reduce me?" he asked. "The... more...

She was a young, enthusiastic worker for the Welfare Department. She liked helping people ... only she really-but-good helped them! The office wasn't very bright or sunny, but that didn't matter. In the first place, if Gloria really wanted sun, she could always get some by tuning in on a mind outside, someone walking the streets of downtown New York. And, in the second place, the weather... more...

The paper had gone to press, graphically describing the latest of the many horrible events which had been enacted upon the Earth in the last six months. The headlines screamed that Six Corners, a little hamlet in Pennsylvania, had been wiped out by the Horror. Another front-page story told of a Terror in the Amazon Valley which had sent the natives down the river in babbling fear. Other stories told of... more...

In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we'll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck—even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do it. Anson Drake sat quietly in the Flamebird Room of the Royal Gandyll Hotel, listening to the alien, but soothing strains of the native orchestra and... more...

HE WALKED AROUND THE HORSES BY H. BEAM PIPER Illustrated by Cartier This tale is based on an authenticated, documented fact. A man vanished—right out of this world. And where he went— In November 1809, an Englishman named Benjamin Bathurst vanished, inexplicably and utterly. He was en route to Hamburg from Vienna, where he had been serving as his government's envoy to the court of what... more...

The Swoop of the Hawk One of the spectacular exploits of Hawk Carse, greatest of space adventurers. awk Carse came to the frontiers of space when Saturn was the frontier planet, which was years before the swift Patrol ships brought Earth's law and order to those vast regions. A casual glance at his slender figure made it seem impossible that he was to rise to be the greatest adventurer in space,... more...