Science Fiction Books

Panic roused him—the black imp of panic that lived under the garish rug of this unfamiliar room and crawled out at dawn to nudge him awake and stare from the blank space to his left where Tillie's gray head should have been. His fists clenched in anger—at himself. He'd never been the sort to make allowance for his own weakness and didn't propose to begin doing so now, at age... more...

Tommy hated Earth, knowing his mother might go home to Mars without him. Worse, would a robot secretly take her place?... Tommy Benton, on his first visit to Earth, found the long-anticipated wonders of twenty-first-century New York thrilling the first week, boring and unhappy the second week, and at the end of the third he was definitely ready to go home. The never-ending racket of traffic was torture... more...

The ship leaped toward the stars, its engines roaring with a desperate burst of energy and its bulkheads audibly protesting the tremendous pressures. In the control room, Emmett Corbin listened to the screech of tormented metal and shuddered. The heat was suffocating, and acrid fumes assailed his nostrils and burned his eyes until he almost cried out in pain. Despite the agony, his gaze did not waver... more...

One of the gravest editorial problems faced by the editors of AMAZING STORIES when they launched its first issue, dated April, 1926, was the problem of finding or developing authors who could write the type of story they needed. As a stop-gap, the first two issues of AMAZING STORIES were devoted entirely to reprints. But reprints were to constitute a declining portion of the publication's contents... more...

Zack Stewart stared sleepily into the bottom of his cracked coffee cup as his wife began to gather the breakfast dishes. Mrs. Stewart was a huge, methodical woman, seasoned to the drudgery of a farm wife. Quite methodically she'd arise every morning at 4:00 A.M. with her husband and each would do their respective chores until long after the sun had set on their forty-acre farm. "You've... more...

On his fortieth birthday Martin Sutter decided life was too short to continue in the rut that had been his existence for more than twenty years. He withdrew his savings from the Explosion City Third Federal Bank, stopped in a display room and informed a somewhat surprised clerk he was taking the electric runabout with the blue bonnet. The ground-car, complete with extras, retailed for a tidy three... more...

CHAPTER ONE Spencer Chambers frowned at the spacegram on the desk before him. John Moore Mallory. That was the man who had caused so much trouble in the Jovian elections. The troublemaker who had shouted for an investigation of Interplanetary Power. The man who had said that Spencer Chambers and Interplanetary Power were waging economic war against the people of the Solar System. Chambers smiled. With... more...

Through the narrow streets leading to the great plaza of Karth, swarmed a colorful crowd—buyers, idlers, herdsmen, artisans, traders. From all directions they came, some to gather around the fountain, some to explore the wineshops, many to examine the wares, or to buy from the merchants whose booths and tents hid the cobblestones. A caravan wound its way through a gate and stopped, the weary beasts... more...

Chapter I. It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down... more...

Tension eased away as the spaceship settled down on its metallic haunches and they savored a safe planetfall. Ekstrohm fingered loose the cinches of his deceleration couch. He sighed. An exploration camp would mean things would be simpler for him. He could hide his problem from the others more easily. Trying to keep secret what he did alone at night was very difficult under the close conditions on... more...