Science Fiction Books

I I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the train. Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie's translation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read among such distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I was eagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and my work as a journalist gave me... more...

I PAY FOR MY PASSAGE TO LOANGO Captain Luke Chilton counted over the five-dollar notes with a greater care than I thought was necessary, considering that there were only ten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though he feared that I might be trying to pay for my passage in bad money. His show of distrust set my back up, and I came near to damning him right out for his... more...

Logic's a wonderful thing; by logical analysis, one can determine the necessary reason for the existence of a dead city of a very high order on an utterly useless planet. Obviously a shipping transfer point! Necessarily... "Mendez?" said the young man in the blue-and-green tartan jacket. "Why, yes ... sure I've heard of it. Why?" The clerk behind the desk looked again at the... more...

1. Injury Captain Mike Odeon cursed in angry frustration as he climbed out of his command van into a late fall New Pennsylvania evening and signalled his Special Operations team forward. They were too late. Well, too late to catch them in the act, he amended silently. This looked like one of the hit-and-run attacks the so-called Brothers of Freedom specialized in; with local Enforcement men already... more...

met the man who had died. A bitter, heart-numbing night of weird, shrieking wind and flying snow. A few black hours I will never forget. "Well, Jerry, lad!" my mother said to me as I pushed back from the table and started for my sheepskin coat and the lantern in the corner of the room. "Surely you're not going out a night like this? Goodness gracious, Jerry, it's not fit!"... 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...

I was a spy for the FBI—the Fantasy Bureau of Investigation! Learning of a monster meeting of science fiction "fen" in New York, I teleported myself 3,000 miles from the Pacificoast to check the facts on the monsters. And it was true—the 14th World SciFi Con was tremonstrous. In all seriousness, the Newyorcon was one of the greatest aggregations of s.f. enthusiasts I have ever seen. A far... more...

1 SHOOTING STAR The travelers had sighted the cove from the sea—a narrow bite into the land, the first break in the cliff wall which protected the interior of this continent from the pounding of the ocean. And, although it was still but midafternoon, Dalgard pointed the outrigger into the promised shelter, the dip of his steering paddle swinging in harmony with that wielded by Sssuri in the bow of... more...

Chester Pelton retracted his paunch as far as the breakfast seat would permit; the table, its advent preceded by a collection of mouth-watering aromas, slid noiselessly out of the pantry and clicked into place in front of him. "Everything all right, Miss Claire?" a voice floated out after it from beyond. "Anything else you want?" "Everything's just fine, Mrs. Harris,"... more...

It was a small world, a tiny spinning globe, placed in the universe to weather and age by itself until the end of things. But because its air was good and its earth was fertile, Daniel Loveral had placed a finger upon a map and said, "This is the planet. This is the Dream Planet." That was two years before, back on Earth. And now Loveral with his selected flock had shot through space, to light... more...