Science Fiction Books

Two king-sized bands blared martial music, the "Internationale" and the "Star-Spangled Banner," each seemingly trying to drown the other in a Götterdämmerung of acoustics. Two lines of troops, surfacely differing in uniforms and in weapons, but basically so very the same, so evenly matched, came to attention. A thousand hands slapped a thousand submachine gun stocks. Marshal Vladimir... more...

George Kenington was sixteen, and, as he told himself, someone who was sixteen knew more about love than someone who was, say, forty-two. Like his father, for instance. A whole lot more probably. When you were forty-two, you got narrow-minded and nervous and angry. You said this is this, and that is that, and there is nothing else. When someone thought and felt and talked that way, George thought... more...

Martha Dane paused, looking up at the purple-tinged copper sky. The wind had shifted since noon, while she had been inside, and the dust storm that was sweeping the high deserts to the east was now blowing out over Syrtis. The sun, magnified by the haze, was a gorgeous magenta ball, as large as the sun of Terra, at which she could look directly. Tonight, some of that dust would come sifting down from... more...

oward sundown, in the murky drizzle, the man who called himself Ord brought Lieutenant colonel William Barrett Travis word that the Mexican light cavalry had completely invested Bexar, and that some light guns were being set up across the San Antonio River. Even as he spoke, there was a flash and bang from the west, and a shell screamed over the old mission walls. Travis looked worried. "What kind... more...

On a bleak, distant unchartered world two ships lay wrecked and a lone man stared at a star hyacinth. Its brilliance burned into his retina ... and he knew that men could easily kill and kill for that one beauty alone. The robbery of the Dosey Asteroids Shipping Station in a remote and spottily explored section of space provided the newscasting systems of the Federation of the Hub with one of the... more...

He hadn't gotten any work done that morning. He'd spent most of the time pacing the floor of his small back office, and the rest of it at the window—hands clasped behind his somewhat bowed back—staring up into the cloudless sky. At ten-forty, the intercom buzzed. He snapped the switch. "Yes?" "I've got those figures, Mr. Lake. We have nine—" "Maybe you'd... more...

CHAPTER I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''. The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile. The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon,... 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 A: (Imperial English): The neutral-animate pronoun. Emperor Chang disliked the fact that there was no good Standard English pronoun that referred to a single individual of unknown sex, or where sex was immaterial, so he made use of the Celtic "a", often written with an accent mark (á) by those who use Standard, to distinguish it from the indefinite article (@ is sometimes used when the... more...

Jason dinAlt looked unhappily at the two stretchers as they were carried by. "Are they at it again?" he asked. Brucco nodded, the scowl permanently ingrained now on his hawklike face. "We have only one thing to be thankful for. That is—so far at least—they haven't used any weapons on each other." Jason looked down unbelievingly at the shredded clothing, crushed flesh and broken... more...