Science Fiction Books

Jean Lanni could see that his girl friend, Judy Stokes, thought it was the lamest excuse she had ever heard. If your ballpoint pen won't write as you want it to, your life doesn't stop, she probably was thinking. You just get yourself another pen—You don't call off a marriage.... Skeptically the girl with the long, golden red hair pointed at his breast pocket. "This Droozle I must... more...

VALLEY of the CROEN They say cross-eyed men are bad luck. He stood there, in my doorway, eyeing me up and down with those in-focused black eyes. His face was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashed with a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across his nose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side. He was big, and he looked like bad news to me. I... more...

An officer of the Special Patrol Service dropped in to see me the other day. He was a young fellow, very sure of himself, and very kindly towards an old man. He was doing a monograph, he said, for his own amusement, upon the early forms of our present offensive and defensive weapons. Could I tell him about the first Deuber spheres and the earlier disintegrator rays and the crude atomic bombs we tried... more...

"Mark Phillips" is, or are, two writers: Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer. Their joint pen-name, derived from their middle names (Philip and Mark), was coined soon after their original meeting, at a science-fiction convention. Both men were drunk at the time, which explains a good deal, and only one has ever sobered up. A matter for constant contention between the collaborators is which... more...

The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped a card into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer. "Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!" He read the card. It was pink. "Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac. "An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14. "Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination.... more...

A story that comes to grips with an age-old question—what is soul? and where?—and postulates an age-new answer.If I listed every trouble I've accumulated in a mere two hundred odd years you might be inclined to laugh. When a tale of woe piles up too many details it looks ridiculous, unreal. So here, at the outset, I want to say my life has not been a tragic one—whose life is in this day of... more...