Search Worlds Without End

This volume contains all the Hugo award winning short fiction for the award years 1955 to 1961, each with an introduction by Isaac Asimov.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Allamagoosa - (1955) - shortstory by Eric Frank Russell
• Exploration Team - (1956) - novelette by Murray Leinster
• Flowers for Algernon - (1959) - novelette by Daniel Keyes
• Or All the Seas with Oysters - (1958) - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• That Hell-Bound Train - (1958) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• The Big Front Yard - (1958) - novella by Clifford D. Simak
• The Darfsteller - (1955) - novella by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• The Longest Voyage - (1960) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• The Star - (1955) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Appendix: The Hugo Awards - essay by uncredited

A collection of 15 masterpieces by one of the brightest stars in the science fiction firmament, tales of wit, wonder and adventure - with a touch of something strange...

Contents:

• Introduction - (1976) - essay by Gardner Dozois
• Introduction - (1973) - essay by Harry Harrison
• And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side - (1972) - shortstory
• The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone - (1969) - shortstory
• The Peacefulness of Vivyan - (1971) - shortstory
• Mama Come Home - (1975) - novelette (variant of The Mother Ship 1968)
• Help - (1973) - novelette (variant of Pupa Knows Best 1968)
• Painwise - (1972) - novelette
• Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion - (1973) - novelette (variant of Parimutuel Planet 1969)
• The Man Doors Said Hello To - (1970) - shortstory
• The Man Who Walked Home - (1972) - shortstory
• Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket - (1972) - shortstory
• I'll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool is Empty - (1971) - shortstory
• I'm Too Big but I Love to Play - (1970) - novelette
• Birth of a Salesman - (1968) - shortstory
• Mother in the Sky With Diamonds - (1971) - novelette
• Beam Us Home - (1969) - shortstory

And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side - Exogamy, the desire to mate with the new and different has been a primary force in human evolution - but when the object of that desire is not merely different, but alien...

The Man Who Walked Home - The first Chrononaut moved step by step from the far future toward a present whose past was in the future, and whose future was his past.

I'm Too Big But I Love To Play - Genuine communication between human and alien implies that one must transform himself into an analog of the other. And when that transformation is complete...

People hunt and kill one another as public entertainment and to win prizes in "Seventh Victim," the short version of Sheckley's novel The 10th Victim, which was made into a movie.

The twelve other stories in this collection are "The Monsters," "Cost of Living," "The Altar," "Shape," "The Impacted Man," "Untouched by Human Hands," "The King's Wishes," "Warm," "The Demons," "Specialist," "Ritual," and "Beside Still Waters."

From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was "a precursor to Douglas Adams."

Table of Contents:

• "The Monsters" (F&SF 1953/3)
• "Cost of Living" (Galaxy 1952/12)
• "The Altar" (Fantastic 1953/7&8)
• "Keep Your Shape" (Galaxy 1953/11; also known as "Shape")
• "The Impacted Man" (Astounding 1952/12)
• "Untouched by Human Hands" (Galaxy 1953/12; also known as "One Man's Poison")
• "The King's Wishes" (F&SF 1953/7)
• "Warm" (Galaxy 1953/6)
• "The Demons" (Fantasy Magazine 1953/3)
• "Specialist" (Galaxy 1953/5)
• "Seventh Victim" (Galaxy 1953/4)
• "Ritual" (Climax 1953; also known as "Strange Ritual")
• "Beside Still Waters" (Amazing 1953/10&11)

He is the greatest hero of our time--Doc Savage!

Philip José Farmer, three-time Hugo award winner and Science Fiction Grand Master, has turned his superb research and narrative skills to one of the greatest heroes of our time: Doc Savage, the bronze champion of justice.

Now, at last, the incredible life story of the real man behind the Doc Savage pulp novels, including:

His true name and family background, covering his relationship to Lord Greystoke, Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, James Bond, and Fu Manchu.

Detailed information on some of his most devilish opponents--John Sunlight, the Mystic Mullah, and Mr. Wail.

A summation of some of Doc's most amazing inventions.

Biographies of the Fabulous Five--Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny--as well as the group's Lady Auxiliary and Bronze Knockout, Pat Savage!

Together with other data and brilliant deductions, Philip José Farmer offers an amazing account of this remarkable man's astonishing career!

The classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg's film, tells of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China.

Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.

Shanghai, 1941 -- a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

Contents:

• Intro by Lester Del Rey
• Shambleau
• Black Thirst
• The Bright Illusion
• Black God's Kiss
• Tryst in Time
• Greater Than Gods
• Fruit of Knowledge
• No Woman Born
• Daemon
• Vintage Season
• Afterword by C.L. Moore.

The Lavalite World is a world of slow but constant change. The very landscape moves. Here mountains rise from plains or sink into rifts. New oceans form as vast hollows collapse and seas rush in. And there is only one escape from this bizarre planet: the one gateway to other universes is in the palace of the Lord Urthona. Paul Janus Finnegan - also known as Kjckaha - must reach it if he is to survive. And he must do so despite the Lords Urthona and Red Ore, the hired thug McKay, flesh-eating vegetation on the run, assorted strange beasts of prey, and planetary pseudopods . . .

Scions have no limits. Scions do not die. And Scions do not disappear.

Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad--the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war--but something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Now Regan and his men, ill equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion, and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironclad-killer out there? And how are common soldiers lacking the protection afforded the rich supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?

This novelette was combined with its sequel, "Common Sense", to form "Orphans of the Sky" in 1963.

The gigantic, cylindrical generation ship Vanguard, originally destined for "Far Centaurus", is cruising without guidance through the interstellar medium as a result of a long-ago mutiny that killed most of the officers. Over time, the descendants of the surviving loyal crew have forgotten the purpose and nature of their ship and lapsed into a pre-technological culture marked by superstition. They come to believe the "Ship" is the entire universe, so that "To move the ship" is considered an oxymoron, and references to the Ship's "voyage" are interpreted as religious metaphor. They are ruled by an oligarchy of "officers" and "scientists". Most crew members are simple illiterate farmers, seldom or never venturing to the "upper decks" where the "muties" (an abbreviation of "mutants" or "mutineers") dwell. Among the crew, all identifiable mutants are killed at birth.

It first appeared in the May, 1941 Issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available on Internet Archives.

The universe has less than a century left... unless Spock can change history.

The Enterprise is summoned to transport a dangerous criminal from starbase prison to a rehabilitation center: brilliant physicist, Dr. Georges Mordreaux, accused of promising to send people back in time - then killing them instead. But when Mordreaux escapes, bursts onto the bridge and kills Captain Kirk, Spock must journey back in time to avert disaster - before it occurs.

Now there's more at stake than just Kirk's life. Mordreaux's experiments have thrown the entire universe into a deadly time warp. Spock is fighting time... and the universe is closing in on itself with the relentless squeeze of the Entropy Effect.

Callahan's Place is the neighborhood tavern to all of time and space, where the regulard are anything but. Pull up a chair. grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths... and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.

BEHIND THE WALLS OF TERRA .... LAY THE SECRET NO MAN COULD BE ALLOWED TO LEARN!

Kickaha was the name by which Paul Janus Finnegan, adventurer had been known on the artificial universes created by that super-race known as the Lords. And though Earthman and mortal, he had survived the worst they could throw at him.

But it was to be upon his return to Earth that Kickaha was to face his greatest trial. For once back on the streets of an American city, armed with the knowledge of the forces that moved the heavens, he was a target for the cosmic venom of the powers that contended for this very universe.

BEHIND THE WALLS OF TERRA lay a secret no human could learn - and live. But Kickaha had learned it - and he was not going to take it lying down!

The first complete English translation of Jules Verne's epic fantasy novel. The Full Text of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe is also included.

Decades after Edgar Allan Poe's longest and weirdest tale, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, was published--the protagonist disappearing into the misty, mystifying Antarctic seas; his fate unknown--Jules Verne took up the challenge to answer what had happened to him.

In The Sphinx of the Ice Realm, he penned the most amazing journey of his fabled career: a voyage across the bottom of the world! An astonishing mix of manhunt, sea story, scientific speculation, and polar nightmare, Verne's epic fantasy novel appears here for the first time as a new and complete translation by noted Verne expert Frederick Paul Walter. The book is a treat for any fan of science fiction and fantasy, and includes many fascinating notes for students and scholars alike. In addition, the book features a complete, reader-friendly rendition of the original Poe tale that sparked Verne's uniquely imaginative response.

The story has also been published under various titles: The Sphinx of the Ice Fields, An Antarctic Mystery, The Sphnix of the Ice.

Barney is all set to spend two weeks doing nothing at his parents' summer house. But then he meets the neighbors, and things start to get interesting. Zena, Manny, and Joe are not your average folks on vacation. In fact, Barney suspects they're not from Earth at all. Not only are they physically perfect in every way, but they don't seem to have jobs or permanent addresses, and they are addicted to a strange role-playing game called Interstellar Pig. As Barney finds himself sucked into their bizarre obsession, he begins to wonder if Interstellar Pig is just a game.

In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hardway. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he's available... for a price.

For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can't refuse.

The 200-year-old "godfather" of the Budayeen's underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.

In a galaxy where civilization covers every world with steel and ferroconcrete, only a very special man can break all the rules and still stay free. A man who moves through the rafters of society like a rat. A Stainless Steel Rat . . . .

And when the galaxy goes to war, it needs special men. That's when The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted. The 25th century's most dangerous outlaw is back--and this time it means war! Slippery Jim diGriz, better known as the Stainless Steel Rat, is seeking revenge for the murder of his mentor-in-crime, the fabled archcriminal known as The Bishop. His trail leads to Nevenkebla and the iron-fisted dictator General Zennor--the kind of man who'd sell his own mother into slavery just to see the expression on her face.

Now in the uniform of a Nevenkeblan soldier, Jim discovers Zennor's vile plan to enslave a defenseless planet. Only a man with a Special code of honor--only a Stainless Steel Rat--can save the world from the invading horde.

BUG-EYED MONSTERS ON BROADWAY Pulp SF magazine editor Keith Winton was answering a letter from a teenage fan when the first moon rocket fell back to Earth and blew him away. But where to? Greenville, New York, looked the same, but Bems (Bug-Eyed Monsters) just like the ones on the cover of Startling Stories walked the streets without attracting undue comment. And when he brought out a half-dollar coin in a drugstore, the cops wanted to shoot him on sight as an Arcturian spy. Wait a minute. Seven-foot purple moon-monsters? Earth at war with Arcturus? General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command of Venus Sector? What mad universe was this? One thing was for sure: Keith Winton had to find out fast - or he'd be good and dead, in this universe or any other.

"Who Goes There?": The novella that formed the basis of "The Thing" is the John W. Campbell classic about an antarctic research camp that discovers and thaws the ancient body of a crash-landed alien. The creature revives with terrifying consequences, shape-shifting to assume the exact form of animal and man, alike.

Paranoia ensues as a band of frightened men work to discern friend from foe, and destroy the menace before it challenges all of humanity!

The story, hailed as "one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written" by the SF Writers of America, is best known to fans as THE THING - it was the basis of Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World in 1951, and John Carpenter's The Thing in 1982.

Martin Padway, 20th-century archaeologist, becomes a reluctant one-way time-traveller, landing in Rome on the verge of the Dark Ages. With no way home, he sets out to make the world he's in a better place.

In short order, Padway "invents" and introduces such things as Printing and newspapers, Arabic numerals, Double entry bookkeeping, Copernican astronomy, and, most important -- Distilling. And the world of decaying Rome will never be the same!

Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination.

The Warlord of Mars, first published in 1919, is the third book in Burroughs' Mars series--this opening trilogy of a series that grew to 11 books is considered among the greatest science fiction ever written. Here, Earthman John Carter, swept by magical means to the Red Planet, embarks on a rescue mission to the frozen polar wastes to save his beloved Martian princess, Dejah Thoris.

Imagine: a future empire of super-science, so strong that it had lasted thousands of years, so vast that it encompassed the entire Solar System, and whose ruler was a glamorous and thoroughly willful young woman. Yet, this tremendous set-up was completely unable to cope with the machinations of one solitary outlaw.

That man was the amazing Robert Hedrock, and though Hedrock had been declared a kill-on-sight outcast even by those who had once been his own faction, neither they nor their empress foe suspected that he alone could provide the solution to their deadliest cosmic crisis.

Imagine a whole series of separate universes, made to suit the whims of a race of super-beings. Imagine these universes with their own laws, cultures, creatures and ecologies-all existing only to please the fancies of their individual master. Then imagine one such universe constructed as a diabolical trap to destroy a single person-the man called Robert Wolff, one of the race of universe-makers, and once of Earth. When the satanic Master-Lord, Urizen, kidnaps Wolff's wife, he forces Wolff to enter the deadly universe of ambushes, filled with every kind of tortuous snare that the evil mind of the Master-Lord can devise. Wolf has only his courage and his wits which to combat this cosmic maze-unless he can perform a miracle, he and Chrysalis are doomed.

Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system, David "Lucky" Starr receives an urgent visit from Hector Conway, Chief Councilman of the Council of Science. The Council has been sweeping up the Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system, but the head of the ring, Jack Dorrance, has eluded capture and escaped from Earth in his one-man spaceship, The Net of Space. A fleet led by Councilman Ben Wessilewsky is in hot pursuit, but there is only one ship that can catch up with Dorrance, and that is Starr's own Shooting Starr.

Inch by inch, day by day, Scott Carey is getting smaller. Once an unremarkable husband and father, Scott finds himself shrinking with no end in sight. His wife and family turn into unreachable giants, the family cat becomes a predatory menace, and Scott must struggle to survive in a world that seems to be growing ever larger and more perilous--until he faces the ultimate limits of fear and existence.

Subsequently re-published as The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Soldier and adventurer John Carter tells the story of how he returns to the planet Mars to be reunited with his love, the Martian princess Dejah Thoris. With his great friend Tars Tarkas, mighty Jeddak of Thark, Carter sets out in search of his princess. But Dejah Thoris has vanished. And Carter becomes trapped in the legendary Eden of Mars from which none has ever escaped alive.

Lucky Starr is sent to Mercury by the Council of Science to determine who is sabotaging Project Light.

A classic of nineteenth-century French literature, this science fiction tale delves into the depths of the Earth, and by so doing, reveals the staggeringly long history of our planet.

John Carter desperately needed the aid of Barsoom's greatest scientist. But Ras Thavas was the prisoner of a nightmare army of his own creation -- half-humans who lived only for conquest. And in their hidden laboratory seethed a horror that could engulf all of Mars.

Lucky Starr & his sidekick Bigman Jones hunt for a spy and saboteur who is trying to wreck the test flight of the first anti-gravity space ship.

Classic Science Fiction

Here in one superlative volume 17 Science-Fiction tales by a master storyteller.

"The Midas Plague" - They had committed the greatest crime: failure to consume enough! So their punishment was to consume more and more and more....

"The Day the Icicle Works Closed" - The world was facing total unemployment, and the people had only one thing left to hock, their bodies!

"Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus" - There was peace on Earth. But joy to all men? Well, that was another matter!

"The Martian in the Attic" - What's the value of a real, live Martian? Duniop was determined to find out - and he did!

"Tunnel Under the World" - Things are not always what they seem, in fact. Not even what they seem to seem!

And lots more!

Table of Contents:

• A Variety of Excellence - (1975) - essay by Lester del Rey
• The Tunnel Under the World - (1955)
• Punch - (1961)
• Three Portraits and a Prayer - (1962)
• Day Million - (1966)
• Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus - (1956)
• We Never Mention Aunt Nora - (1958)
• Father of the Stars - (1964)
• The Day the Martians Came - (1967)
• The Midas Plague - (1954)
• The Snowmen - (1959)
• How to Count on Your Fingers - (1956)
• Grandy Devil - (1955)
• Speed Trap - (1967)
• The Richest Man in Levittown - (1959)
• The Day the Icicle Works Closed - (1960)
• The Hated - (1958)
• The Martian in the Attic - (1960)
• The Census Takers - (1956)
• The Children of Night - (1964)
• What the Author Has to Say About All This - (1975) - essay by Frederik Pohl

"Man has conquered space and spread throughout the galaxy. Many civilizations of widely varied life forms on several thousand planets are joined in a vast confederation whose existence is threatened by one paranoid race--the Rull. A form so alien that it may have come from some other galaxy, the Rull are man's equal in intelligence and they have a technology which may be superior. Their space-ship fleets have captured several hundred planets, and the final Armageddon which will decide man's fate and that of his galaxy is imminent.

"Scientist Trevor Jamieson, an advance scout in this war of the worlds, ranges the Milky Way as he tries to formulate a last-ditch plan of defense. Of necessity, he plays a lone hand. The Rulls can change their outward appearance at will, and anyone--even his closest friends and colleagues--may be Rull spies. Jamieson fights preliminary skirmishes on several planets thousands of light-years from home.

"At the end he meets the Rull commander in a man-to-Rull duel in which no holds are barred and the weapons used are the most sophisticated instruments of warfare that man and Rull (and Van Vogt) have yet devised."

This novel is based on stories which originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine under the following titles:

• "Repetition", 1940
• "Cooperate or Else", 1942
• "The Second Solution", 1942
• "The Rull", 1948
• "The Sound", 1950"

In a distant galaxy, the atrocity of slavery was alive and well, and young Thorby was just another orphaned boy sold at auction. But his new owner, Baslim, is not the disabled beggar he appears to be: adopting Thorby as his son, he fights relentlessly as an abolitionist spy. When the authorities close in on Baslim, Thorby must ride with the Free Traders—a league of merchant princes—throughout the many worlds of a hostile galaxy, finding the courage to live by his wits and fight his way from society's lowest rung. But Thorby's destiny will be forever changed when he discovers the truth about his own identity....

Nerves is a science fiction novella by Lester del Rey, first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1942. It was subsequently expanded into a novel of the same name in 1956. The story deals with a meltdown at a nuclear power plant.

Nominated in 2018 for the 1943 Retro Hugo Award. It has been reprinted many times and can be found in the anthologies Adventures in Time and Space (1943), edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A (1973), edited by Ben Bova, and The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 4, 1942 (1980), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, as well as the collection ...And Some Were Human (1948).

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1955 and was reprinted on Sci Fiction, September 15, 2004. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 1: (1955-61) (1963), edited by Isaac Asimov, Men of War (1984) edited by Jerry Pournelle, and The Great SF Stories 17 (1955) (1988), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. It is included in the collections Far Stars (1961), The Best of Eric Frank Russell (1978) and Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell (2000).

The original novel that inspired the films!

First published more than fifty years ago, Pierre Boulle's chilling novel launched one of the greatest science fiction sagas in motion picture history.

In the not-too-distant future, three astronauts land on what appears to be a planet just like Earth, with lush forests, a temperate climate, and breathable air. But while it appears to be a paradise, nothing is what it seems.

They soon discover the terrifying truth: On this world humans are savage beasts, and apes rule as their civilized masters. In an ironic novel of nonstop action and breathless intrigue, one man struggles to unlock the secret of a terrifying civilization, all the while wondering: Will he become the savior of the human race, or the final witness to its damnation? In a shocking climax that rivals that of the original movie, Boulle delivers the answer in a masterpiece of adventure, satire, and suspense.

Asimov combines many of his science fiction favorites from the thirties with his personal reflections on his early years, interests, and influences.

Table of Contents:

• Before the Golden Age, Book 3 - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Part Six: 1935 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• The Parasite Planet - (1935) - novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum
• Proxima Centauri - (1935) - novella by Murray Leinster
• The Accursed Galaxy - (1935) - shortstory by Edmond Hamilton
• Part Seven: 1936 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• He Who Shrank - (1936) - novella by Henry Hasse
• The Human Pets of Mars - (1936) - novella by Leslie F. Stone
• The Brain Stealers of Mars - (1936) - shortstory by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Devolution - (1936) - shortstory by Edmond Hamilton
• Big Game - (1974) - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• Part Eight: 1937 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Other Eyes Watching - (1937) - essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Minus Planet - (1937) - novelette by John D. Clark, Ph.D.
• Past, Present and Future - (1937) - novelette by Nat Schachner
• Part Nine: 1938 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• The Men and the Mirror - (1938) - novelette by Ross Rocklynne

Has also been published under the title: The Pawns of Null-A.

In this sequel to World of Null-A, Gilbert Gosseyn must learn to use both his brains and function in various bodies in order to save the universe from Enrothe Red.

It was a world of tiers and layers - the Amerind level, the Garden of Eden level, theTalanac, the Atlantean - a universe of green skies and fabled beasts. It was the playground-cosmos of the Lord Jadawin, with transgravitational gates to the other levels and other worlds. But now those gates were being sabotaged to permit the entry of an invading force of 'Sellers' - human bodies housing the transferred minds of rebel Lords - and their minions, who were seeking two things: total domination of every Lord's private cosmos, now that they had achieved immortality, and the life of Kickaha the Trickster, who knew too much…

Miriam Black knows when you will die.

Still in her early twenties, she's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name.

Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.

Found as a child with no memory of his past, adopted by a scholarly couple who raised him as their own, Jaro never quiet fit into the rigidly defined Society of Thanet.

When his foster parents are killed in a mysterious bombing, Jaro Fath sets out to discover the truth of his origins--a quest that will take him across light-years and into the depths of the past.

Carter relates an adventure commencing with a private war he and his picked followers have been waging against the resurgent Guild of Assassins, led by Ur Jan. Hoping to cut off the threat at the root, he travels undercover to the Assassins' base, the restive city of Zodanga, still smarting from its defeat and sack by the Empire of Helium and the horde of Tharks in A Princess of Mars.

Tara, Princess of Helium, beautiful, fiery-tempered, impetuous, found that following a whim could be dangerous. Lost in her flier in the midst of a Martian tempest, she was at the mercy of the mad wind, and could only pray to be set down unharmed. Her hope of survival in the ancient, mysterious region of Barsoom would have been small indeed had she known of the strange inhuman customs of its inhabitants.

A chessboard manned by humans who must contest each square to the death. Heads without bodies, and bodies without heads. And meet Gahan of Gathol, a hero worthy of the immortal warlord's daughter.

An exciting account of a jungle expedition’s encounter with living dinosaurs, written with the same panache exhibited in the author’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries. This 1912 novel, the first installment of the Professor Challenger series, follows an eccentric paleontologist and his companions into the wilds of the Amazon, where they discover iguanodons, pterodactyls, and savage ape-people.

Tan Handron from the realm of Gatho encounters a wide range of enemies in this science fiction thriller of the 1930's. He fends off green men, mad scientists, cannibal, spiders and white apes. The main character Tan Handron finds himself an unlikely hero in this pulp fiction classic. "A Fighting Man of Mars," is the seventh book in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian series.

Former Earthman Ulysses Paxton served Barsoom's greatest scientist, until his master's ghoulish trade in living bodies drove him to rebellion. Then, to save the body of the woman he loved, he had to attack mighty Phundahl, and its evil, beautiful ruler.

Contains two short stories in the Legion Universe: The Legion of Time and Aftwer World's End.

The hope of a future utopia hangs literally on a thread of probability. Instead, armageddon lies almost certainly in the future of humanity. Only the Legion of Time can alter the future course of history. Only Denny Lanning can decisively help them. But to do so, he must first die--for the Legion is composed of dead men--and second, he must kill one of the two women that he loves. . .

After World's End, a short novel, is another saga of time-adventure, also included in this volume. An American astronaut helplessly orbits the solar system as millennia pass. And on Earth, humanity's bright future is destoryed by war with an enemy they themselves created.

Someone is sabotaging the Universal Transmitting Company's new technology--instantaneous transport of objects and people around the world. When Detective Jan Darzek investigates, the mystery seems inexplicable--out of this world.

A beautifully logical tale of a robot who simply couldn't tell the truth!

This short story is in the Susan Calvin series a Sub-series of: The Positronic Robot Stories

The story is included in the collections:

• The Complete Robot (1982)
• I, Robot (1950)
• The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 3, (1941)

It first appeared in the May, 1941 Issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available on Internet Archives.

With the publication, in the July 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, of the story Seesaw, van Vogt began unfolding the complex tale of the oppressive Empire of Isher and the mysterious Weapon Shops. This volume, The Weapon Shops of Isher, includes the first three parts of the saga and introduces perhaps the most famous political slogan of science fiction: The Right to Buy Weapons is the Right to Be Free. Born at the height of Nazi conquest, the Isher stories suggested that an oppressive government could never completely subjugate its own citizens if they were well armed. The audience appeal was immediate and has endured long beyond other stories of alien invasion, global conflict and post war nuclear angst.

Two years before Edgar Rice Burroughs became a worldwide celebrity with the publication of Tarzan of the Apes and its twenty-two sequels, which together have sold more than 30 million copies, he published A Princess of Mars. A futuristic sci-fi fantasy romance, A Princess of Mars tells the story of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who inexplicably finds himself held prisoner on the planet Mars by the Green Men of Thark. Together with Dejah Thoris, the princess of another clan on Mars, the unlikely pair must fight for their freedom and save the entire planet from destruction as the life-sustaining Atmosphere Factory slowly grinds to a halt.

Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars, first published in 1920, is the fourth book in Burroughs' Mars series. Here, hero Carthoris goes in search of the kidnapped Thuvia, princess of Ptarth, encountering strange Martian creatures and romantic rivals along the way.

A year has passed since the events in David Starr, Space Ranger. In that time the spaceship TSS Waltham Zachary has been taken and gutted by pirates based in the asteroid belt, and David "Lucky" Starr has come up with a plan to deal with them.

In the sprawling spheres far below the boundless seas of the planet, the earthmen had established an incredible civilization. But now, a series of seemingly trivial accidents threatened to obliterate all that the men had created.

It was Lucky's job, as a representative of the powerful Council of Science, to find the evil and root it out.

Yet by the time he discovered the insidious force which preyed on the minds of men, the only enemy he could hope to destroy . . . was firmly lodged within his own head!

Table of Contents:

• Four-Day Planet - (1961) - novel by H. Beam Piper
• Lone Star Planet - novel by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire (variant of A Planet for Texans 1958)

Read Four-Day Planet for free at Project Gutenberg.
Read Lone Star Planet for free at Project Gutenberg.

After a galaxy-wide war had left the planetary federation in ruins, every surviving civilized world was on its own. And that was a perfect setup for the marauders from the far-out rim. Trask was one of those dreaded Space Vikings, a warrior spaceman with a crew and a ship that struck terror to a thousand worlds. But Trask had a special personal interest in sourging the stars - he wanted to draw upon himself the fire of a certain enemy - a renegade planet-wrecker with a yen for empire-building

Classic novellas and short stories from the Dean of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein. Masterful speculation on what makes us human -- and the problems, opportunities, and adventures humans must face in order to win a superhuman future.

Gulf: in which the greatest superspy of them all is revealed as the leader of a league of supermen the rest of us. The prequel to Heinlein's New York Times best seller Friday.

Lost Legacy: in which it is proved that we are all members of that league of the superhuman -- or would be, if we but had eyes to see.

Plus two great short stories: two of the master's finest: one on the nature of being, the other on what it means to be a man.

Table of Contents:

• Gulf - (1949) - novella
• Elsewhen - (1941) - novelette
• Lost Legacy - (1941) - novella
• Jerry Was a Man - (1947) - novelette

She was a restoree, kidnapped. Torn from Earth by a bizarre and nameless black force, Sara had no idea where she was or why she was in a beautiful new body. Controlled by brutal guards and tamed by terror, she could not comprehend her role as a nurse for a man who appeared to be an idiot.

But once she discovered that the planet she had been brought to was Lothar and that the man she was caring for was its regent, Sara knew the restorees had to escape--and fast. And when they did, they became fugitives on a world of multiple evils--bound together on a daring adventure that would either join them for all time... or separate them forever.

Five hundred miles beneath the earth's surface lies a fantastic, timeless world of eternal daylight, prehistoric beasts, and primeval peoples--Pellucidar. Pellucidar is a world within our world, a place where the horizon curves upward and merges with the sky. Here time stands still, for Pellucidar is illuminated by a miniature sun that never sets but hovers motionless in the sky. Scattered throughout the savage, prehistoric wilderness are communities of distrustful humans and the cities of the reptilian, highly evolved Mahars.

David Innes and Abner Perry break through into this mysterious inner world. Their discovery of Pellucidar and the ensuing struggle to unite the human communities and overthrow the Mahars is a top-notch, thrilling tale of conquest, deceit, and wonder.

This commemorative edition features an introduction by Gregory A. Benford and an afterword on the science of At the Earth's Core by Phillip R. Burger. Also included are a map of Pellucidar, a glossary of terms and names by Scott Tracy Griffin, a contemporary review, and the classic J. Allen St. John illustrations.

E. C. "Scar" Gordon was on the French Riviera recovering from a tour of combat in Southeast Asia , but he hadn't given up his habit of scanning the Personals in the newspaper. One ad in particular leapt out at him:

"ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English, with some French, proficient in all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, apt. D."

How could you not answer an ad like that, especially when it seemed to describe you perfectly? Well, except maybe for the "handsome" part, but that was in the eye of the beholder anyway. So he went to that apartment and was greeted by the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. She seemed to have many names, but agreed he could call her "Star." A pretty appropriate name, as it turned out, for the empress of twenty universes.

Robert A. Heinlein's one true fantasy novel, Glory Road is as much fun today as when he wrote it after Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein proves himself as adept with sword and sorcery as with rockets and slide rules and the result is exciting, satirical, fast-paced, funny and tremendously readable -- a favorite of all who have read it. Glory Road is a masterpiece of escapist entertainment with a typically Heinleinian sting in its tail. Tor is proud to return this all-time classic to hardcover to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

In the 1940s, the Golden Age of science fiction flowered in the magazine Astounding. Editor John W. Campbell, Jr., discovered and promoted great new writers such as Isaac Asimov in New York, Robert A. Heinlein in California, and A.E. van Vogt in Canada, whose novel Slan was one of the basic works of the era. Throughout the forties and into the fifties Slan was considered the single most important SF novel, the one great book that everyone had to read. Many SF fans rallied to the cry, "Fans are slans."

Today it remains a monument to pulp SF adventure, filled with constant action and a cornucopia of ideas. And maybe fans really are slans. Read it and see for yourself.

There is no such thing as peace on the planet of war. John Carter, while searching for his granddaughter, must fight his way from Horz to the north pole, and to far Gathol.

Runaway fireball!

A churning nuclear vortex, appearing out of nowhere, wreaking utter destruction - and countless numbers of them were menacing planets throughout the galaxy! 'Storm' Cloud, nucleonic genius, set out in his spaceship Vortex Blaster to track and destroy the mysterious vortices - and embarked on a saga of discovery and conflict among the far stars and the worlds of the Lensmen...

When the United States is destroyed by invading PanAsians, the only hope for the country's survival rests with six men and a newly-developed nuclear weapon.

Back in print after a decade, expanded with new original material, this is the first volume of George R. R. Martin's Wild cards shared-world series

There is a secret history of the world-a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some were called Aces-those with superhuman mental and physical abilities. Others were termed Jokers-cursed with bizarre mental or physical disabilities. Some turned their talents to the service of humanity. Others used their powers for evil. Wild Cards is their story.

Originally published in 1987, Wild Cards I includes powerful tales by Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Howard Waldrop, Lewis Shiner, and George R. R. Martin himself. And this new, expanded edition contains further original tales set at the beginning of the Wild Cards universe, by eminent new writers like Hugo-winner David Levine, noted screenwriter and novelist Michael Cassutt, and New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.

TV megastar Jack Barron hosts the wildly popular Bug Jack Barron, a phone-in show that listens to public gripes and puts politicians and bosses on the spot--live. Naturally Barron pulls his punches for safety's sake... until he tangles with paranoid billionaire Benedict Howards, peddler of cryonic immortality, and walks into a minefield of deadly cover-ups. Violence erupts. Howards believes he can buy anyone, even Barron's estranged wife, even Barron. Barron doesn't mind selling out if the coin is immortality.

Asimov combines many of his science fiction favorites from the thirties with his personal reflections on his early years, interests, and influences.

Table of Contents:

• Untitled Introduction - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Part Four: 1933 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• The Man Who Awoke - (1933) - novelette by Laurence Manning
• Tumithak in Shawm - (1933) - novella by Charles R. Tanner
• Part Five: 1934 - (1974) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Colossus - (1934) - novelette by Donald Wandrei
• Born of the Sun - (1934) - novelette by Jack Williamson
• Sidewise in Time - (1934) - novella by Murray Leinster
• Old Faithful - (1934) - novelette by Raymond Z. Gallun

On the planet Darkover, a Keeper--the center of a working psychic circle, the manipulator of colossal psychic forces--has traditionally been a virgin female. Callista, powerful Keeper of Arilinn Tower, has resigned her office to marry the Terran, Andrew Carr, who rescued her from her abductors in the previous book, THE SPELL SWORD.

As she struggles to throw off the years of conditioning that kept her mind and body under frighteningly rigid control, her new husband has his own battle with crippling culture shock. Meanwhile, Callista's brother-in-law Damon is conducting his own researches in an attempt to help her; his work, which suggests that a Keeper need not be virgin--nor female--could shake the very foundations of Darkovan society.

The four-armed reptilian natives of the planet Uller revolt against the chartered company from the Terran Federation which rules them.

Conn Maxwell returns from Terra to his poverty-stricken home planet of Poictesme, "The Junkyard Planet", with news of the possible location of Merlin, a military super-computer rumored to have been abandoned there after the last war. The inhabitants hope to find Merlin, which they think will be their ticket to wealth and prosperity. But is Merlin real, or just an old rumor? And if they find it will it save them, or tear them apart?

Greed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight. Talented enough to co-write The Big Sleep film with William Faulkner and imaginative enough to pen the original screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, Leigh Brackett is a giant in the science-fiction field, and The Sword of Rhiannon is one of her most popular adventure tales.

Two reporters looking for a story in the outer reaches of the Solar System come upon a derelict spaceship. Inside, they find the only inhabitant, a beautiful young woman who has been imprisoned for a thousand years in suspended animation, suspended but aware for the whole time. Together they set off on a grand adventure across the vastness of space and time in a search for a race known as the Cosmic Engineers on a mission to save the universe. Originally published as a short novel in Astounding Stories in 1939 and later expanded in this 1950 version, Cosmic Engineers shows the scope and imagination of one of science fictions true masters, Clifford Simak.

Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.

This Island Earth's thrills and romance begin when engineer Cal Meacham places a routine order for parts; he never dreams he is making himself a pawn in a struggle for galactic supremacy.

A fixup novel derived from three stories appearing in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1949 and 1950.

The 1955 film version, directed by Joseph Newman, is one of the best-known science fiction films of the 1950s.

Almost half a century ago, renowned science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton introduced apprentice cargo master Dane Thorson in Sargasso of Space and Plague Ship.

Dane signed on with the independent cargo ship Solar Queen looking for a career in off-world trade.

In Sargasso of Space, the Solar Queen free traders win exclusive rights to trade with the planet Limbo, but the crew arrives to find most of the planet's surface charred, with little signs of life. They find a valley with life, but others may still lurk. Worse yet, a strange force threatens to cripple the Queen. They must solve the planet's mysteries if they hope to escape not only with tradeable goods, but their lives.

Fenris isn't a hell planet, but it's nobody's bargain. With 2,000-hour days and an 8,000-hour year, it alternates blazing heat with killing cold. A planet like that tends to breed a special kind of person: tough enough to stay alive and smart enough to make the best of it. When that kind of person discovers he's being cheated of wealth he's risked his life for, that kind of planet is ripe for revolution.

Lensman Kimball Kinnison has attained the goal which every Lensman seeks, and so few attain, that of Unattached Lensman, a Lensman who is accountable to no one anywhere, completely independent, completely free.

Further, he is learning how to fully use his lens. This knowledge is crucial, because as he works his way up through the ranks of the enemy the problems are growing more and more complex and dangerous. Coming face-to-face, and mind-to-mind, with the multi-tentacled scaley creature in his corpse-littered domain, Kimball Kinnison must use everything he has learned to defeat the beast or die trying.

72 hours in Hell! Dis was a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous place and the Magter made it worse. They might have been human once -- but they were something else now. The Magter had only one desire -- to kill everything, themselves, their planet, the universe if they could. Brion Brandd was sent in at the eleventh hour. His mission was to save Dis, but it looked as though he was going to preside over its annihilation.

Again Kimball Kinnison and the Galactic Patrol take up battle with Boskonia. The warfare leads to some odd corners of the universe and some stranger worlds. There is the planet Lyrane where a matriarchal society exists; the frigid world of Onio, with its incredibly alien inhabitants, on which the utterly weird and unhuman Lensman, Nadreck of Palain Seven works so efficiently.

75th Anniversary Edition!

Among the best-written and most emotionally complex stories of the Pulp Era, the tales of intergalactic smuggler Northwest Smith still resonate strongly 75 years after their first publication. From the crumbling temples of forgotten gods on Venus to the seedy pleasure halls of old Mars, Northwest Smith blazes a trail through the underbelly of the solar system in 13 action-packed stories you won’t soon forget.

Contents:

• Teaching the World to Dream - essay by C. J. Cherryh
• Shambleau (1933) - novelette
• Black Thirst (1934) - novelette
• Scarlet Dream (1934) - novelette
• Dust of Gods (1934) - novelette
• Julhi (1935) - novelette
• Nymph of Darkness (1935) - short story with Forrest J. Ackerman
• The Cold Gray God (1935) - novelette
• Yvala (1936) - novelette
• Lost Paradise (1936) - novelette
• The Tree of Life (1936) - novelette
• Quest of the Starstone (1937) - novelette with Henry Kuttner
• Werewoman (1938) - novelette
• Song in a Minor Key (1940) - short story

Note: The Singularity & Co. e-book of Moore's Northwest Smith stories has the same contents as the 1982 Ace Books collection (Northwest Smith), and does not include "Nymph of Darkness", "Quest of the Starstone", and "Werewoman".

Contains a subset of the stories originally published in The Early Asimov.

Contains:

• Author, Author
• Death Sentence
• Blind Alley
• No Connection
• The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline
• The Rd Queen's Race
• Mother Earth

It was beginning to look as though no one could prevent the annihilation of the civilised universe. For a weird intelligence was directing all the destruction of all civilisation from the icy depths of outer space.

Kim Kinnison of the Galactic Patrol was one of the few men who knew how near the end was. And in the last desperate strategem to save the universe from total destruction, he knew he had to use his children as bait for the evil powers of the hell-planet Ploor...

Biron Farrell was young and naïve, but he was growing up fast. A radiation bomb planted in his dorm room changed him from an innocent student at the University of Earth to a marked man, fleeing desperately from an unknown assassin.

He soon discovers that, many light-years away, his father, the highly respected Rancher of Widemos, has been murdered. Stunned, grief-stricken, and outraged, Biron is determined to uncover the reasons behind his father's death, and becomes entangled in an intricate saga of rebellion, political intrigue, and espionage.

The mystery takes him deep into space where he finds himself in a relentless struggle with the power-mad despots of Tyrann. Now it is not just a case of life or death for Biron, but a question of freedom for the galaxy.

After a ten-year absence, the return of one of the most enduring series characters in modern SF

James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz, Special Corps agent, master con man, interstellar criminal (retired), is living high on the hog on the planet of Moolaplenty when a long-lost cousin and a shipful of swine arrive to drain his bank account and send him and his lovely wife, Angelina, wandering the stars on the wildest journey since Gulliver's Travels.

In this darkly satiric work, Harry Harrison bring his most famous character out of retirement for a grand tour of the galaxy. The Stainless Steel Rat rides again: a cocktail in his hand, a smile on his lips, and larceny in his heart, in search of adventure, gravitons, and a way to get rid of the pigs.

The story of an experiment gone wrong--a planet seeded with primitive bacterial, plant, and insect life forms, then forgotten until a spaceship crash-lands, stranding its crew. The crew must fight to survive in a savage nightmare world. From the Hugo Award-winning author, Murray Leinster.

They called themselves the Galileo Club -- not a bad name for a group of space-minded young men who had high hopes of putting one of their homemade rocket ships in orbit.

But it wasn't until they teamed up with Doc Cargraves that their impossible dream became an incredible reality. Suddenly the three Earthbound youths and their mentor were hurtling through space, heading for the barren wasteland of the Moon. Or so they thought.

They were totally unaware that the dark crater shadows concealed a threat beyond their wildest imaginings . . . a threat from which only a mircale could save them!

The god Ptath is flung into the far future by a deadly rival and given the mind of a 20th century man. Stranded in this alien world, he must fight to regain his powers before the rival goddess sends the world spinning into chaos and darkness.

A CITY LAUNCHES ITSELF INTO THE GALAXY!

The noise was horrifying. He had never heard anything even a fraction as loud, but there could be no doubt about what it was: the city's spindizzies were sounding the alert.

Then the whole city seemed to be rocking heavily, like a ship in a storm. At one instant, the street ended in nothing but sky; at the next, he was staring at a wall of sheared earth, its rim looming cliff-like, fifty feet or more above the new margin of the city; then the blank sky was back again...

The Earth is long dead, blasted apart, and the human survivors who settled on Venus live in huge citadels beneath the Venusian seas in an atrophying, class-ridden society ruled by the Immortals - genetic mutations who live a thousand years or more. Sam Reed was born an immortal, born to rule those with a normal life-span, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby so that he wouldn't know of his heritage. And Sam grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the law, thinking of the Immortals as his enemies. Then he reached the age of eighty, understood what had happened to him and went looking for revenge - and changed his decaying world forever.

Pew Mogel and a monstrous giant threaten the peace and security of Barsoom.

John Carter is treacherously captured then transported to Jupiter by the war-like Morgors. Only his wits and sword arm may see him through.

The fantastic story of a spy who could read minds!

Brain Twister - follows the adventures of FBI agent Kenneth J. Malone as he attempts to unravel the machinations of a telepathic spy. How do you find a telepath to catch the first telepath? A fun piece of sci fi that features claims of immortality, mind-reading, spies and insanity.

In the not too distance future, while fleets of commercial space ships travel between the planets of numerous solar systems, a traveler named Virgil Samms visits the planet Arisia. There he becomes the first wearer of the Lens, the almost-living symbol of the forces of law and order. As the first Lensman, Samms helps to form the Galactic Patrol, a battalion of Lensmen who are larger than life heroes. These solders are the best of the best, with incredible skills, stealth, and drive. They are dedicated and incorruptible fighters who are willing to die to protect the universe from the most horrific threat it has ever known.

One of the most popular and influential science fiction tales of all time, The Land That Time Forgot was first published in book form in 1924. Set on the lost island of Caspak in the South Pacific, this novel is a dazzling blend of imagination, daring adventure, and intriguing scientific speculation.

Hidden behind towering, impassable cliffs, Caspak will not easily give up its secrets. Unique and terrible animals and peoples inhabit the island. Dinosaurs terrorize tropical jungles to the south, while menacing winged humanoids dwell in cities on a large island in the north. Caught between these threats are scattered groups of human beings. Despite their differences, however, Caspak's animals and peoples are all connected in a mysterious and marvelous way.

This commemorative edition features the entire Caspak trilogy in one volume, as intended by the author. This includes: The Land That Time Forgot (1918), The People That Time Forgot (1918), and Out of Time's Abyss (1918).

In his introduction, Mike Resnick celebrates Edgar Rice Burroughs and the timeless appeal of this story. Also included are Scott Tracy Griffin's glossary of terms from the Caspakian language, a rare map of Caspak drawn by Burroughs, and the classic J. Allen St. John illustrations.

The Galactic Patrol's Lensmen are the most feared peacekeepers in the Galaxy. The "Lens," a telepathic jewel matched to the ego of its wearer, is the ultimate weapon in the war against the merciless pirate Boskone and his forces of lawlessness. The only problem is the Galactic Patrol isn't sure how to capitalize on the Lens' incredible powers, but new graduate Kimball Kinnison is determined to learn. Taking command of the experimental fighting ship, the Brittania, Kinnison and his crew set off on a journey of harrowing adventures, coming face to face with deadly space creatures, and the evil pirate Helmuth...who may be the dreaded Boskone himself.

Starr uncovers a Martian plot to ruin the economy of the earth's galactic colonies.

Circling the solar sphere in search of new worlds and high adventure

Captain James Kirk - Assigned to the top position in Space Service - Starship Command - Kirk alone must make decisions in his contact with other worlds that can affect the future course of civilization throught the Universe.

Science Officer Spock - Inheriting a precise logical thinking pattern from his father, a native of the planet Vulcanis, Mr. Spock maintains a dangerours Earth trait... an intense curiousity about things of alien origin.

Yeoman Rand - Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly "out-of-this-world" blonde has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain on her fist mission in deep space.

With a crew of 400 skilled specialists, the mammoth spacs ship Enterprise blasts off for intergalactic intrigue in the unexplored realms of outer space.

The Skylark of Space is one of the earliest novels of interstellar travel. Originally serialized in 1928 in the magazine Amazing Stories, it was first published in book form in 1946 by The Buffalo Book Co. The Skylark of Space is often categorized as the first literary space opera (in the complimentary sense), complete with protagonists perfect in mind, body, and spirit, who fight against villains of absolute evil.

The Skylark of Space is available to read free on-line from Project Gutenberg.

Because Bran Hoddan was a serious electronice engineer, he didn't want any part of his planet's heritage. For he was from Zan -- and Zan's only occupation was spaceship piracy!

Cosmic Conflict

In Triplanetary, battle is joined for the control of the universe. The Arisians, benevolent humanoids who have declared themselves Guardians of Civilization, war with the Eddoreans, shapeless, malevolent beings, hungry for power at any price. They fight on both physical and mental levels, wielding weaponry of inconceivable destructiveness.

And their battleground is a tiny planet in a remote galaxy: Earth. The swamping of Atlantis, the fall of Rome, the wars that rack the world and blaze through space - all may seem historical accidents to the men involved, but each in reality is a move in a savage universe-wide power struggle...

Triplanetary is the first volume in the famous Lensman series of novels, an epic saga of galactic adventures on the same magnificent scale as Isaac Asimov's classic FOUNDATION trilogy.

Of all the cities on all the planets of the Solar System, Marsport was the most corrupt. So when one-time prize-fighter, cop, and reporter, Bruce Gordon ends up with a one way ticket to Mars, it was only natural that he would find himself walking a beat collecting graft like the rest of the force. Just trying to survive, he finds himself caught in the middle between two rival gangs as they battle for control of the planet.

The incredible staship Skylark Three has fought the Fenachone Supermen to a standstill, and Richard Seaton has gone back to his first love - exploration. Roaming the galaxy, he discovers a world of disembodied intelligences; a world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestrial laws, where 3-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities! Meanwhile, the villainous DuQuesne is allying himself with the remnants of the Fenachrone, and planning his next attack...

In this exhilarating sequel to The Skylark of Space, momentous danger again stalks genius inventor and interplanetary adventurer Dr. Richard Seaton. Seaton's allies on the planet Kondal are suffering devastating attacks by the forces of the Third Planet. Even worse, the menacing and contemptuous Fenachrones are threatening to conquer the galaxy and wipe out all who oppose them. And don't forget the dastardly machinations of Seaton's arch-nemesis, DuQuesne, who embarks on a nefarious mission of his own. Against such vile foes and impossible odds, how is victory possible?

Featuring even more technological wizardry, alien worlds, and all-out action than its predecessor, Skylark Three is hailed by many as the imaginative high point of the Skylark series.

A pioneer of the space opera, E. E. "Doc" Smith (1890–1965) profoundly influenced the development of American science fiction. Smith's books include the classic Lensman series. Jack Williamson is the author of numerous classic novels, including The Humanoids and Terraforming Earth. He has been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

A classic work of science fiction, this novel was one of the first to explore the world of the atom.

The Girl in the Golden Atom is the story of a young chemist who finds a hidden atomic world within his mother's wedding ring. Under a microscope, he sees within the ring a beautiful young woman sitting before a cave. Enchanted by her, he shrinks himself so that he can join her world.

Having worked for Thomas Alva Edison, Ray Cummings (1887–1957) was inspired by science's possibilities and began to write science fiction. The Girl in the Golden Atom was enormously successful at its publication in 1923, and Cummings went on to write an equally successful sequel, The People of the Golden Atom.

The novel is an expansion of a novella of the same name which was first published in 1942.

Nerves is Lester del Rey's frightening novel of a nuclear reactor breakdown in which Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl were scarily and accurately predicted. Del Rey was an important science fiction publisher and an SFFWA Grand Master but none of his work had greater impact than this early novel.

In Carson of Venus our intrepid hero and his beloved Duare flee from Havatoo but are soon attacked by a brutal female tribe; Carson is left for dead and Duare is enslaved. Carson's only mission now is to find and rescue Duare and make his escape with her to their new kingdom of Korva.

Originally serialized in 1938 in Argosy.

THREE AGAINST THE STARS!

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention...

First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets...

The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System...

These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a classic of science fiction which first brought the name of their author, John W. Campbell, Jr., into prominence as a master of the inventive imagination -- long before he became the editor of Astounding/Analog and changed the field of science fiction forever!

Collection of three Arcot, Wade and Morley stories originally published in 1930: "Piracy Preferred", "Solarite", and "The Black Star Passes." With an introduction by Campbell.

Dick Seaton & Marc DuQuensne are the deadliest enemies in the Universe--their feud has blazed among the stars & changed the history of a thousand planets. But now a threat from outside the Galaxy drives them into a dangerous alliance as hordes of strange races drive to a collision with mankind. Seaton & DuQuensne flight & slave side by side to fend off the invasion--as Seaton keeps constant, perilous watch for DuQuesne's inevitable double-cross.