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A solitary ship captain, drifting through time.

Nia Imani is a woman out of place. Traveling through the stars condenses decades into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her. She lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.

A mute child, burdened with unimaginable power.

The scarred boy does not speak, his only form of communication the haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and otherworldly nature, Nia decides to take the boy in to live amongst her crew. Soon, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself. For both of them, a family. But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy.

A millennia-old woman, poised to burn down the future.

Fumiko Nakajima designed the ships that allowed humanity to flee a dying Earth. One thousand years later, she now regrets what she has done in the name of progress. When chance brings Fumiko, Nia, and the child together, she recognizes the potential of his gifts, and what will happen if the ruling powers discover him. So she sends the pair to the distant corners of space to hide them as she crafts a plan to redeem her old mistakes.

But time is running out. The past hungers for the boy, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.

Gunrunner-turned-Empress Hail Bristol was dragged back to her home planet to take her rightful place in the palace. Her sisters and parents have been murdered, and the Indranan Empire is reeling from both treasonous plots and foreign invasion.

Now, on the run from enemies on all fronts, Hail prepares to fight a full-scale war for her throne and her people, even as she struggles with the immense weight of the legacy thrust upon her. With the aid of a motley crew of allies old and new, she must return home to face off with the same powerful enemies who killed her family and aim to destroy everything and everyone she loves. Untangling a legacy of lies and restoring peace to Indrana will require an empress's wrath and a gunrunner's justice.

Somewhere within our crowded sky, a crew of wormhole builders hops from planet to planet, on their way to the job of a lifetime. To the galaxy at large, humanity is a minor species, and one patched-up construction vessel is a mere speck on the starchart. This is an everyday sort of ship, just trying to get from here to there. But all voyages leave their mark, and even the most ordinary of people have stories worth telling. A young Martian woman, hoping the vastness of space will put some distance between herself and the life she's left behind. An alien pilot, navigating life without her own kind. A pacifist captain, awaiting the return of a loved one at war. Set against a backdrop of curious cultures and distant worlds, this episodic tale weaves together the adventures of nine eclectic characters, each on a journey of their own.

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.

The universe of Neverness is intriguingly complex. filled with extraordinary beings. There are the Alaloi, who have chosen to return to the Neanderthal state ... the Order of Pilots which reworks the laws of time and physics to catapult its members through dense regions of 'thickspace' ... the Solid State Entity, a vast brain made up of moon-sized biocomputers... and the leldra, a legendary race of aliens that seeded the galaxy aeons ago with its DNA and so began the evolutionary cycle.

Against this rich backdrop unfolds the story of young, headstrong Mallory Ringess, a novitiate of the Order of Pilots. Against all odds he has penetrated the Solid State Entity - and made a stunning discovery. A discovery that could unlock the secret of immortality hidden among the Alaloi....

The lines. No ship can traverse the void without them. Only linesmen can work with them. But only Ean Lambert hears their song. And everyone thinks he's crazy...

Most slum kids never go far, certainly not becoming a level-ten linesman like Ean. Even if he's part of a small, and unethical, cartel, and the other linesmen disdain his self-taught methods, he's certified and working.

Then a mysterious alien ship is discovered at the edges of the galaxy. Each of the major galactic powers is desperate to be the first to uncover the ship's secrets, but all they've learned is that it has the familiar lines of energy--and a defense system that, once triggered, annihilates everything in a 200 kilometer radius.

The vessel threatens any linesman who dares to approach it, except Ean. His unique talents may be the key to understanding this alarming new force--and reconfiguring the relationship between humans and the ships that serve them, forever.

To boost waning interest in interstellar travel, a mission is sent into deep space to learn the truth about "moonriders," the strange lights supposedly being seen in nearby systems. But the team soon discovers that their odyssey is no mere public-relations ploy, for the moonriders are not a harmless phenomenon. They are very, very dangerous-in a way that no one could possibly have imagined.

Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor of the 32nd century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it. The potential for profit is so great that Lorq has little difficulty cobbling together an alluring crew that includes a gypsy musician and a moon-obsessed scholar interested in the ancient art of writing a novel.

What the crew doesn't know, though, is that Lorq's quest is actually fueled by a private revenge so consuming that he'll stop at nothing to achieve it.

In the grandest manner of speculative fiction, Nova is a wise and witty classic that casts a fascinating new light on some of humanity's oldest truths and enduring myths.

A power-driven young woman has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artifacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned.

Ingray and her charge will return to her home world to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating intergalactic conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future, her family, and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

"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....

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.

Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she's an active historian. She wants to know about the past--to experience it firsthand. Once she's dived the ship, she'll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It's a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.

Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It's impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn't be here. It can't be here. And yet, it is. Boss's curiosity is up, and she's determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood.

What Boss finds could rewrite history, cost lives, and start an intergalactic war.

This novel includes, in slightly modified form, the complete text of the novellas Diving Into The Wreck and The Room of Lost Souls.

A superb SF adventure set in the rubble of a ruined universe, this is a deep space heist story of kidnap, betrayal, alien artefacts and revenge.

The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilisations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives.

And there are vast fortunes to be made, if you know where to find them...

Captain Rackamore and his crew do. It's their business to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded with layers of protection - and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside. But while they ply their risky trade with integrity, not everyone is so scrupulous.

Adrana and Fura Ness are the newest members of Rackamore's crew, signed on to save their family from bankruptcy. Only Rackamore has enemies, and there might be more waiting for them in space than adventure and fortune: the fabled and feared Bosa Sennen in particular.

Revenger is a science fiction adventure story set in the rubble of our solar system in the dark, distant future - a tale of space pirates, buried treasure and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism... and of vengeance...

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.