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Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story “A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. A Martian Odyssey and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including 3 stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Science fiction

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An expedition to Mars discovers the remains of an advanced civilization, which died out many thousands of years ago. They recovered books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents. Would the team find their “Rosetta Stone” that would allow them to unlock the Martian language, and learn the secrets of this long-dead race? (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

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Science fiction

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The Planet Strappers started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it. They got what they wanted--a start on the road to the stars--but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There! (Summary from the text)...

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Science fiction

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Known mainly for his tales of adventure, this work of science fiction by Jack London is set in a post-apocalyptic future. It's 2072, sixty years after the scarlet plague has depopulated the planet. James Howard Smith is one of the few survivors of the pre-plague era left alive in the San Francisco area, and as he realizes his time grows short, he tries to impart the value of knowledge and wisdom to his grandsons. Through his narrative, we learn how the plague spread throughout the world and of the struggles of the handful of survivors it left in its wake. The Scarlet Plague was originally published in London Magazine in 1912. (Summary by Wikipedia and James Christopher)...

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Science fiction

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Harry Harrison (1925 - ) is best known for his Stainless Steel Rat stories and the novel Make Room! Make Room! which was adapted for film as Soylent Green. Deathworld is the first in a series of novels begun in 1960 and originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. It’s the story of Jason dinAlt a professional gambler with psionic skills who finds himself on Pyrrus the deadliest planet to be colonized by humanity. Violent weather, active tectonics, heavy gravity, abundant predators, and a hostile splinter group of colonists is only the beginning of Jason’s quest to learn the truth about Pyrrus. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Science fiction

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This volume of the Science-Fiction Collection is devoted to Alan E. Nourse (1928-1992). Nourse became a science fiction writer to help pay for his medical education, but eventually retired from practicing medicine to pursue his writing career. This reader-selected collection presents ten of his short stories which were published between 1954 and 1963. Extensive research by Project Gutenberg volunteers did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on these publications were renewed. Please consider this a brief sampling of Nourse's full range, and have fun buying and borrowing his other works. Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Cori Samuel....

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Science fiction, Short stories

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If it is possible to conquer space, then perhaps it is also possible to conquer time. At least that was the theory American scientists were exploring in an effort to explain the new sources of knowledge the Russians possessed. Perhaps Russian scientists had discovered how to transport themselves back in time in order to learn long-forgotten secrets of the past. That was why young Ross Murdock, above average in intelligence but a belligerently independent nonconformist, found himself on a hush-hush government project at a secret base in the Arctic. The very qualities that made him a menace in civilized society were valuable traits in a man who must successfully act the part of a merchant trader of the Beaker people during the Bronze Age. For once they were transferred by time machine to the remote Baltic region where the Russian post was located, Ross and his partner Ashe were swept into a fantastic action-filled adventure involving Russians, superstitious prehistoric men, and the aliens of a lost galactic civilization that demanded every ounce of courage the Americans possessed. (Summary by Gutenberg text)...

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Science fiction

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If it is possible to conquer space, then perhaps it is also possible to conquer time. At least that was the theory American scientists were exploring in an effort to explain the new sources of knowledge the Russians possessed. Perhaps Russian scientists had discovered how to transport themselves back in time in order to learn long-forgotten secrets of the past.

That was why young Ross Murdock, above average in intelligence but a belligerently independent nonconformist, found himself on a hush-hush government project at a secret base in the Arctic. The very qualities that made him a menace in civilized society were valuable traits in a man who must successfully act the part of a merchant trader of the Beaker people during the Bronze Age.

For once they were transferred by time machine to the remote Baltic region where the Russian post was located, Ross and his partner Ashe were swept into a fantastic action-filled adventure involving Russians, superstitious prehistoric men, and the aliens of a lost galactic civilization that demanded every ounce of courage the Americans possessed. [summary taken from gutenberg e-text]...

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Science fiction

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World War IV has dragged on for 12 years and the whole world is drained and tired of the killing and destruction. One man, a high school chemistry teacher from St. Louis in the USA, is serving his latest forced stint in the UN forces when something strange happens to him. He dies but yet he doesn't. What if you had the power to bring peace to the entire world? What would you do? This story explores a frightening and strange journey into the murky depths of human needs and desires and how they can twist and turn back upon us....

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Science fiction

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An alien race has put a station on Earth and other planets in order to steal the rays of the sun, possible causing the sun to nova within two years. Burl Denning, a high school student, is the only person who has the power to stop the alien project. Can he and the crew of the experimental space ship Magellan act in time to save the earth? (Summary by Richard Kilmer)...

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Science fiction, Adventure

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John Carter is mysteriously conveyed to Mars, where he discovers two intelligent species continually embroiled in warfare. Although he is a prisoner of four-armed green men, his Civil War experience and Earth-trained musculature give him superior martial abilities, and he is treated with deference by this fierce race. Falling in love with a princess of red humanoids (two-armed but egg-bearing), he contrives a daring escape and later rescues the red men from the hostility of another nation of their own race. In this struggle he enlists the aid of his former captors, whom he gradually civilizes, teaching them first the practical advantages of kindness to their beasts of burden and then of casting aside centuries of communal living in favor of the nuclear family. At last he even starts them on the path to mastering the arts of friedship and diplomacy. When the failure of the atmosphere-generator threatens the planet's inhabitants with extinction, Carter's luck, memory, and sheer determination make possible the salvation of the planet, but Carter himself falls unconscious before he knows the success of his efforts. The novel ends with h...

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Science fiction, Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, War stories