Youth is a science fiction short novel by Isaac Asimov and one of the rare Asimov stories with alien characters. Slim is a boy whose astronomer father is visiting the country estate of an important industrialist. The industrialist's son, Red, has found two strange animals, and he enlists Slim in a plan to turn the animals into a circus act. The astronomer, meanwhile, tells the industrialist that he has been in contact with space aliens who want to open up their world to interstellar trade. Their world needs help, the astronomer says; for ever since the atomic wars that destroyed their old civilization, their world has been regressing. Unless something is done, their culture may face total collapse. Youth first appeared in the May 1952 issue of Space Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1955 collection The Martian Way and Other Stories. AUDIO: Read by Gregg Margarite, running Time 1 hour, 6 min. Unabridged full version. Also available as e-book (ePUB). Length 10,400 words, average reading time 50 min. Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books.

Youth

The Man Who Saw the Future is a science fiction short story by Edmond Hamilton first published in 1930. A man from the Dark Ages, an assistant apothecary in 1444 Paris is investigating mysterious thunderclaps in a field, when he is plucked from his time and deposited in the miraculous world of 1944. The Man Who Saw the Future was first published in Amazing Stories October 1930. Total Running Time (TRT): 30 min. Edmond Moore Hamilton (1904-1977) was a popular science-fiction author during the "Golden Age" of American science fiction. Hamilton’s career began as a regular and frequent contributor to Weird Tales magazine. The first hardcover publication of Science Fiction stories was a Hamilton compilation, and he and E. E. “Doc” Smith are credited with the creation of the Space Opera type of story. Hamilton worked for DC Comics authoring many stories for their Superman and Batman characters. Hamilton was instrumental in the early growth of the Legion of Super-Heroes feature, as one of its first regular writers.

The Man Who Saw the Future

The Stars, My Brothers is a classic science fiction novella by American author Edmond Hamilton first published in Amazing Stories 1962. The Stars, My Brothers is considered one of Edmonton’s best stories, and certainly most imaginative, stories. A spaceman is killed in space and frozen. He is left orbiting the space station where he was killed in the hope that a method will be found to bring him back to life. That day finally comes a hundred years later, when he awakens to a very different world and comes to realize he has become both a symbol and a pawn in a human/alien conflict. The Stars, My Brothers gives us a re-animated astronaut plucked from a century in the past and presented with an alien world where the line between humans and animals is blurred. “He was afraid-not of the present or the future, but of the past. He was afraid of the thing tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, companion to dead worlds and silent space.” Published in the May, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 23 min. Edmond Moore Hamilton (1904-1977) was a popular science-fiction author during the "Golden Age" of American science fiction. Hamilton’s career began as a regular and frequent contributor to Weird Tales magazine. The first hardcover publication of Science Fiction stories was a Hamilton compilation, and he and E.E. “Doc” Smith are credited with the creation of the Space Opera type of story. Hamilton worked for DC Comics authoring many stories for their Superman and Batman characters. Hamilton was instrumental in the early growth of the Legion of Super-Heroes feature, as one of its first regular writers.

The Stars, My Brothers

The Creature from Cleveland Depths is a science fiction novella by Fritz Leiber published in 1962. The Creature from Cleveland Depths also known as The Lone Wolf tells the story of a writer and his wife who refuse to move below-ground after the cold-war gets hot. The underground society discovers a decline in their ability to creatively innovate, and must consult with surface dwellers to develop products that satiate the needs of a people living like moles. But the latest product to result from this alliance, “The Tickler” has frightening implications that only our heroes seem to notice. This story first appeared in the December, 1962 issue of Galaxy magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 48 min. Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. (1910-1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright and chess expert. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber can be regarded as one of the fathers of sword and sorcery fantasy, having in fact created the term. Moreover, he excelled in all fields of speculative fiction, writing award-winning work in fantasy, horror, and science fiction.

The Creature from Cleveland Depths

The Status Civilization is a science fiction novel by Robert Sheckley, first published in 1960. The Status Civilization concerns Will Barrent, a man who finds himself, without memory of any crime or, indeed, of his previous life, being shipped across space to the planet Omega. Omega, used to imprison extreme offenders, has a hierarchical society of extreme brutality, where the only way to advance (and avoid dying) is to commit an endless series of crimes. The average life expectancy from time of arrival on Omega is three years. The story concerns Barrent's attempt to survive, escape, and return to Earth to clear himself of the accusations against him. Total Running Time (TRT): 4 hours, 57 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical. Sheckley was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards and was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.

The Status Civilization

The Leech is a science fiction novella by Robert Sheckley, first published in 1952. A visitor should be fed, but this one could eat you out of house and home ... literally! The Leech was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction December 1952. Total Running Time (TRT): 39 min. Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical. Sheckley was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards and was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.

The Leech

The Idiot is anything but, yet his fellow boarders at Mrs. Smithers Pedagog's home for single gentlemen see him as such. His brand of creative thought is dismissed as foolishness yet it continues to get under their skin, because when you're beneath contempt you can say what you please. - This is the first of John Kendrick Bangs' "Idiot" books and was published by Harper and Brothers in 1895.

Svenska Ljud Classica

The Idiot

The Ethical Engineer / Deathworld II is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison first published in 1963, under the name The Ethical Engineer. In Deathworld II, Jason is kidnapped by the self-righteous Mikah, who is determined to bring him back to the planet Cassylia, ostensibly to be tried for his various crimes but really. He forces a crash-landing on a planet where the human population has regressed. The technology is extremely primitive and knowledge is split up among many small clans, each one jealously monopolizing what it knows. Jason uses his ingenuity to survive, trading his knowledge for protection and power in one of these clans. He eventually reaches the clan who has the knowledge of electricity and signals his location to a spaceship piloted by his Pyrran girlfriend, Meta. ”That mores is strictly a matter of local custom cannot be denied. But that ethics is pure opinion also...? Maybe there are times for murder, and theft and slavery....” Deathworld is the name of a series of science fiction novels by Harry Harrison including the books Deathworld (first published 1960, serialized in Astounding Science Fiction), Deathworld 2 (1964, initially titled The Ethical Engineer and serialized in Analog Science Fact & Fiction in 1963) and Deathworld 3 (1968, serialized in Analog as The Horse Barbarians), plus the short story The Mothballed Spaceship (1973). Total Running Time (TRT): 4 hours, 7 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Harry Max Harrison (1925-2012) was an American science fiction author. Harrison is known for his writing, particularly his humorous and satirical science fiction, such as the Stainless Steel Rat series and the novel Bill, the Galactic Hero (which satirises Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers). Harrison is also known for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). The novel was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973).

The Ethical Engineer (Deathworld II)

The People of the Crater is a science fiction novella by American author Andre Norton. "Send the Black Throne to dust; conquer the Black Ones, and bring the Daughter from the Caves of Darkness." These were the tasks Garin must perform to fulfill the prophecy of the Ancient Ones—and establish his own destiny in this hidden land! An air force pilot adrift in peacetime is recruited to join an Antarctic expedition. When a strange mist downs his plane he discovers an ancient alien civilization which has prophesized his arrival. Now he and his faithful pet Ana must descend to the depths of the crater and face the Black Ones in order to rescue the fair Thrala, daughter of the Ancient Ones. The People of the Crater was first published in volume 1 number 1 of Fantasy Book in 1947. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 35 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Andre Alice Norton (1912-2005) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy with some works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction. She wrote primarily under the pen name Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, first to be SFWA Grand Master, and first inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature market.

The People of the Crater

The Dueling Machine is a novel by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis, first published in 1963. A professor "cures" aggression by inventing a dueling machine--a cyberspace place for enemies to meet and fight to the death. But nobody is supposed to really die. When the champion of a murderous dictator begins killing politicians in the dueling machine, the fate of star systems hangs in the balance. The trouble with great ideas is that someone is sure to expend enormous effort and ingenuity figuring out how to louse them up. The Dueling Machine is the solution to settling disputes without injury. After you and your opponent select weapons and environments you are injected into an artificial reality where you fight to the virtual death… but no one actually gets hurt. That is, until a warrior from the Kerak Empire figures a way to execute real-world killings from within the machine. Now its inventor Dr. Leoh has to prevent his machine from becoming a tool of conquest. The Dueling Machine, written with Myron R. Lewis, first appeared in the May, 1963 issue of Analog Science Fact & Fiction. Total Running Time (TRT): 2 hours, 24 min. Benjamin William "Ben" Bova (born 1932) is an American writer. He is the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, he was six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog Magazine, a former editorial director of Omni; he was also president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. He currently lives in Florida.

The Dueling Machine

This Crowded Earth is a science fiction thriller novel by American author Robert Bloch. This Crowded Earth is set on an overpopulated Earth of the future. In the future science has banished war and there's enough food to support everyone. Huge populations are living in megalopolises eating manufactured food. A frighteningly possible future world as seen through the strange and demonic imagination of Robert Bloch. This Crowded Earth was first published in 1958. Total Running Time (TRT): 3 hours, 35 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Robert Albert Bloch (1917-1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, horror, fantasy and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. He won the Hugo Award (for his story That Hell-Bound Train), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. His work has been extensively adapted for the movies and television, comics and audio books. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle. H. P. Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter and a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general.

This Crowded Earth

The Ultimate Allan Quatermain Collection includes the 8 full-length novels, 4 short stories and 1 extracanonical work featuring Allan Quatermain. The character Allan Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader living in South Africa. An outdoorsman who finds English cities and climate unbearable, he prefers to spend most of his life in Africa, where he grew up under the care of his widower father, a Christian missionary. In the earliest-written novels, native Africans refer to Quatermain as Macumazahn, meaning Watcher-by-Night, a reference to his nocturnal habits and keen instincts. In later-written novels, Macumazahn is said to be a short form of Macumazana, meaning One who stands out. Quatermain is frequently accompanied by his native servant, the Hottentot Hans, a wise and caring family retainer from his youth. His sarcastic comments offer a sharp critique of European conventions. In his final adventures, Quatermain is joined by two British companions, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good of the Royal Navy, and by his African friend Umslopogaas. Included in this collection: 1. King Solomon's Mines (1885) 2. Allan Quatermain (1887) 3. Allan's Wife and Other Tales (1887): Allan's Wife / Hunter Quatermain's Story / A Tale of Three Lions / Long Odds 4. Marie (1912) 5. Child of Storm (1913) 6. Allan and the Holy Flower (1915) 7. The Ivory Child (1916) 8. The Ancient Allan (1920) 9. She and Allan (1920) 10. Extracanonical Work: Magepa the Buck (1912)

The Ultimate Allan Quatermain Collection

Piper in the Woods is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1953. Earth maintained an important garrison on Asteroid Y-3. Now suddenly it was imperiled with a biological impossibility—men becoming plants! Henry Harris, a military psychologist at a garrison on Earth is puzzled by a case of a soldier who returns from the asteroid Y-3, and claims that he's a plant. When several more men return from Y-3, each thinking they're a plant, Harris travels to the asteroid to solve the puzzle. Piper in the Woods was first published in Imagination: Stories of Science and Fantasy February 1953. Total Running Time (TRT): 48 min. Philip Kendrick Dick (1928-1982) was an American science fiction author. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2005, Time magazine named Dick one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.

Piper in the Woods

The Variable Man is a science fiction novella by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1953. “He fixed things—clocks, refrigerators, vidsenders and destinies. But he had no business in the future, where the calculators could not handle him. He was Earth’s only hope—and its sure failure!” Predictability has come a long way. The computers of the future can tell you if you’re going to win a war before you fire a shot. Unfortunately they’re predicting perpetual standoff between the Terran and Centaurian Empires. What they need is something unpredictable, what they get is Thomas Cole, a man from the past accidently dragged forward in time. Will he fit their calculations, or is he the random variable that can break the stalemate? The Variable Man first appeared in the September, 1953 issue of Space Science Fiction magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 2 hours, 48 min. Philip Kendrick Dick (1928-1982) was an American science fiction author. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2005, Time magazine named Dick one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.

The Variable Man

Deathworld is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison first published in 1960. 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. ”Some planet in the galaxy must—by definition—be the toughest, meanest, nastiest of all. If Pyrrus wasn't it ... it was an awfully good approximation! ” Deathworld is the name of a series of science fiction novels by Harry Harrison including the books Deathworld (first published 1960, serialized in Astounding Science Fiction), Deathworld 2 (1964, initially titled The Ethical Engineer and serialized in Analog) and Deathworld 3 (1968, serialized in Analog as The Horse Barbarians), plus the short story "The Mothballed Spaceship" (1973). Total Running Time (TRT): 5 hours, 14 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Harry Max Harrison (1925-2012) was an American science fiction author. Harrison is known for his writing, particularly his humorous and satirical science fiction, such as the Stainless Steel Rat series and the novel Bill, the Galactic Hero (which satirises Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers). Harrison is also known for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). The novel was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973).

Deathworld

Big Pill is a science fiction short story by Raymond Z. Gallun first published in 1952. Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space ... or miraculously create a flourishing paradise-colony? Big Pill was first published in Planet Stories September 1952. Total Running Time (TRT): 50 min. Raymond Zinke Gallun (1911-1994) was an American science fiction writer and one of the early sci-fi pulp writers who popularized the genre. His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961. Gallun was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the award was later renamed The Raymond Z. Gallun Award. His pen names includes Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymond and William Callahan.

Big Pill

The Day of the Boomer Dukes is a science fiction short story by Frederik Pohl first published in 1956. A bored resident of the future, reading a crime magazine from the 1950s, decides to time travel back to the 20th century with a suitcase full of weapons and offer his services to the Mafia. Just for a little excitement. Just as medicine is not a science, but rather an art--a device, practised in a scientific manner, in its best manifestations--time-travel stories are not science fiction. Time-travel, however, has become acceptable to science fiction readers as a traditional device in stories than are otherwise admissible in the genre. Here, Frederik Pohl employs it to portray the amusingly catastrophic meeting of three societies. The Day of the Boomer Dukes was first published in Future Science Fiction No. 30 1956. Total Running Time (TRT): 45 min. Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and editor, with a career spanning more than seventy-five years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Day of the Boomer Dukes

They Twinkled Like Jewels by Philip José Farmer is a science fiction short story, first published in 1954. The story begins with Jack Crane lying in vacant lot. He seems a bit worse for wear, hiding from Bureau of Health and Sanity (Bohas) agents. Jack Crane is trying to evade the authorities, but he isn’t succeeding too well. When he is finally arrested because of his homelessness, he is forced to go to a federal rehabilitation camp. Along the way he meets an educated transient who explains to him about the high rate of schizophrenia and transients in the world. But the real problems start when he reaches the camp and comes into contact with a man who possesses something that Jack very much desires! Total Running Time (TRT): 37 min. Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds.

They Twinkled Like Jewels

Asteroid of Fear is a science fiction novella by Raymond Z. Gallun first published in 1951. “All space was electrified as that harsh challenge rang out ... but John Endlich hesitated. For he saw beyond his own murder—saw the horror and destruction his death would unleash—and knew he dared not fight back!” John Endlich needed to clean up his act. Gambling, drinking, a hot temper and wanderlust were the last things Rose and the kids needed. So he went to the Homesteaders Office and signed up to terraform Vesta, a chunk of a once thriving alien planet that had exploded from within; a flat lump of crust which was now the remains of a farm on one side and a mining operation on the other. The miners hated Endlich and sabotaged his plans at every opportunity. They were going to kill him and his family if he didn’t find a way to stop them. Asteroid of Fear was first published in the March, 1951 edition of Planet Stories magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 32 min. Raymond Zinke Gallun (1911-1994) was an American science fiction writer and one of the early sci-fi pulp writers who popularized the genre. His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961. Gallun was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the award was later renamed The Raymond Z. Gallun Award. His pen names includes Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymond and William Callahan.

Asteroid of Fear

The Eternal Wall is a science fiction short story by Raymond Z. Gallun first published in 1942. ”A scream of brakes, the splash into icy waters, a long descent into alkaline depths ... it was death. But Ned Vince lived again--a million years later!” A man dies in a car crash, but rather than rot or become fossilized, he is mummified, so traces of his cells still exist a million years later when intelligent rodents discover his body. The Eternal Wall was first published in Amazing Stories November 1942 Total Running Time (TRT): 25 min. Raymond Zinke Gallun (1911-1994) was an American science fiction writer and one of the early sci-fi pulp writers who popularized the genre. His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961. Gallun was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the award was later renamed The Raymond Z. Gallun Award. His pen names includes Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymond and William Callahan.

The Eternal Wall

The Tunnel Under The World is a science fiction novella by Frederik Pohl first published in 1955. This famous Pohl story explores cybernetic robots and implanted personalities in a way that certainly expanded my way of looking at reality. Is that wall really real? or is it just kinda, sorta real? And who am I? Our protagonist keeps waking up on the same day, albeit unknowingly, and has strange experiences but fails to recall them after falling asleep. This goes on until he chances to escape the "reset" and sets about trying to discover what's happening to him. An interesting "put yourself in their shoes" story. This is actually a horror story and the end won´t fail to send a shiver down your spine... The novella has often been anthologised, notably appearing in The Golden Age of Science Fiction, edited by Kingsley Amis (1981). The Tunnel Under the World was first published in 1955 in Galaxy magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 12 min. Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and editor, with a career spanning more than seventy-five years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Tunnel Under The World

The Knights of Arthur is a science fiction novella by Frederik Pohl first published in 1958. Pohl takes us into the future in this quirky and funny story, where the population of the United States is less than 10,000 people ... total. Yes you guessed it, there was a war; but the 'clean' bombs killed people and left most everything else intact. Our trio of 'Knights' are not very talented or smart or brave, but they have survived very well and now are taking on New York City to fulfill a quest of Arthur. You see, Arthur has no legs. Or arms. Or body. But he is very opinionated nevertheless. This is a fascinating story that is full of humor and human nature as only Pohl can do it. Sailors Sam Dunlap and Arthur check in to a New York hotel to await their mate Vern Engdahl when a girl shows up proposing to purchase Arthur. They need guys like Arthur to help run the city, and the fact that he fits in a small suitcase is even better. The Knights of Arthur was first published in the January 1958 edition of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 30 min. Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and editor, with a career spanning more than seventy-five years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Knights of Arthur

The Ego Machine is a science fiction novella by American author Henry Kuttner first published in 1952. When a slightly mad robot drunk on AC, wants you to join an experiment in optimum ecology—don't do it! After all, who wants to argue like Disraeli or live like Ivan the Terrible? Celebrated playwright Nicholas Martin didn’t read the small print in his Hollywood options contract. Now he’s facing five years of servitude to a conceited director named Raoul St. Cyr, who’s taken a thoughtful play about Portuguese fishermen and added dancing mermaids. When it seems the plot has changed to include a robot from the future Nicholas looses all hope, but this robot may be just what he needs to win his freedom. The Ego Machine was first published in the May, 1952 issue of Space Science Fiction magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 54 min. Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror, an author who was one of the half dozen or so pillars of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi. Marion Zimmer Bradley is among many authors who have cited Kuttner as an influence. Her novel The Bloody Sun is dedicated to him. Roger Zelazny has talked about the influence of The Dark World on his Amber series.

The Ego Machine

Security is a science fiction short story by Poul W. Anderson first published in 1953. Security, tells the story of a compartmentalized government physicist ordered by secret police to complete experiments aimed at developing a new weapon. He is brought to a hidden space station and put in charge of the project but there are many questions. In a world of spies watching spies it’s sometimes hard to know what’s patriotic. Security first appeared in the magazine Space Science Fiction in February 1953. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 19 minutes. Poul William Anderson (1926-2001) was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Security

Let'em Breathe Space is a science fiction novella by American author Lester del Ray, first published in 1953. Eighteen men and two women in the closed world of a space ship for five months can only spell tension and trouble—but in this case, the atmosphere was literally poisoned. The old space freighter Wahoo is all Dr. Pietro can afford for his expedition to the rings of Saturn. Although built for a crew of 6 the good doctor crams 19 people into the Wahoo, and after 5 months they are really getting on each other’s nerves. Then someone starts killing people and poisoning the air giving plants in the hydroponics bay. Can our hero Paul Tremaine find the killer before he suffocates? Perhaps you should hold your breath. Let’em Breathe Space was first published in the July 1953 edition of Space Science Fiction magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 46 min. Reading by Gregg Margarite. Lester del Rey (1915 - 1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books. Del Rey was awarded the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (for the Skylark) by the New England Science Fiction Association and a special 1985 Balrog Award for his contributions to fantasy, voted by fans and organized by Locus Magazine. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 11th SFWA Grand Master in 1990.

Let'em Breathe Space

Victory is a science fiction novella by American author Lester del Ray first published in 1955. It seemed Earth was a rich and undefended planet in a warring, hating galaxy. Things can be deceptive though; children playing can be quite rough--but that ain't war, friend! Victory is the story of an undefended Earth in a warring galaxy. An interesting story that starts out gritty then turns philosophical. A human captain returns to the planet he fought years to protect, and discovers it devastated, despite winning the war. The humanoid aliens across the galaxy resent Earth's constant neutrality in their wars with hostile alien lifeforms. The captain shares their bitterness and can't wait to ship out to another war to escape the cowardice of his home planet. Victory first appeared in the August 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 38 min. Lester del Rey (1915 - 1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books. Del Rey was awarded the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (for the Skylark) by the New England Science Fiction Association and a special 1985 Balrog Award for his contributions to fantasy, voted by fans and organized by Locus Magazine. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 11th SFWA Grand Master in 1990.

Victory

Where The World Is Quiet is a science fiction short story by Henry Kuttner (under the pen name of C. H. Liddell), first published in 1954. Fra Rafael saw strange things, impossible things. Then there was the mystery of the seven young virginal girls of Huascan. The life of an anthropologist is no doubt filled much of the time with the monotonous routine of carefully assembling powdery relics of ancient races and civilizations. But White's lone Peruvian odyssey was most unusual. A story pseudonymously penned by one of the greats in the genre. Where The World Is Quiet was first published in Fantastic Universe May 1954 Total Running Time (TRT): 43 min. Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror, an author who was one of the half dozen or so pillars of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi Marion Zimmer Bradley is among many authors who have cited Kuttner as an influence. Her novel The Bloody Sun is dedicated to him. Roger Zelazny has talked about the influence of The Dark World on his Amber series.

Where the World is Quiet

Rastignac The Devil is a science fiction novella by Philip José Farmer first published in Fantastic Universe May 1954. Here is high fidelity fiction at Philip José Farmer's story-telling best. It's a vibrant, distractingly different tale of three centuries into the future. And as you read you'll have a vague, uneasy feeling that it's all taking place somewhere in the unexplored parts of the universe, even today. French colonists on a planet ruled by reptiles and amphibians are forced to wear living “skins” that subdue aggression and enforce vegetarianism. As children, Rastignac and his reptile friend Mapfarity force themselves to become carnivores and begin a protein fueled journey that causes Rastignac to develop a Philosophy of Violence. When a spaceship from Earth crashes in the ocean, Rastignac and company must put their philosophy to the test. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 59 min. Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds.

Rastignac The Devil

No Strings Attached is a science fiction short story by American author Lester del Ray, first published in 1954. Poor Henry was an unhappy husband whose wife had a habit of using bad clichès. Alféar was a genii who was, quite like most humans, a creature of habit. Their murder compact was absolutely perfect, with—no strings attached. No Strings Attached was first published in IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Total Running Time (TRT): 29 min. Lester del Rey (1915 - 1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books. Del Rey was awarded the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction (for the Skylark) by the New England Science Fiction Association and a special 1985 Balrog Award for his contributions to fantasy, voted by fans and organized by Locus Magazine. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 11th SFWA Grand Master in 1990.

No Strings Attached

The Hate Disease is a science fiction novella by Murray Leinster first published in 1963. The Med Service people hit strange problems as routine: if they weren't weirdos, they weren't tough enough to merit Med Service attention. Now the essence of a weird problem is that it involves a factor nobody ever thought of before ... or the absence of one nobody ever missed ... Dr. Calhoun and his pet tormal Murgatroyd work for the Interstellar Medical Service making routine public health inspections on far-flung colonial planets. When they reach Tallien Three they are greeted with a rocket attack by the Paras, a mutated form of human rapidly replacing the “normals”. The normals think it’s a pandemic of demonic possession but Calhoun has his doubts. If he can keep from turning into a Para, or being assassinated by them he just might figure this thing out. The Hate Disease was first published in Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1963. Total Running Time (TRT): 2 hours, 1 min. Murray Leinster (1896-1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

The Hate Disease

Stamped Caution is a science fiction novella by Raymond Z. Gallun first published in 1953. ”It's a funny thing, but most monsters seem to be of the opinion that it's men who are the monsters. You know, they have a point.” When an alien spacecraft crashes in Missouri a team of army investigators is dispatched. Among the debris they find a Martian infant and decide to raise him in their lab. Is he too strange to form a relationship with humans? Maybe, but he does have cute eye-stalks. Stamped Caution was first published in the August 1953 issue of Galaxy magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 15 min. Raymond Zinke Gallun (1911-1994) was an American science fiction writer and one of the early sci-fi pulp writers who popularized the genre. His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961. Gallun was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the award was later renamed The Raymond Z. Gallun Award. His pen names includes Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymond and William Callahan.

Stamped Caution

The Hated is a science fiction short story by Frederik Pohl first published in 1958 under the name Paul Flehr. After space, there was always one more river to cross ... the far side of hatred and murder! Unfortunately, there is a side-effect to locking a half-dozen men in a cramped space ship to Mars for nine months - they end up loathing each other and actively wanting to kill one another by the time they get back. This is the story of one crewman's attempts to find a killer of a shipmate. The Hated was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in January 1958. Total Running Time (TRT): 22 min. Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (1919-2013) was an American science fiction writer and editor, with a career spanning more than seventy-five years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Hated

The Runaway Skyscraper is a science fiction novella by Murray Leinster first published in 1919. Arthur Chamberlain has problems. His one-man engineering firm is faltering and his pretty secretary Estelle barely notices him. But these problems are put aside when his Manhattan office building falls into the fourth dimension. Madison Square is filled with wigwams and it’s up to Arthur to engineer a way to make his building to fall back to the future. The Runaway Skyscraper first appeared in the February 22, 1919 issue of Argosy magazine. Total Running Time (TRT): 1 hour, 42 min. Murray Leinster (1896-1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

The Runaway Skyscraper

The Valor of Cappen Varra is a science fiction short story by Poul W. Anderson first published in 1957. "Let little Cappen go," they shouted. "Maybe he can sing the trolls to sleep—" We have said that there are many and strange shadows, memories surviving from dim pasts, in this FANTASTIC UNIVERSE of ours. Poul Anderson turns to a legend from the Northern countries, countries where even today the pagan past seems only like yesterday, and tells the story of Cappen Varra, who came to Norren a long, long time ago. The Valor of Cappen Varra was first published in Fantastic Universe January 1957. Total Running Time (TRT): 31min. Poul William Anderson (1926-2001) was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

The Valor of Cappen Varra

Duel on Syrtis is a science fiction short story by Poul W. Anderson first published in 1951. The Man Who Meant To Kill A Martian Bold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red deserts . . . a Martian! The night whispered the message. Over the many miles of loneliness it was borne, carried on the wind, rustled by the half-sentient lichens and the dwarfed trees, murmured from one to another of the little creatures that huddled under crags, in caves, by shadowy dunes. In no words, but in a dim pulsing of dread which echoed through Kreega's brain, the warning ran… "They are hunting again. They are hunting me." Total Running Time (TRT): 44 minutes. Duel on Syrtis was first published in Planet Stories in March 1951. Poul William Anderson (1926-2001) was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Duel on Syrtis

Attention Saint Patrick is a science fiction short story by Murray Leinster, first published in 1960. Legends do, of course, get somewhat distorted in the passage of time. In the future, the passage across space to other planets may cause a slight modification here and there ... On a planet intended to be the overflow world for Earth's Ireland, an inspection team from Earth arrive to find out what's taking the original colonists so long to become self-supporting. The problem is tiny dinosaurs with carbide teeth that eat the colonists' iron. There is a solution. Large black snakes have been imported to hunt the beasts, but nobody wants the committee to see them, since there are no snakes in Ireland. Things quickly go to hell. Attention Saint Patrick was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1960. Total Running Time (TRT): 45 min. Murray Leinster (1896-1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

Attention Saint Patrick

Red Nails is the last of the stories about Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard. A novella, it was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from July to October 1936. It is set in the pseudo historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan encountering a lost city in which the degenerate inhabitants are proactively resigned to their own destruction. Due to its grim themes of decay and death, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore and is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.

Red Nails

Black Amazon of Mars is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett. This is the third story to feature Brackett’s hero Eric John Stark. This gore drenched story finds Eric John Stark, the barely civilized warrior raised on Mercury struggling to bring a dying Martian friend back to his home city in the North of Mars before he passes away. Unfortunately, his friend does die on the way and lays a most unwanted last request on Stark before the end; to bring a precious stolen talisman back to the city. The journey there introduces the intimidating Black Amazon of Mars. Stark was born on Mercury. His parents were employees of the mineral extraction company Mercury Metals and Mining. After his parents died in a cave-in caused by a quake, Stark was adopted by a tribe of Mercurian aborigines who are described as hairy and possessing snouts. They gave him the name N'Chaka, meaning "the man without a tribe". He believed himself to be one of them, rather than a human, and endured their rigorous way of life in the Mercurian Twilight Belt, surviving by hunting rock-lizards. Before Stark was fully grown, another group of human miners exterminated his tribe, captured Stark and imprisoned him in a cage. They would ultimately have killed him if he had not been rescued by the police official Simon Ashton, who raised Stark to adulthood. The stories of the adult Stark are fast-paced adventures, but Brackett manages to insert more pathos than most authors. Because of his background, Stark is keenly aware of the injustices visited on the planetary "primitives" by the colonialist Earth, and tends to side with them against official bodies. Black Amazon of Mars is the third story to feature Brackett’s hero Eric John Stark, and was later expanded into the novel People of the Talisman. It was first published in Planet Stories magazine in 1951. AUDIO: Reading by Gregg Margarite, running time: 2 hours, 34 min. Unabridged full version. E-book: ePUB, 24.000 words, reading time approximately 2 hours. Leigh Douglass Brackett (1915-1978) was an American author, particularly of science fiction, and has been referred to as the Queen of Space Opera. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on such films as The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959) and The Long Goodbye (1973). She was the first woman shortlisted for the Hugo Award.

Black Amazon of Mars

The Horla by Guy de Maupassant Audiobook (French: Le Horla) is an 1887 short horror story written in the style of a journal by the French writer Guy de Maupassant, after an initial, much shorter version published in the newspaper Gil Blas, October 26, 1886. Summary In the form of a journal, the narrator, an upper-class, unmarried, bourgeois man, conveys his troubled thoughts and feelings of anguish. This anguish occurs for four days after he sees a "superb three-mast" Brazilian ship and impulsively waves to it, unconsciously inviting the supernatural being aboard the boat to haunt his home. All around him, he senses the presence of a being that he calls the "Horla". The torment that the Horla causes is first manifested physically: The narrator complains that he suffers from "an atrocious fever", and that he has trouble sleeping. He wakes up from nightmares with the chilling feeling that someone is watching him and "kneeling on [his] chest." Throughout the short story, the main character's sanity, or rather, his feelings of alienation, are put into question as the Horla progressively dominates his thoughts. Initially, the narrator himself questions his sanity, exclaiming "Am I going mad?" after having found his glass of water empty, despite not having drunk from it. He later decides that he is not, in fact, going mad, since he is fully "conscious" of his "state" and that he could indeed "analyze it with the most complete lucidity." The presence of the Horla becomes more and more intolerable to the protagonist, as it is "watching...looking at...[and] dominating" him. After reading about a large number of Brazilians who fled their homes, bemoaning the fact that "they are pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle by...a species of vampire, which feeds on their life while they are asleep...[and] drinks water," the narrator soon realizes the Horla was aboard the Brazilian three-mast boat that he had previously greeted. He feels so "lost" and "possessed" to the point that he is ready to kill the Horla. The narrator traps the Horla in a room and sets fire to the house, but forgets his servants, who perish in the fire. In the last lines of the story, faced with the persistence of the Horla's presence, he concludes suicide to be his only liberation.

The Horla

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