Showing results for "jack williamson9"

In The Cosmic Express, Jack Williamson imagines a dazzling future that feels less like progress than a beautiful trap. Eric Stokes-Harding lives in 2432 A.D. in a vast, climate-controlled New York sealed beneath a glass roof, where luxury, technology, and comfort have made life strangely stale. A fashionable novelist, he earns his fame writing thrilling tales of ape-men, cowboys, and castaways—hardy figures who flourish in danger, simplicity, and the open world his readers yearn to escape ...

On a sweltering El Paso afternoon, John Stewart meets Jimmy Miles, a starving young electrical engineer whose wild intelligence is matched only by his obsession with a scarlet, star-shaped crystal bought from a pawnshop. Jimmy believes the object came from ancient ruins in Chihuahua and may be a doorway to another world, and his eerie demonstrations seem to prove it: a sardine tin sent through the crystal returns battered and altered, as if it has crossed time itself. Stewart is drawn into...

Larry Manahan, a restless advertising man craving real adventure, is jolted from routine by a fearful phone call from Agnes Sterling, assistant to the reclusive scientist Dr. Travis Whiting. At Whiting's deserted home-laboratory, he finds fresh blood, a crushed revolver, and a bizarre floating globe suspended between pillars of colored light—a tiny living world complete with oceans, deserts, forests, and a city. What seems at first like a scientific marvel quickly becomes a nightmare when ...

On a distant planet where the jungle seems to breathe with malice, a survey team arrives to uncover the fate of six vanished expeditions. What they find is a world that hides its true nature behind a living mask—one of grotesque plants, silent death, and genetic mysteries beyond human understanding. At the center of the mission is Lance Llandark, a hard-edged pilot haunted by the disappearance of his wife, one of the lost explorers. As the crew probes the planet's strange biology, they dis...

Reporter Robert Barrett is pulled from routine into a nightmare of secret radio signals, vanished mine shipments, and red aircraft that seem to obey no earthly power. When a thorium factory in St. Louis is devastated by a luminous purple gas that cancels gravity, Barrett and veteran operative Bill Johnson are drawn into a race across Mexico and the Pacific, using the remarkable Camel-back to chase a threat that grows more impossible by the hour. At El Tigre Mine in the Sierra Madre, Barret...

When Stephen, a young history teacher, is summoned to the opulent Long Island estate of his brilliant, enigmatic uncle, Enfield Conway, he expects a family reunion and instead finds a doorway into the impossible. Conway, a fabulously wealthy inventor, offers Stephen a fortune and the prospect of becoming his heir if he will help test a secret machine built in a hidden laboratory over eleven years—a sealed craft powered by a mysterious force that can suspend gravity and, as rumor has it, ma...

A remarkable collection, Robots through the Ages includes stories from some of the best writers of science fiction, both old and new.This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica t...

"99 Science Fiction Short Stories" brings together some of the finest sci fi short stories ever crafted. Featuring gems from masters of the genre, such as H.G Wells , Robert Barr , PKD, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Norton, and many, many more!

"An excellent collection" of vampire stories, from authors such as Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Gahan Wilson, and Tanith Lee ( Publishers Weekly ).Renowned editor Ellen Datlow has gathered seventeen variations on vampirism ranging from classically Gothic to postmodern satire, from horrific to erotic. These stories reflect the evolution of vampire literature from Bram Stoker to Anne Rice and beyond, resulting in a deeper ex...

The story follows the crew of the spaceship "Comet," who salvage derelict spacecraft and space debris for profit. However, their routine salvage operation takes a dangerous turn when they discover a mysterious alien artifact aboard a wrecked spaceship. As they investigate the artifact, they uncover secrets that could have far-reaching consequences for humanity."Salvage in Space" is celebrated for its imaginative world-building, gripping plot, and innovative ideas. Jack Williamson was known...

The plot revolves around the discovery of a miniature planet, dubbed "Pygmy," which orbits a larger world. The inhabitants of Pygmy are tiny compared to humans and have developed their own unique civilization. When humans first encounter Pygmy, they are fascinated by its diminutive inhabitants and their advanced technology.The protagonist of the story is an Earth scientist who travels to Pygmy to study its inhabitants and learn about their culture. However, he soon discovers that all is no...

We found the stranger, when we unlocked the bungalow after a week on the lakes, seated at my big desk in the study. His face was an enigma of youth and age. Lean beneath his long white hair, it was gray and drawn and hollowed as if with an infinite heartbreak—and yet it smiled. His emaciated hand, thrust out across the pile of loose yellow sheets he had written, gripped an incredible thing...FROM THE BOOKS.