Free summaries
Novels — page 23
2,439 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 23 of 51.
Purple Forever
Jack Lewis
A weary pilot and a ragtag crew of seekers arrive on Venus, hunting for a legendary fountain of youth that promised immortality, only to discover a nightmare of cold-blooded biological theft.
The curse of the painted cliffs
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A tough young woman in a brutal desert mining town holds out against corruption while waiting to settle a debt of honor.
The Girl in His Mind
Robert F. Young
HOOK A professional investigator of the human psyche discovers that to solve his most difficult case, he must hunt a suspect through the labyrinthine, hallucinated landscape of his own buried memories.
The Rebel of Valkyr
Alfred Coppel
A weary warrior-lord must navigate a treacherous imperial court and a web of dark, forbidden science to save a princess from a usurper’s lethal machinations.
You Can't Buy Eternity!
Dwight V. Swain
** A man hunted across the desolate wastes of Venus holds a secret that could rewrite the nature of existence. He must navigate a web of betrayals where eternity itself is the most dangerous currency of all.
A Colonial Reformer, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Rolf Boldrewood
An idealistic English gentleman travels to Australia with the lofty ambition of reforming colonial society, only to find himself repeatedly humbled by the harsh realities of the frontier.
Cat and Mouse
Ralph Williams
In the frozen silence of an Alaskan wilderness, a lonely trapper discovers a rift in reality. He must outwit an alien intelligence that views his entire world as nothing more than a field for harvest.
Hare and Tortoise
Pierre Coalfleet
A young woman struggles to bridge the chasm between her own intuitive, impulsive spirit and her husband’s rigid, cultivated world in the rugged landscape of the Canadian West.
Never Come Midnight
H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold
In this science fiction narrative, a bitter man seeks to cheat death through a dark alien bargain, only to find that his quest for immortality transforms him into a hollow artifact of his own resentment.
Pariahs of Piperock
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
This Western tale follows two wandering prospectors who find themselves caught in the crossfire of a small-town election, proving that in the rugged West, peace and quiet are often the first casualties of a democratic vote.
The Delectable Mountains
Arthur Colton
The spirit of this collection is found in the wayfarer’s quiet gaze, observing the fragile, often eccentric lives of those dwelling on the margins of society. It is a meditation on human dignity, found in places where the world expects only ruin.
The Shadow of the Past
F. E. Mills (Florence Ethel Mills) Young
The Shadow of the Past is a story of shifting allegiances, where the lingering scars of the South African War collide with the private, often volatile, romantic lives of those attempting to move forward.
The Tower Rooms
Mary Grant Bruce
A weary governess seeks a quiet respite at a grand estate, only to find herself shielding a desperate secret and protecting a family from the intrusion of the law.
The vanguard of Venus
Landell Bartlett
This is a classic tale of cosmic horror that finds its terror not in the stars, but in the dark, hollowed-out places of the American Southwest. It frames the impossible as a matter of geological observation, grounding a fantastic encounter in the dry, rational tone of a man who spent his life measuring the earth.
Two Women or One? From the Mss. of Dr. Leonard Benary
Henry Harland
The boundary between a person’s past and their current self is as fragile as a bone. When a physician discovers a woman on the brink of suicide, he offers her a radical, irreversible escape: the surgical erasure of her memory.
Frigid Fracas
Mack Reynolds
A soldier’s quest for status in a rigid, caste-bound future reveals a deeper, shared stagnation between rival global powers. What begins as a personal climb up the social ladder evolves into an unlikely cross-border conspiracy to reform civilization itself.
Ribbon in the sky
Murray Leinster
A medical officer and his small, furry companion navigate a galaxy of human error, discovering that the most dangerous illnesses are often those we invent to keep ourselves apart.
The Fisher Girl
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
A high-spirited young woman navigates the turbulence of her Norwegian coastal home, eventually discovering that her restless, artistic soul finds its true purpose only when tempered by discipline, faith, and reconciliation.
The Hero of Hill House
Mabel Hale
When an alcoholic father leaves seven children without care, a fourteen-year-old boy steps up to keep the family together against impossible odds.
The Man Who Saved the Earth
Austin Hall
The universe is a vast, interconnected machine, and when its delicate balance is disturbed, the consequences are both cosmic and catastrophic. A brilliant, reluctant scientist must confront the terrifying power he himself has unleashed.
The Voyage of Vanishing Men
Stanley Mullen
The lone survivor of a disastrous deep-space mission recounts his ordeal to a skeptical audience, forever haunted by the mystery of his lost crew.
Traitor's Choice
Paul W. Fairman
The price of human love is often measured in duty, but for one man, the cost is the survival of his own civilization. Caught between a kidnapper’s blade and a planetary betrayal, he must decide what he is willing to destroy.
Pelican Pool: A Novel
Sydney Loch
The vast, indifferent beauty of the Australian North acts as a crucible for human longing, testing the hearts of those drawn to its heat. This narrative explores how desire and duty collide in the wilderness.
The Blue Tower
Evelyn E. Smith
A quiet young poet destroys humanity's gentle alien guardians when his earnest attempt to protect them accidentally breaches their deadly defenses.
The Cyberene
Rog Phillips
A disembodied, god-like intellect from the future reaches back through time to enslave a research scientist, setting the stage for a desperate struggle for human autonomy.
The Star Guardsman
Albert dePina
A lone hero defies a tyrannical interplanetary government to save a desperate population, only to discover that the struggle for freedom requires an alliance with an ancient, telepathic species.
Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A mysterious mental bond ties a young woman to a strange man before they ever meet, pulling her away from the comfortable, civilized marriage her family expects.
Crisis on Titan
James R. Adams
A weary patrol faces a dual threat on the harsh surface of Titan: a desperate mining quota and a violent, entrenched enemy force. The survival of human spaceflight hangs in the balance, resting on the ingenuity of a commander who must weaponize the planet's bizarre, short-lived inhabitants.
Martin Birck's youth
Hjalmar Söderberg
A quiet, piercing portrait of a young man navigating the divide between the warmth of childhood illusions and the cold, skeptical clarity of adulthood.
The changed brides
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
A young woman’s devotion is tested by a man who believes his secret betrayal has left her legally abandoned. This tale of matrimonial mystery navigates the precarious social codes of the nineteenth-century American South.
Black Silence
Robert Emmett McDowell
Returning from Mars, an expedition crew discovers Earth is being consumed by a lethal, alien plague. They must now navigate the ruins of civilization and the desperate politics of survival.
Dark Destiny
Dwight V. Swain
The wandering warrior Haral seeks a destiny of power, but finds his true self only when he risks his life to defend a woman he once intended to betray. This fast-paced adventure explores the hollow promise of absolute authority through the lens of a weary, battle-hardened man navigating a dying world.
Five and ten
Fannie Hurst
A self-made titan of industry finds his vast fortune—built upon the humble foundations of the five-and-ten-cent store—cannot purchase the affection or the happiness of his increasingly alienated, high-society family.
Gold in the Sky
Alan Edward Nourse
Two brothers navigate space-age corporate sabotage after their father’s suspicious death in the asteroid belt, eventually uncovering an extraordinary discovery that could liberate humanity from a corrupt monopoly.
Minions of the Crystal Sphere
Albert dePina
The struggle against an invisible, crystalline tyranny erupts on a cold and gas-choked Neptune. A young, disillusioned scientist rises from the ranks of the oppressed to dismantle a floating empire.
'Murphy': A Message to Dog Lovers
Ernest Gambier-Parry
The profound, often silent, connection between humanity and the dog serves as a bridge to understanding our own place in the natural order. This reflection explores the depth of that bond and the hope for its endurance.
Peril of the Starmen
Kris Neville
The universe is unraveling, and Earth must be destroyed to save it. A small crew of extraterrestrials arrives to facilitate this final, desperate act, only to find their own humanity—and the planet's—becoming an impossible obstacle.
The Argonauts
Eliza Orzeszkowa
The pursuit of gold is a solitary, hollow voyage that leaves the traveler stranded when the harbor of human connection is finally reached. This stark study of obsession examines the wreckage left behind by those who chase the golden fleece at the expense of their own souls.
The Chamber of Life
Green Peyton
A man accepts an invitation to experience a revolutionary new technology, only to find himself trapped between a meticulously ordered future and the stark reality of his own life. The line between dream and wakefulness dissolves, leaving him forever changed by a love that never technically existed.
The Other Now
Murray Leinster
HOOK When a grieving husband discovers a doorway between his reality and a world where his wife survived, the boundary between life and death begins to dissolve.
The perfect wife
Phyllis Bottome
When her husband falls in love with a younger woman, a meticulous and unshakeable wife arranges their divorce, engineering an unconventional journey through Italy to keep them all close.
The starmen
Leigh Brackett
The Starmen follows a man who discovers he is an outsider to his own planet, only to find he belongs to a secretive, star-faring race that holds the entire galaxy in a rigid, monopolistic grip.
Captain Midas
Alfred Coppel
A desperate salvage captain stumbles upon a derelict starship made of a mysterious, shifting metal, only to discover that the substance demands a horrific price for its transformation into gold.
Clarice Egerton's life story
Annette Lyster
HOOK A young girl, left crippled by a childhood accident, discovers that her limited strength is no barrier to a life of profound purpose and quiet influence.
Dawn
Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
A young man confronts a life-altering disability with the help of a resilient, plain-spoken housekeeper and a quiet, persistent love. This story tracks the movement from the isolation of despair to the dawn of a new, purposeful existence.
Equation of Doom
Gerald Vance
In a galaxy where the secrets of ancient, god-like progenitors remain hidden in the timeless folds of hyper-space, one desperate pilot and a driven actress race to claim a power that could reshape reality itself.
Exile From Venus
E. Hoffmann Price
HOOK A cynical Venusian doctor journeys to a ruined, post-apocalyptic Earth to steal a fabled ruby, only to find himself entangled in the brutal survivalism of a tribal society.
Gossamer
George A. Birmingham
A quiet, high-minded financial web spun across international borders meets the sudden, shattering blow of the First World War.