Free summaries
Novels — page 24
2,572 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 24 of 54.
The Mouthpiece of Zitu
J. U. (John Ulrich) Giesy
An earthbound soul projection, an alien war, and a love that bridges galaxies define this vintage planetary romance.
The Pagan's Progress
Gouverneur Morris
A hunter discovers love and invents the bow, only to lose everything in a primitive world moving slowly toward light.
Katherine's Sheaves
Sheldon, Georgie, Mrs.
A young woman brings her quiet faith to a New York boarding school, quietly reshaping the lives of her hostile classmates and a skeptical physician through the quiet practice of healing.
Left hand, right hand
James H. Schmitz
Bound in a desperate struggle for survival, human captives and alien oppressors face off in a cold, distant solar system where the ultimate weapon is hidden in plain sight.
Mind Worms
Moses Schere
An Earth diplomat traveling to Venus confronts the creeping terror of alien superiority, only to be saved by a forgotten spacefarer's absurd lesson about the universe's cosmic fools.
Security
Poul Anderson
In a world where Security is the supreme law, total conformity is the only way to survive. Allen Lancaster, a brilliant physicist, discovers that the ultimate secret to his own freedom is hidden in the one place he is forbidden to look.
Suite Mentale
Randall Garrett
An isolated genius discovers that total self-knowledge opens the human mind to others, transforming a tragic lobotomy into a quiet, unstoppable revolution.
The Desert Healer
E. M. (Edith Maude) Hull
An Englishwoman trapped in a brutal marriage finds an unexpected savior in a reclusive nobleman who roams the Algerian desert under a secret name.
The Eyes of Thar
Henry Kuttner
Across the parched, dying landscape of Mars, a lone outlaw walks directly into an ancient trap, only to find that the greatest ghost haunting him is not the dead past, but a face reaching across dimensions.
The Master Mummer
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
An impulsive act of kindness pulls three struggling artists into a dangerous web of international intrigue and aristocratic secrets, centering on the mysterious, vulnerable girl they rescue from a train-bound stranger.
Thunder in the void
Henry Kuttner
A hardened convict escapes into a arctic blizzard, only to be forced into a suicidal voyage to Pluto that shatters mankind's understanding of the solar system.
Border bred
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A orphan boy rides across the Mexican border to rescue a kidnapped seven-year-old girl, confronting the drug smuggler who murdered his father and burning down a town's illegal cargo.
Holiday stories
Ruth Lamb
A girl’s impulsive embrace of a seamstress set against an old woman's cold tyranny captures the quiet moral choices that shape a life.
Jean Craig, Graduate Nurse
Kay Lyttleton
A young woman steps into small-town nursing just as sudden illness and sweeping epidemics test her practical skill, her family's resilience, and her quiet plans for a future in medical art.
The burning world
Algis Budrys
In a world that won the war for absolute freedom, the hardest battle turns out to be surviving the peace.
The Coming of the Ice
Green Peyton
This story explores the harrowing trajectory of humanity through the eyes of its final survivor, an immortal man who sacrifices his capacity for love to witness the planet's slow, frozen expiration.
The Girls From Earth
Frank M. Robinson
Deep in the frontier territory of Midplanet, two rough-hewn fur trappers race against the clock to reach a muddy rocket port, desperate for their chance to draw a lottery ticket for an Earthborn bride.
The Golden House
Sarah S. (Sarah Schoonmaker) Baker
A young Italian boy finds a loving, humble home in Sweden, where his artistic soul and gentle spirit touch the lives of both impoverished neighbors and wealthy aristocrats. This heartwarming tale of belonging crosses cultural boundaries with quiet grace.
The Prison of the Stars
Stanley Mullen
Abandoned in deep space, a rogue adventurer must gather the most desperate convicts on a prison asteroid to hijack a supply ship, outwit an alien underground, and launch a desperate exodus to the stars.
The Troublemakers
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
An overregulated Earth forces its vibrant rebels into the stars by making conformity the law and exile the only escape.
The type-writer girl
Grant Allen
A fiercely independent young London woman takes up typewriting to earn her bread, drifting between office drudgery, a failed utopian commune, and an unexpected trial of the heart.
The Ultimate Salient
Nelson S. Bond
A man sitting in a peaceful Virginia garden receives a handwritten manuscript from the future—a chronicle detailing the collapse of human democracy and a desperate flight to the Moon. <Image alt="Vintage pulp science fiction magazine cover from Planet Stories" caption="Planet Stories Fall 1940 issue"…
The Valley of the Kings
Marmaduke William Pickthall
A naive Syrian painter gets swept up in the grand illusions of a visiting English tourist, mistaking Western patronage for true brotherhood until reality forces him home.
The White Sister
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
A profound struggle between earthly love and religious devotion, this narrative explores the boundaries of sacrifice. Set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Rome, it examines whether a heart once given to another can truly belong to God.
Far from Home
J. A. Taylor
This story captures the primal terror of being stranded in the void and the desperate, makeshift ingenuity required to survive when the laws of orbital mechanics turn against a solitary human.
Juggernaut: A Veiled Record
George Cary Eggleston
A brilliant, relentless intellect sacrifices love and morality to political power, driving his devoted wife to despair and leaving both their lives in ruins.
Katherine Lauderdale
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
Beneath the polished exterior of Gilded Age Manhattan lies a turbulent arena where pride, ancestral fortunes, and secret passions collision-course through the lives of the wealthy.
My tussle with the devil, and other stories
O. (Spirit) Henry
A series of ethereal, meditative vignettes presented as communications from the afterlife, exploring the persistence of love, the nature of growth, and the transition from material existence to spiritual clarity.
Nordenholt's Million
J. J. Connington
A rogue strain of soil bacteria strips the earth of nitrogen, plunging global agriculture into catastrophic crop failures and driving humanity to the brink of absolute extinction.
Queen of the Martian Catacombs
Leigh Brackett
A stark, atmospheric planetary romance of old Mars, where ancient sorcery collides with mercenary violence across red deserts and forgotten ruins.
The Day of Glory
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
A mother starves her own spirit to feed her six children in the dark days of war, holding back her breakdown only by forcing a smile for their sake.
The noise of the world
Adriana Spadoni
This is a story of two people navigating the friction between their intimate hopes and the relentless demands of an industrializing, chaotic society. It is an honest, unsentimental portrait of a marriage finding its footing in a changing world.
When the Sun went out
Leslie F. (Leslie Francis) Stone
This story follows the final generation of humanity as they abandon the frozen surface of a dying Earth to seek refuge in subterranean vaults. It is a haunting, melancholic vision of a civilization facing its inevitable end.
Dream World
R. A. Lafferty
The world is not what it seems, and the dream that terrorizes the waking mind may be more authentic than the life lived in the sun. This is a story about the fragility of reality.
Grey Roses
Henry Harland
The fragile charm of lost, bohemian lives and the bittersweet persistence of memory define these sketches of expatriate longing. They trace the quiet, often melancholy, contours of people seeking grace in a world that rarely offers it.
Harold's Bride: A Tale
A. L. O. E.
A young woman leaves behind the comforts of England to join her husband at a remote mission station in nineteenth-century India, where she finds that faith and courage are tested by more than just heat and dust.
Last Call for Doomsday!
Edmond Hamilton
HOOK As a rogue asteroid hurtles toward Earth, humanity’s desperate evacuation to Mars is sabotaged from within. One man must navigate a silent, ghost-ridden world to expose the conspiracy before the final collision.
Last Call From Sector 9G
Leigh Brackett
HOOK A disillusioned man finds himself caught in a web of interplanetary conspiracy and ancient, shadow-bound power when a simple job offer turns into a desperate struggle for survival.
Old Rose and Silver
Myrtle Reed
HOOK A quiet, evocative exploration of love, loss, and the resilience of the human heart, set within a circle of gifted, searching people.
Roden's Corner
Henry Seton Merriman
A charitable facade masks a lethal industrial secret, drawing a group of well-meaning socialites into a dangerous confrontation with a cold, calculating mastermind.
The girl he loved
Adelaide Stirling
A young woman’s impulsive, vengeful marriage to a notorious older man spirals into a nightmare of jealousy, poison, and a murder trial that threatens to destroy her and her true love.
The Star-Sent Knaves
Keith Laumer
A seemingly ordinary vault robbery spirals into a cosmic tangle of time travelers, interdimensional agents, and the secret, overarching legacy of human evolution.
Blow the Man Down
Charles L. Fontenay
A lone pirate hijacks a freighter only to find himself trapped in a high-stakes psychological game with the crew he meant to enslave. In the crushing silence of the vacuum, the hunter and the hunted must navigate the lethal indifference of deep space.
I Am a Nucleus
Stephen Barr
A mundane New York life suddenly warps into a whirlwind of impossible coincidences, revealing an unseen, growing intelligence that anchors itself to an unsuspecting man.
I, the Unspeakable
Walter J. Sheldon
A man trapped in a sterile, authoritarian future receives a name so scandalous it ruins his life, eventually leading him to a desperate, life-altering rebellion.
Identity
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
A brilliant but reluctant cryptologist must venture into the treacherous, fog-bound wilds of Venus to save the woman he loves, using the long-lost, forbidden knowledge of a rogue surgeon.
Italian Letters, Vols. I and II
William Godwin
A young man's unshakeable faith in his closest friend becomes the very instrument of his downfall when romantic jealousy and calculated betrayal test the limits of philosophical virtue.
Ladies Must Live
Alice Duer Miller
A cynical social satire turns on an unexpected hinge when two mercenary high-society players drop their defenses and fall in love. In 1910s New York, staying wealthy is a full-time job.