Free summaries
Novels — page 25
2,094 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 25 of 44.
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.
On the wings of fate
Effie Adelaide Rowlands
A young woman must navigate the wreckage of her family’s social standing, discovering that the most formidable obstacles to her happiness are often the secrets kept by those she trusts.
Pied Piper of Mars
Frederic Arnold Kummer
The siren song of a mysterious musician threatens to incite a violent Martian uprising, leaving one investigator to battle both a rogue scientist and the terrifying power of sound itself.
Self Portrait
Bernard Wolfe
The pursuit of scientific mastery often requires a sacrifice of the self, as one brilliant researcher discovers when his cold ambition clashes with the cynical, subversive reality of his colleagues’ secret work at a high-security facility.
The Beasts in the Void
Paul W. Fairman
A space pilot, shattered by the death of his beloved, finds himself trapped in a cosmic phenomenon that brings his darkest memories to physical life. He must fight to stay awake and keep his passengers unconscious before their own terrors tear the ship apart.
Tim
Howard Overing Sturgis
The story of a frail boy finding his place in a world of robust expectations, this novel explores the depth of childhood loyalty and the quiet ache of unrequited understanding.
When Thoughts Will Soar: A romance of the immediate future
Bertha von Suttner
A visionary young woman rejects the constraints of her aristocratic upbringing to advocate for peace and social progress in an era teetering on the edge of global catastrophe.
Conspiracy on Callisto
Frederik Pohl
Conspiracy on Callisto pits an amnesiac undercover operative against a corrupt colonial governor in a desperate race across space to prevent a bloody moon-wide revolution.
Med Ship Man
Murray Leinster
A sector-hopping medical officer arrives at a silent world, only to find an entire population missing and a ruthless corporate land grab underway.
St. Cuthbert's tower
Florence Warden
A family's move to a quiet Yorkshire farm uncovers a decade-old mystery, testing love, community prejudice, and the shadow of an unpunished crime.
The dangerous inheritance
Izola L. (Izola Louise) Forrester
In Post-World War I New York, a young singer named Carlota Trelango finds her opera career entangled with stolen royal jewels, shadowy international spies, and competing suitors in Greenwich Village.
The Green Dream
Bryce Walton
Desperate to escape his own crimes, a ruthless colonist murders his twin brother and steals his place in a frozen-sleep experiment, unaware that his mind carries a hidden vector of total ruin.
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.
Under a Charm: A Novel. Vol. II
E. Werner
Caught between family loyalty and a rising storm, a proud heir must choose between the lands of his ancestors and the woman who disdains him.
Disaster Revisited
Stephen Marlowe
A terminal medical diagnosis drives the world's richest man to hatch an unthinkable plot against all of humanity across time.
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.
The Standardized Man
Stephen Bartholomew
A society's quest for ultimate economic stability backfires when its attempt to make human life perfectly predictable collides with a single chemical flaw.