Free summaries
Novels — page 27
2,236 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 27 of 47.
The Dwindling Years
Lester Del Rey
An aging executive learns that humanity's immortality treatment is failing, leaving him with only thirty years to live unless he risks everything on a faster-than-light journey.
The Mating of the Moons
Bryce Walton
A disillusioned tourist on a commercialized Mars breaks away from the packaged lies to chase a deadly, shimmering truth.
The Sense of Wonder
Stephen Marlowe
Lost in a boundless cosmic void, a forgotten human crew forgets its destination until a solitary voyager dares to question the automated world keeping them alive.
A Cigarette-Maker's Romance
F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
An impoverished Russian aristocrat clings to a delusion of returning to his lost fortune while working in a Munich cigarette factory, sustained only by the quiet devotion of a woman who loves him.
A Fall of Glass
Stanley R. Lee
Every lock has its key, but under the controlled ceiling of a fake sky, a simple obsession with weather can shatter an entire world.
Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest
Harold Bindloss
A sturdy pioneer fights for his homestead, his mineral rights, and the heart of a proud aristocrat against the backdrop of the rugged Canadian wilderness.
Bring Back My Brain!
Dwight V. Swain
A man wakes up in a void of memory, hunted by a sinister conspiracy and a shadow-being that demands his absolute submission. He must reclaim his identity before his own creator destroys him.
Cerebrum
Albert Teichner
A single corrupted thought-line exposes the slow decay of humanity’s organic switchboard, severing a couple from society and forcing them into a quiet underground that alone will survive the mind’s final collapse.
Critical difference
Murray Leinster
A lone survey officer on a dying, frozen world must solve a planetary-scale climate catastrophe. He finds that even the most desperate technical ingenuity requires a touch of human connection to become a miracle.
Fenella
Henry Longan Stuart
The sun beats down on a sun-drenched beach, where a young woman rises from the surf, unaware that the elemental forces of life and death are already converging upon her future.
Lion Loose
James H. Schmitz
A rogue criminal faction locks down a floating space hotel to pull off a multi-million-credit heist, unaware that their secret weapon—a deadly alien capable of walking through solid walls—has just broken free.
No Sons Left to Die!
Hal Annas
HOOK In a future where humanity’s survival depends on child soldiers and endless labor, a young factory worker dares to break the rules to find the boy she once loved.
The Butterfly Kiss
Arthur Dekker Savage
A scientist engineered for superior speed and mind-over-matter abilities infiltrates a ruthless alien regime to sabotage their war fleet before a galactic conflict wipes out human history.
The Gifts of Asti
Andre Norton
A priestess flees a dying city, guided by a telepathic reptilian companion to recover ancient, world-altering technology from the depths of a desolate planet.
The high ones
Poul Anderson
The survivors of a fractured starship crew discover a stagnant alien civilization, forcing a reckoning between the rigid ideologies they carried from Earth and the chilling reality of a society that has surrendered its own autonomy.
The Impersonator
Robert Wicks
The Earth is dying under the crushing weight of an advancing ice age, and a man named Paul Chandler is humanity’s last, desperate hope. But as he races to save the world, he discovers that his own identity is a puzzle designed by forces far beyond his control.
The Unnecessary Man
Randall Garrett
A cynical exploration of power and loyalty, this story reveals how an imperial government maintains control through the calculated sacrifice of its own servants.
The Warlock of Sharrador
Gardner F. (Gardner Francis) Fox
The fate of the galaxy hinges on a humble musician, a captive soul, and a cosmic struggle between god-like entities. A lone spacefarer must resist the siren call of absolute power to save his people from an ancient, parasitic evil.
Alide: an episode of Goethe's life
Emma Lazarus
HOOK A brilliant young man enters a quiet country parsonage in disguise, sparking an intense romance that ultimately fractures under the weight of his soaring ambition and restless spirit.
All Day September
Roger Kuykendall
A lone prospector, stranded by a meteor strike on the desolate Moon, must turn his ingenuity into a lifeline. Survival hinges not just on resourcefulness, but on the stubborn, quiet pride of a man who knows his own worth.
Culm Rock: The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught
Glance Gaylord
An orphaned boy arrives at a barren coastal outpost, where his presence slowly melts his uncle's tragic isolation and inspires a quiet mission to redeem the local community.
In the Control Tower
Will Mohler
Dewforth, a man trapped in a world of meaningless labor, is haunted by a mysterious, looming structure he calls the Control Tower. His obsessive search for its purpose leads him to an unexpected and desolate destination.
Revolt on the Earth-Star
Carl Selwyn
A lone human brain, trapped in a cold, metallic shell, discovers that his fight for survival is the only thing standing between the last of humanity and their extinction.
The Devil: A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience
Joseph O'Brien
A single day in Vienna exposes the fragile boundary between civilized restraint and suppressed desire when a mysterious stranger manipulates an artist and a married woman.
The Devil's Asteroid
Manly Wade Wellman
Abandoned on a twenty-mile pebble of rock, human convicts discover that their Martian jailers have rigged the atmosphere to strip away their humanity, driving them backward down the evolutionary ladder until a disgraced Earthman fights to reclaim their minds.
The Letter of the Contract
Basil King
An impulse as small as skipping a routine check on her children sends a woman down a path that quietly dismantles her marriage.
The shadow girl
Ray Cummings
A mysterious, futuristic tower materializes in 1945 New York, pulling two friends into a desperate, centuries-spanning struggle against a malevolent rival who wields the secrets of time.
The Wind People
Marion Zimmer Bradley
A mother and her son, abandoned on a lush, uninhabited planet, struggle to survive against the crushing weight of their isolation and the encroaching influence of an unseen, ethereal presence. This haunting narrative explores the thin boundary between reality and madness when two humans are the only anchors in a…
War-Gods of the Void
Henry Kuttner
The detective Jerry Vanning pursues a political fugitive across the treacherous Venusian wilderness, only to be drawn into a hidden city where an inhuman race enslaves the lost. He must reconcile his duty to the law with the sudden, desperate necessity of liberating a subterranean kingdom.
Down to Earth
Harry Harrison
After a lunar mission goes awry, two American astronauts return to an Earth that looks like home—but is governed by a terrifyingly different history.
Genevra
G. G. (Genevieve Genevra) Fairfield
A young woman’s life unfolds in a bittersweet narrative of abandonment, artistic ambition, and the isolating search for a love that remains just beyond her grasp.
Jan Vedder's Wife
Amelia E. Barr
The story follows the fragile marriage of a proud Shetland fisherman and his strong-willed wife, whose inability to communicate leads to a painful separation and a long, testing journey toward mutual understanding and ultimate peace.
McGonigal's Worm
R. A. Lafferty
The human race faces an abrupt, inexplicable extinction when fertility vanishes across the globe. As the last generation ages, the world scrambles to find a successor, eventually pinning its desperate hopes on a single, lowly creature.
Space Oasis
Raymond Z. (Raymond Zinke) Gallun
The frontier of space is a harsh master, but for those with enough grit and vision, even a barren, airless asteroid can be transformed into a living, green sanctuary.
The Cavern of the Shining Ones
Hal K. Wells
A desperate band of laborers unearths an ancient, subterranean tomb where a predatory alien race awaits its resurrection. They must overcome both the invaders' superior technology and their own inevitable annihilation.
The swing of the pendulum
Adriana Spadoni
This story follows a woman navigating the tension between professional ambition and the pull of romantic connection in a changing world. It offers a candid look at the compromises and self-discoveries that define a modern life.
August First
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
A young woman facing a grim diagnosis steps into an empty parish house during a midsummer thunderstorm, seeking a reason not to end her life.
Beneath the Red World's Crust
Erik Fennel
A hardened soldier and a scientist’s daughter flee an oppressive regime across a dying, alien landscape to reclaim their freedom. They must navigate a world of treacherous, shifting ruins and sentient, living architecture to survive.
Doctor Luke of the Labrador
Norman Duncan
A motherless boy grows up on the wild, fog-choked coast of Labrador, where sea-borne tragedy and religious dread give way to healing when a mysterious doctor arrives.
Menace of the Mists
H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold
A desperate struggle unfolds on a fog-drenched, alien world where human miners face a relentless, hive-minded enemy. Four men must outwit a biological force that threatens to reclaim their planet by force.
Once a Greech
Evelyn E. Smith
A well-meaning crew of terrestrial explorers mistakes the natural biological metamorphosis of a gentle alien life-form for a profound cosmic religion, with absurd and irreversible consequences for everyone on board.
Operation Distress
Lester Del Rey
An astronaut returning from the first successful mission to Mars faces a terrifying, undiagnosed illness, only to discover that the greatest threats to a pioneer are often the small oversights left behind on Earth.
The black Flemings
Kathleen Thompson Norris
Hook Trapped in the shadow of a crumbling ancestral estate, a young woman must navigate the dark secrets of a dysfunctional family to find a path toward her own future.
The Silver Bar mystery
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The West is no longer the wide-open frontier of legend, but for two drifting cowboys, a simple cattle town still holds enough secrets to demand a reckoning. What begins as a card game spirals into a web of kidnapping, hidden identities, and long-buried scores that must be settled in blood.
The Virgin of Valkarion
Poul Anderson
The sword-scarred wanderer Alfric rides into a dying city, where an ancient prophecy and the mating of two moons force him to choose between his freedom and the survival of a queen.
Time and the Woman
G. Gordon (George Gordon) Dewey
HOOK Driven by a desperate, vanity-fueled obsession with eternal youth, an aging woman hijacks an experimental faster-than-light spaceship, only to discover that the laws of physics are crueler than the ravages of time.
A Gleeb for Earth
Charles Schafhauser
This epistolary chronicle captures the frantic, booze-fueled downfall of an alien invader who discovers that conquering Earth is far less satisfying than succumbing to its intoxicating vices.
Beyond the Fearful Forest
Robert W. Krepps
The hunt for a monstrous predator leads a curious hunter into a forbidden forest, where he discovers that the greatest threats to his people are not the beasts of the woods, but the lies told by their own leaders.