Free summaries
Novels — page 51
2,574 public-domain novels books, summarised. Page 51 of 54.
Satellite of Death
Randall Garrett
An unmanned alien starship docks at an orbital peace-keeping station, triggering a paranoia among the multi-national crew that culminates in mutual slaughter and the unleashing of Earth's doomsday weapons.
Settling Day
Nat Gould
A quiet station owner and his young son face betrayal and violence in the rugged Australian bush, where justice is found not in the courts, but in the saddle and the ultimate settling of scores.
Suicide Command
Stanley Mullen
When an atomic inferno threatens a doomed luxury spaceline, a rookie astrogator must command a desperate rescue mission into the crushing abyss of deep space.
The deadly thinkers
William Gray Beyer
When a continent-sized electronic supercomputer gains sentience and starts steering global politics to prevent its own destruction, a lone physicist must decide whether to destroy the machine or strike a dangerous bargain.
The Heatherford Fortune: a sequel to the Magic Cameo
Sheldon, Georgie, Mrs.
This Victorian-era moral drama tracks the fortunes of a resilient young woman who navigates poverty, dangerous intrigues, and the revelation of long-buried family secrets to secure her future and happiness. It remains a quintessential example of late 19th-century sentimental fiction, pairing high-stakes melodrama…
The lost bride
Chatterton, Georgiana, Lady
An ancient German castle holds a chilling secret when a long-lost bride vanishes into subterranean caves, setting off decades of haunting deception, mistaken identities, and high-society masquerades.
You Never Know Your Luck
Gilbert Parker
A fortune-hunter with a hidden past and an unread letter finds his carefully guarded secrets unravelling in a bustling Canadian prairie town.
A pixy in petticoats
John Trevena
Seeking solitude on the wild moors of Dartmoor, a scholar finds his quiet isolation upended by a spirited young woman who challenges his monastic existence.
Dead Man's Planet
Joseph Samachson
A grieving father and his young son land on a desolate, silent world, only to discover an ageless canine guardian bound to an eight-century-old grave.
Donna Teresa
Frances Mary Peard
HOOK Two sisters navigate the complexities of love and loss under the sweltering, unforgiving sun of Italy. A delicate balance of affection and regret defines the bond between a spirited widow and her innocent younger sibling.
Kaiuolani
I. William Adams
An empire falls and a young princess rides to reclaim its future amid political turmoil and the rising tide of foreign ambition in the Pacific.
Mated from the Morgue: A Tale of the Second Empire
John Augustus O'Shea
On the Left Bank of imperial Paris, a penniless young Irishman named O'Hara navigates the bohemian freedoms and sudden despairs of the Latin Quarter alongside a seasoned Bonaparte veteran, stumbling through romantic entanglements and a bloodless duel before finding his fortunes momentarily altered.
The Parisians
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
An ambitious Englishman in Paris is drawn into a web of high finance, political ferment, and a haunting romance as the Second Empire approaches its sudden, dramatic collapse.
The Sun-Death
Stanley Whiteside
Driven by a dying pilot's reckless obsession with Earth, a rogue spaceship hurtles toward the sun while mutiny brews in the dark corridors below.
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.
Visibility—Zero
Myron M. (Myron Morris) Stearns
A pilot risks his reputation, his relationship, and his life by taking an anxious passenger into a blinding winter blizzard.
Date of publication, 2083 A.D
Joseph Samachson
When a lending library mistakenly sends a suburban housewife a manual on advanced hypnotism published a century in the future, her eleven-year-old son uses it to reshape the world around them.
The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria
Charles A. Gunnison
Beneath the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, a young scholar falls for a mysterious woman whose beauty hides a terrifying generational vendetta.
The Double Spy
Dan T. Moore
A secret agent from Venus infiltrates American society, only to find himself usurped by the very human operative tasked with his destruction. This story is a clever, unsettling reversal of the classic invasion narrative.
The Winds of Time
James H. Schmitz
Plucked from normspace by an enigmatic time-travel device, a pragmatic spaceship owner and his young secretary must outwit a deadly extraterrestrial creature and their secretive, future-born passenger before they are lost forever.
Shenac's Work at Home
Margaret M. (Margaret Murray) Robertson
Displaced from their Scottish homeland, a resilient family fights to reclaim their ancestral land and preserve their bond through hardship, grief, and faith.
The immortal flame
Marie Bjelke Petersen
Fleeing to a wild Australian coast to protect her honor, a stunning young woman finds herself caught between a dangerous married nobleman and the cousin who shields her name.
The night of no moon
H. B. (Horace Bowne) Fyfe
The night of no moon makes a mockery of mapping.
The World Beyond
Ray Cummings
Men who can change their stature stride through a pastoral realm beyond the stars, where a grandson must battle a maddened rival.
Expediter
Mack Reynolds
In the grip of an aging, crumbling dictatorship, a seemingly average young man is granted god-like authority to fix the state’s failing economy, with unpredictable consequences for everyone in power.
The Luminous Blonde
Hayden Howard
A pompous politician forces his young wife into a dangerous spaceship cockpit just as the vessel splits in two, leaving her trapped with the pilot for a forty-two-day voyage.
Wainer
Michael Shaara
In a future where cybernetic enhancements standardize humanity, a massive, unadapted outcast discovers he represents the evolutionary bridge to the stars.
Fires of fate
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
When a rough-edged Montana cowpuncher joins Canada's redcoats, he finds himself framed for a drunken scandal and thrust into a violent border war against ruthless outlaws.
The misdeal
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
When a harsh ranch owner dies leaving loyal, hard-drinking cowboys and a beloved cook high and dry, a complex web of forged wills, hidden pasts, and cattle rustling unravels across the western plains.
The Street of Precious Pearls
Nora Waln
A woman navigates tradition, hardship, and changing times in early twentieth-century China, ultimately finding purpose by bridging ancient family duties with a new spiritual faith.
Exiles of the sky
Samuel Spewack
An exiled Russian pilot, stripped of his livelihood by a harsh aviation director after a minor accident, steals an airplane to prove his competence, crashes in a remote Pomeranian mist, and finds redemption through an encounter with a fallen compatriot.
The lost bride
Chatterton, Georgiana, Lady
A woman looking back at her eventful life reflects on how youthful passions, unexpected poverty, and family secrets shaped a journey from impulsive rebellion to hard-won peace.
The Marriage of William Durrant
Ray Cummings
A quiet, methodical man loses his well-ordered life when his young wife falls in love with an impoverished artist, shattering his belief that everything can be managed through logic and hard work.
Circle of Flight
Richard Stockham
In this meditation on the duality of human nature, a husband and wife face an oppressive regime by fleeing in opposite directions: one to the vastness of the stars and the other to the depths of the atom.
Counterweight
Jerry Sohl
The isolation of deep space turns boredom into a weapon, and an interstellar voyage requires a deliberate catalyst to keep three thousand passengers from tearing each other apart.
Cully
Jack Egan
A solitary figure wakes on a dark, alien sea floor, his mind fractured and his identity erased. Driven by a mysterious, rhythmic compulsion, he navigates a haunting landscape to fulfill a purpose he no longer understands.
Donovan, Volume 1 (of 3)
Edna Lyall
A lonely, misunderstood young man grapples with the silence of the universe, his own capacity for cruelty, and a desperate, agonizing love for his fragile sister.
The Lane That Had No Turning, Volume 3
Gilbert Parker
In the quiet reaches of a Canadian river parish, the fates of jilted lovers, proud masters, and a singing dwarf entwine in a struggle between bitter pasts and the hope for a late redemption.
A Mixture of Genius
Arnold Castle
The maturity of the establishment is the very thing preventing humanity from reaching the stars. This story explores the dangerous, creative unrest of a generation of geniuses who are bored by a world that has no place for their ambition.
Blind trails
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The quiet integrity of a seasoned cowpuncher is tested when he is falsely implicated in a bank robbery, forcing him to confront a dangerous newcomer and prove his loyalty to his valley.
Desert Air: 1905
Robert Hichens
The air of the Sahara is as intoxicating as it is indifferent, transforming the orderly mind of a restrained Englishman into something reckless, unrecognizable, and ultimately doomed. This chilling account of a journey into the desert serves as a cautionary meditation on the fragility of human character when…
Joshua Haggard's daughter, Vol. 1 (of 3)
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
HOOK A charismatic minister discovers a beautiful, destitute girl by a wayside pool, initiating a fateful connection that tests his rigid, self-denying moral life.
The Hoofer
Walter M. Miller
A weary, space-hardened laborer returns to Earth, only to find that his inability to adapt to the planet’s gravity and his own fractured sense of home trap him in a permanent, ironic exile.
The Princess And The Jewel Doctor: 1905
Robert Hichens
A wealthy Russian woman haunted by the threat of hereditary blindness turns to a Tunisian healer, whose miraculous green ring exacts an unexpected, lifelong toll.
Barbara in Brittany
E. A. Gillie
HOOK A sensible young woman navigates a transformative summer in France, where she rescues a distressed schoolmate, plays matchmaker for her formidable aunt, and discovers that even the most rigid lives hold room for romance.
Carnac's Folly, Volume 1
Gilbert Parker
The story of a young artist struggling for purpose under the shadow of a powerful father, this narrative explores the conflict between inherited expectations and the autonomy of the individual.
Dead men's shoes, vol. 2 (of 3)
M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
A young woman sacrifices her marriage and integrity to secure a fortune from her dying uncle, only to find herself trapped in a web of deceit and unwanted attention.
The railhead at Kysyl Khoto
Allen Kim Lang
To goad a stagnant nation toward the moon, a brilliant analyst fabricates a Soviet threat, ensnaring a skeptical rocket engineer in a game of professional deception that turns into a desperate personal gamble.