Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy — page 12
561 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 12 of 12.
The right side of the tracks
Albert Teichner
A crew of space travelers expects a hostile alien takeover, but instead discovers a planet of people who have evolved beyond the constraints of linear thought. They learn that the universe is far more capable than their rigid traditions allow.
A Prize for Edie
Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone
The world’s most prestigious medical award is destined for a recipient that challenges the very definition of humanity. When the Nobel Committee discovers their winner is not a person, they must confront an impossible choice.
Kid Stuff
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
HOOK A quiet night turns into a cosmic horror when two indifferent alien children use a man as a living, breathing art project.
The satellite-keeper's daughter
Mark Reinsberg
The allure of a beautiful woman in a desolate corner of the galaxy proves to be a dangerous distraction for a solitary space trucker, leading to consequences far beyond a mere breach of hotel etiquette.
The Talkative Tree
H. B. (Horace Bowne) Fyfe
A space-faring scout flees an oppressive regime by transforming into a sentient cloud of spores, ultimately infiltrating his own ship to liberate his home world from tyranny.
Stopover
William Gerken
A wandering youth with extraordinary mental powers arrives in a post-atomic society, offering a community the only path to survival: training their children to harness their latent potential.
Turnover Point
Alfred Coppel
An aging, broken-down freighter pilot faces his final, desperate confrontation with the man who murdered his son, turning the cold vacuum of space into an instrument of ultimate retribution.
Joy Ride
Mark Meadows
When a society delegates every choice to machines, it assumes that predictability is the ultimate perfection. Yet, when the gears of logic slip, the resulting chaos reveals that freedom is a force that cannot be suppressed.
See?
Edward G. Robles
A group of drifters discovers a mysterious object that manifests as their deepest personal temptations or aversions, revealing a clever, camouflaged extraterrestrial threat.
The minister had to wait
Roger D. Aycock
In a world stalled by a Cold War standoff, an accidental tear in the space-time continuum unleashes interdimensional parasites that threaten to drain Earth’s nuclear lifeblood. A desperate scientist and his assistant must navigate a lethal cosmic game of cat-and-mouse to save their civilization from total collapse.
Double Take
Wilson Parks Griffith
A carefully constructed time capsule intended to preserve humanity’s greatest achievements instead preserves the volatile, hidden psyche of its creators. An alien race discovers this unintended legacy, leading them to a startling, paradoxical conclusion about our species.
My past is mine
Gerda Rhoads
The world is a fragile construct of perception, where the sudden evaporation of a single, fundamental quality can render the entire fabric of reality unrecognizable. A chance encounter on a train exposes the terrifying fragility of human memory and existence.
Flight from New Mu
Joe Archibald
A brash, tongue-in-cheek account of a space-traveling underdog, this story follows the intergalactic misadventures of Septimus Spink, a man who finds himself caught between Earth’s military bureaucracy and his own eccentric alien destiny.
Restricted Tool
Malcolm B. Morehart
After stumbling upon a discarded alien device, a hunter discovers he possesses technology that could change the world, only to realize he has been propelled into a future where his "miracle" is merely mundane.
The Terrible Answer
Arthur G. Hill
A group of men arrives on Mars seeking to build an empire, only to discover that their perceived mastery is a fatal miscalculation. They find that the price of dominion is a truth far darker than they ever imagined.
Or Darwin, if you prefer
Mel Hunter
A lonely man discovers a disembodied mouth and eyes living on his wall, leading to a desperate scheme to swap lives across centuries. Their plan for salvation ends in a fragmented existence trapped between seconds.
The Envoy, Her
H. B. (Horace Bowne) Fyfe
An aging, bored emperor finds his life upended when a rebellious planet sends an envoy who appears as his perfect ideal. Their encounter forces him to confront the hollow nature of absolute power.
Vanishing Point
C. C. (Charles Clarence) Beck
A practical painter tries to explain why his intellectually obsessed associate suddenly fled their joint studio, leaving behind a bizarre machine that challenges the physical rules of geometry, spatial perspective, and consensus reality itself.
Pink grass planet
Merwin, Sam, Jr.
A man returns from a five-year exile on an alien world, only to find his home planet has been transformed by the very exotic fads he desperately sought to escape.
Letter of the Law
Alan Edward Nourse
A slick con man faces a terminal legal crisis on an alien world, only to engineer a paradoxical escape that leaves both his captors and his own savior reeling.
The Floater
Bryce Walton
HOOK A lone watcher in deep space survives decades of silence by slowing his own heart to match the orbit of a drifting corpse.
Tape Jockey
Tom Leahy
A mid-level reporter encounters a subservient technician at a state-run music therapy center. What begins as a routine interview spirals into a chilling, calculated power grab that threatens the stability of an entire nation.
Suzy
Watson Parker
When the physical toll of deep space isolation drives astronauts to the brink of insanity, only one thing anchors them to reality: a disembodied, compassionate voice. This story explores whether love can survive the collision between a carefully curated fantasy and a harsh, hidden truth.
The mordant
Merab Eberle
What price would you pay to stop time from touching your face, even if it meant your soul stood still? A scientist and his confidant explore the harrowing vanity of eternal youth through a mysterious chemical breakthrough.
The laugh
Robert Abernathy
A young boy’s spontaneous laughter at the sight of ants triggers a clinical intervention in a world that has systematically excised human emotion. This story examines the cold, logical cost of a perfectly "efficient" society.
Justice
J. F. (Joy Ferris) Hutton
A traveler from the future accidentally leaves behind a piece of indestructible technology in ancient Britain, inadvertently sparking the legend of King Arthur. The resulting trial serves as a test of the cold, mechanical logic of the law versus the messy, human reality of history.
Farewell message
David Mason
A visitor from the stars attempts to lecture humanity on the dangers of self-destruction, only to find his own arrogance shattered by the sudden, violent death of his home world.
Egocentric Orbit
John Cory
Alone in the void, a pilot discovers that the ultimate mastery of space flight does not lead to scientific triumph, but to a profound and irreversible rupture with the human world below.
A Matter of Magnitude
Al Sevcik
The pride of Earth’s military force encounters an adversary that defies all logic. What happens when the most powerful battleship in existence confronts a threat that refuses to be seen?
The golden flutterby
Craig Rice
A lonely man finds his life transformed by a mysterious, ethereal woman who emerges from the shadows of a city bar, only to vanish into the flames of a sudden, inexplicable disaster.
Criminal Negligence
J. Francis McComas
As a global ecological catastrophe looms, a prison warden and his staff must decide whether to join an elite escape to Mars or remain behind to face the end with the people they serve.
Spawn of the comet
Otis Adelbert Kline
When a strange comet sweeps past Earth, it leaves behind an invisible, predatory rain of cloud-monsters that feed on motion and electricity, threatening to wipe out human civilization.
The radio gun-runners
Ralph Milne Farley
A Harvard graduate’s peaceful yachting trip turns into a high-stakes struggle for survival when ruthless gangsters hijack his vessel and sail it into a hidden world within the Earth.