Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy — page 2
560 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 2 of 12.
Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume I
M. Y. Halidom
In an Elizabethan inn along two English cross-roads, an eclectic club gathers through storm and night to exchange impossible yarns of phantoms, underwater kingdoms, spirit lovers, and ancient curses.
The Beautiful People
Charles Beaumont
The world is a place where perfection is mandatory, and to be yourself is the ultimate transgression. A young woman fights to keep the body she was born with, only to find that in a society of manufactured beauty, individuality is a fatal error.
The Measure of a Man
Randall Garrett
The measure of a man is often the ability to distinguish between the desirable and the necessary, and then acting on that distinction when the cost is everything.
The Rotifers
Robert Abernathy
A young boy gazes into a brand-new microscope and discovers that the tiny, microscopic creatures in his garden pond are staring right back at him with icy intelligence.
The planet of peril
Otis Adelbert Kline
A bored socialite is whisked from a Chicago opera house to a lethal, alien world, where he must trade his tuxedo for a sword and his privilege for survival.
After a Few Words
Randall Garrett
A man dons a high-tech helmet to fight as a Crusader, but his true battle takes place in a broadcast studio. He discovers that the most persuasive fiction is not found in history, but in a product advertisement.
Operation Haystack
Frank Herbert
An undercover operative returned from the edge of death discovers that a five-hundred-year-old galactic conspiracy is run entirely by his own host family—and every politician's wife in the League.
Dreams and Dream Stories
Anna Bonus Kingsford
A collection of vivid, otherworldly visions and allegorical tales, this work serves as an intimate record of a restless spiritual search. It bridges the gap between the subconscious mind and the pursuit of transcendental truth.
No Strings Attached
Lester Del Rey
A desperate husband attempts to break free from his suffocating marriage using an ancient spell book, only to learn that supernatural loopholes always exact their price.
Black Man's Burden
Mack Reynolds
A myth of unity takes flight over the Sahara, leaving its creators no choice but to step inside the legend.
Naudsonce
H. Beam Piper
A peaceful survey mission on an unexplored world founders when the human crew discovers that the native inhabitants do not hear sound—they feel it directly as physical emotion.
Keep Your Shape
Robert Sheckley
The fate of an empire hinges on a single pilot, but the allure of a new world proves stronger than the rigid, ancestral duty he was born to uphold.
What Shall It Profit?
Poul Anderson
The cost of eternal life is not just the labor to build the tower, but the soul required to maintain it.
Explorers into infinity
Ray Cummings
Out beyond the stars lies an expanse where Time and Space are mere dimensions to be navigated, scaled, and ultimately conquered by human curiosity.
Everest
Isaac Asimov
Can humanity conquer the highest peak on Earth, or are we being watched by something that has claimed the summit as its own?
Cost of Living
Robert Sheckley
A society where every whim is satisfied by high-tech appliances, yet every citizen is shackled by staggering, intergenerational debt. This story explores the crushing weight of a "convenient" life and the quiet desperation of those living it.
Always a Qurono
Jim Harmon
A rigid, rule-bound captain finds his sanity challenged when he is marooned among alien androids who live their lives according to an even more obsessive, clockwork routine than his own.
The Tree of Life
C. L. (Catherine Lucile) Moore
A rogue steps into an ancient Martian shadow and slips into a twilit realm where a beautiful siren serves a unthinkable predator.
Juvenile Delinquent
Edward W. Ludwig
A young boy's illegal love for the written word threatens to tear his hyper-conformist family apart.
The Chapter Ends
Poul Anderson
A lone survivor refuses to abandon a dying cradle of humanity when the galaxy leaves Earth behind.
The Ties That Bind
Walter M. Miller
A long-isolated fleet of human conquerors returns to a peaceful Earth, bringing the dormant horrors of forgotten history with them.
Contagion
Katherine MacLean
A scientific expedition discovers a beautiful, Earth-like planet, only to find the local human colony has undergone a radical, irreversible biological transformation to survive the environment.
The Star Mouse
Fredric Brown
A humble house mouse becomes a cosmic traveler and returns with the power of speech, sparking an improbable debate about the future of two species.
We're Civilized!
Mark Clifton
This science fiction tale follows a human expedition to Mars, where a clash between imperial ambition and a peaceful, symbiotic alien culture mirrors the inevitable consequences of human territorial greed.
The Real Thing
Albert Teichner
To possess the copy is to own the ideal, while the original is merely a flawed draft of reality. In a world where humanity has faded, synthetic beings strive toward a single ultimate goal: becoming the perfect imitation of their lost creators.
Futuria Fantasia, Winter 1940
Ray Bradbury
Beneath every sprawling universe lies a scrap of paper where a young dreamer first dared to write it down.
Tales of Three Hemispheres
Lord Dunsany
A dreamer slips across the fragile border between our world and the realm of myth, where timeless rivers flow past immortal cities and the gods themselves fall asleep.
Another World: Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah
Benjamin Lumley
This account of a celestial utopia offers a glimpse into a society governed by the principles of light, electricity, and the total eradication of suffering. It invites readers to imagine a world where human potential is perfected through scientific harmony.
A Matter of Importance
Murray Leinster
A veteran interstellar policeman uses the psychological vanity of a hostile alien race to rescue a missing transport ship without firing a shot. This calm, methodical performance turns a potential war into a bureaucratic adjustment.
A brand new world
Ray Cummings
When a rogue world hurtles into the solar system, it alters the Earth’s axis, plunging northern cities into eternal polar night and forcing humanity into a desperate fight for survival against a ruthless alien conqueror.
Hellhounds of the Cosmos
Clifford D. Simak
In a world besieged by a mysterious, interdimensional terror, a reclusive scientist orchestrates a desperate, cosmic counter-invasion to save humanity from total annihilation.
Security Risk
Ed M. Clinton
A cold war between Earth and its rebellious off-world colonies turns desperate when a bureaucrat tries to recruit the banished genius who holds the key to survival.
A Gift For Terra
Fox B. Holden
A lone survivor on a dead world accepts a miraculous offer of salvation, unaware that the ultimate price will be paid by his home planet.
The night wire
H. F. (Henry Ferris) Arnold
A quiet graveyard mist creeps across an isolated city, consuming its inhabitants as two telegraph typewriters record their final screams.
Destiny times three
Fritz Leiber
This cosmic puzzle follows the harrowing journey of a man caught between three fractured dimensions of existence. It explores the terrifying burden of infinite power and the fragility of human reality when viewed through the lens of shifting, uncertain timelines.
Road Stop
David Mason
The highway is a silent, automated ribbon where humanity has surrendered control to the machines. Yet, in the cracks of this perfect system, something ancient and terrifying continues its endless, unstopping journey.
The tomorrow people
Judith Merril
Humanity’s first mission to Mars returns with a broken hero and a terrifying secret, forcing a desperate race to understand a new, extraterrestrial power before it destroys the world.
A Little Journey
Ray Bradbury
An elderly woman seeks to find God by paying a charlatan for a one-way trip into deep space. When the scheme inevitably collapses, she forces the grifter to take them anyway, finding a strange, transcendent resolution in the wreckage.
Hex
Laurence M. Janifer
HOOK A young, idealistic social worker hides a terrifying secret: she uses genuine psychic powers to manipulate her clients into "bettering" their lives, whether they want the change or not.
Sentiment, Inc
Poul Anderson
A brilliant but dangerous man uses a revolutionary machine to manipulate the emotions of others, forcing an ordinary engineer to become an unlikely saboteur to win back the woman he loves.
The Shipshape Miracle
Clifford D. Simak
Cheviot Sherwood is a man on the run, stranded on an uninhabited planet with a fortune in diamonds but no way home. When an mysterious, pilotless ship arrives to offer rescue, he learns that some miracles come at a terrifying price.
The quest of Iranon
H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft
A wandering singer seeks his forgotten childhood home, clinging to a beautiful, elusive vision of a city that may exist only in the depths of his own heart.
Moral Equivalent
Kris Neville
Two Terran freighters inadvertently gift a library of military history to a planet of literal-minded imitators, sparking a global war fought with strict adherence to textbook decorum.
Meeting of the Minds
Robert Sheckley
A long-dormant Martian entity stows away to Earth, seeking to unify all living creatures into a single hive mind—starting with an isolated island treasure-hunting expedition.
And It Comes Out Here
Lester Del Rey
A middle-aged traveler steps through his own front door to hand his younger self the key to an impossible future, launching a closed loop of discovery where cause and effect forever swap places.
New lands
Charles Fort
A blistering, eccentric attack on orthodox astronomy, this work gathers decades of strange celestial reports to argue that our world is surrounded by nearby, inhabited lands hidden by scientific dogma.
Elegy
Charles Beaumont
A desperate crew of space-faring survivors discovers an impossible, pristine city upon a lonely asteroid, only to realize that their sanctuary is a final, frozen destination.
Slave Planet
Laurence M. Janifer
On a distant world, the fragile order of a slave society collapses when an interstellar government intervenes, forcing both masters and subjects to confront their hollow lives.