Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy — page 3
560 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 3 of 12.
Founding Father
Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone
Two stranded aliens use advanced technology to enslave a pair of Hollywood screenwriters, forcing the humans to act as pawns in their struggle for survival.
Mo-Sanshon!
Bryce Walton
A frantic race against a subterranean insect empire hinges on the desperate alliance between a disgraced entomologist and a mysterious, rebellious guide.
The 64-Square Madhouse
Fritz Leiber
A cynical reporter covers an international chess tournament where human grandmasters face an electronic opponent, revealing that the true competition lies not in the game, but in the volatile intersection of man and machine.
The cottage
Frank Belknap Long
A cruel man who treats his stepchildren with malice finds himself trapped in a reality where his own weaponized cynicism becomes a literal, lethal prison.
The Snowbank Orbit
Fritz Leiber
An ancient, desperate fleet hurtles toward Uranus at a hundred miles a second, forced into a lethal atmospheric dive that is their only hope of survival.
Zero Hour
Alexander Blade
A young boy sneaks onto a government rocket, convinced he is destined for the moon with his father. He discovers too late that imagination and reality occupy vastly different orbits.
Roadtown
Edgar Chambless
A continuous concrete building stretches across miles of open countryside, carrying a high-speed monorail below and a public promenade above.
Up for Renewal
Lucius Daniel
Aging can be turned backward at a price, but when a man's life span reaches its limit, the ultimate treatment becomes a gamble against instant death.
Survival Type
Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone
Human survival on the alien world of Niobe depends on overcoming a deadly environment, but a lone explorer discovers that true adaptation requires surrendering human pride to native wisdom.
Total Recall
Larry Sternig
HOOK With the solar system hours away from total annihilation, a lone scientist must reach into his own suppressed past to recover a lost weapon before the enemy arrives.
Final Examination
Robert Sheckley
When a celestial voice announces that humanity’s final judgment is imminent, the world briefly finds salvation—until the date is pushed back by a decade, leaving a civilization to unravel in the face of its own fragile morality.
Big Baby
Jack Sharkey
A telepathic predator haunts a colony by mimicking the deepest, safest memories of its victims. To stop the slaughter, a man must confront the most dangerous "baby" in the universe.
The Republic of the Southern Cross, and other stories
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov
A chilling exploration of reality, these stories blur the fragile line between the waking world and the terrifying depths of the imagination.
All Jackson's Children
Daniel F. Galouye
HOOK A pair of salvagers discovers a stranded colony of robots that have developed a strange, mechanical theology based on the memory of a long-dead human crewman.
Proof of the Pudding
Robert Sheckley
In a world reduced to ash and silence, a lone survivor discovers the godlike ability to manifest anything he imagines, only to confront the terrifying suspicion that his reality—and his companion—might be mere figments of his own mind.
The Street That Wasn't There
Clifford D. Simak
A reclusive scholar discovers that the physical world is dissolving, held together only by the collective force of human belief—and as humanity dies off, reality itself is being reclaimed by an alien intelligence.
In the Garden
R. A. Lafferty
The crew of a small starship stumbles upon a world that seems to be a perfect, living echo of the Garden of Eden, only to discover that the most heavenly sights are often the most predatory traps.
The sunken world
Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur) Coblentz
Caught in a violent maelstrom while aboard a submarine, an American crew plunges into an unsuspected subterranean abyss. There they discover Atlantis, an idyllic, glass-sheltered utopian society operating in total isolation far beneath the ocean floor.
Beyond Bedlam
Wyman Guin
A world that chemically splits human minds into two distinct personalities might seem orderly, but for one rebellious man, living half a life proves worse than death.
Black Canaan
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A chilling tale of voodoo, betrayal, and survival in the Louisiana swamps.
The Image and the Likeness
John Scott Campbell
Out of the devastation of Hiroshima emerges a gentle, four-hundred-foot giant, raised by cunning ideologues to conquer the world—only to defy his creators and seek true peace for mankind.
The mirrors of Tuzun Thune
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A weary king seeks refuge from the hollowness of his throne, only to find himself ensnared by a wizard whose mirrors offer a terrifying glimpse into the nature of reality and the self.
Acid Bath
Bill Garson
A solitary outpost worker on an isolated asteroid faces an alien invasion force that mistakes human biology for metal machinery.
Car Pool
Rosel George Brown
A mother’s attempt to manage a mundane school car pool spirals into a tense, cosmic collision between human anxiety and alien vulnerability. This story explores the fragility of social norms when faced with the inexplicable.
The Model of a Judge
Joseph Samachson
The Model of a Judge is a sharp, psychological science fiction story about the burden of forced assimilation and the hidden ironies of human prejudice. It explores the tension between a reformed predator serving as a supreme arbiter and the petty, flawed society that fears him.
Wheels
Michael Zuroy
A high-stakes corporate power struggle turns lethal when an executive is forced to compete in a deadly exhibition to satisfy alien dignitaries. This fast-paced, satirical science fiction story explores the intersection of rigid bureaucracy and human emotion.
White spot
Murray Leinster
HOOK Stranded on a desert world, four space travelers face a lethal, shapeless intelligence that has already consumed an ancient civilization.
One-Shot
James Blish
A professional gambler with a perfect record on long-shot bets is summoned to help stop a potential catastrophe, only to discover that the highest-stakes wager of his life is not what it seems.
Kreativity For Kats
Fritz Leiber
A sensitive, imaginative cat discovers he is an artist, turning the simple act of spilling water into a fleeting, sparkling masterpiece of light and motion.
The judging of the priestess
Nelson S. Bond
HOOK In a post-apocalyptic future where women rule and men are hunted as savages, a young priestess and her outsider mate fight to break the cycles of hatred and rebuild a shattered world.
The Weirdest World
R. A. Lafferty
A stranded interstellar traveler finds himself marooned on a vibrant, waterlogged planet, only to discover that the dominant species—the "giant grubs"—are as volatile and superficial as they are human.
Half Around Pluto
Manly Wade Wellman
This is a lean, intense tale of endurance on the fringes of the solar system, where a single, desperate man attempts the impossible against a backdrop of crushing solitude and cold.
No Substitutions
Jim Harmon
The warden of a penal system where convicts live out their sentences in immersive, artificial dreams faces a crisis when his own superior implies that his life, too, is a fabrication.
Palos of the Dog Star Pack
J. U. (John Ulrich) Giesy
A brilliant physician discovers the secret to shedding his earthly body, projecting his consciousness across the cosmos to a distant, red-hued world called Palos. There, he assumes a new life, wielding advanced ingenuity to reshape a civilization.
The Beachcomber
Damon Knight
A man stranded in our era from three million years in the future hides a terrible, cosmic secret within the simple act of walking along a lonely, alien shoreline.
The Man Who Saw the Future
Edmond Hamilton
The life of a dreamer in the fifteenth century is rarely long, but Henri Lothiere, an apothecary's assistant, finds himself condemned to the stake for an experience that spans centuries.
The Ambassador's Pet
Randall Garrett
This science fiction tale follows Captain Johnny Martin, who is tasked with transporting an Aldebaranian ambassador and his pet to Earth for diplomatic talks. When the "pet" begins roaming the ship, the Captain faces a startling revelation about who—or what—is actually in charge.
Woman's World
Robert Silverberg
This story follows a man who, desperate to escape his crumbling personal life, volunteers for a suspended-animation experiment only to awaken in a bizarre, matriarchal future. It is a cautionary tale about running from one’s problems.
The thinking machine
Raymond F. Jones
HOOK In a future where a central computer dictates every career, marriage, and move, two rebels risk everything to escape the machine’s cold, calculated perfection.
I'll Kill You Tomorrow
Helen Huber
HOOK A hospital nursery becomes a chamber of horrors when a nurse discovers that the newborn infants have been possessed by ancient, malevolent entities.
Scream at midnight
Joseph Payne Brennan
The shadow of the past often outlives the stone and mortar that once held it, as the forgotten inhabitants of decaying ruins refuse to relinquish their hold on the living world.
Break a Leg
Jim Harmon
A professional spaceship captain must keep his most valuable, disaster-prone crew member terrified and insecure to ensure the man keeps making the "productive" mistakes that save the expedition.
Let the Ants Try
Frederik Pohl
Driven by grief after a nuclear war devastates Earth, a scientist travels back forty million years to seed mutated, air-breathing ants, hoping to grant them the future humanity squandered—only to discover the monstrous cost of interfering with time.
The dream snake
Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
A man reveals the recurring nightmare of a monstrous serpent that has pursued him since childhood, only for his listeners to discover the frightful reach of his sleeping mind.
The walls
Keith Laumer
Four walls do not a prison make—unless they look out upon a world that has ceased to exist. In this claustrophobic vision of tomorrow, an apartment becomes an inescapable cage made of synthetic lights, endless media feeds, and absolute, crushing isolation.
The red fetish
Frank Belknap Long
A desperation born of thirst turns two castaways on a barren atoll into monstrous rivals, forcing a deadly choice between starvation and a terrifying swim through shark-infested waters.
Instinct
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
Driven by a relentless compulsion to reach out and connect, humanity repeatedly survives its own destruction—and terrifies the ancient galactic minders who keep trying to contain it.
The Bramble Bush
Randall Garrett
A man gets his eyes scratched out in a bramble bush, then jumps right back in to scratch them in again.