Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy — page 7
446 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 7 of 10.
Walls of Acid
Henry Hasse
A lone, disembodied brain recounts a forgotten history of interplanetary war against a terrifying, insectoid species that turns out to be humanity itself.
Zen
Jerome Bixby
A paleontologist exploring a barren asteroid discovers the ultimate survivor of a shattered world: a tiny, immortal alien desperately begging for death.
A Choice of Miracles
James A. Cox
The line between salvation and finality often rests on the thinnest of human connections. In a moment of absolute isolation, a desperate man discovers that the greatest miracle is not survival, but the presence of another soul.
Heavenly Gifts
Aaron L. Kolom
A lonely janitor’s pious prayers inadvertently trigger a global catastrophe, as her requests for simple gifts from a mail-order catalogue are misinterpreted by an alien enterprise as high-stakes trade.
In Case of Fire
Randall Garrett
A delicate balance of human frailty keeps the gears of interstellar politics spinning.
The missionary
Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone
HOOK A captive, bound by religious dogma, is held by an immortal man he believes to be the Father of Evil. To save his people, the prisoner vows to kill his captor, unaware that his target is actually a savior.
Atalanta
Charles Napier Richards
This Victorian-era scientific romance follows a group of British academics and their loyal assistant as they trade the hallowed halls of Cambridge for the unknown mysteries of the planet Venus.
Forever is so long
John Jakes
This story explores the heavy price of personal advancement when a man is granted a lifespan of three centuries. It is a quiet, melancholic study of how the promise of eternity can isolate an individual from the very people he hopes to save.
Ring Once for Death
Robert Arthur
The power of the old gods is no match for modern skeptics, yet this tale warns that even those who dismiss superstitions may find themselves ensnared by the cruel symmetry of fate.
The Demi-Urge
Thomas M. Disch
An extraterrestrial survey team discovers Earth, only to find humanity apparently enslaved by a strange, autonomous mechanical race that defies their understanding of life. This unsettling encounter forces a profound re-evaluation of the nature of existence itself.
This Way to the Egress
Andrew Fetler
A man discovers that the peaceful, rustic village where he has been sent to rest is not a sanctuary, but a sterile environment designed for his own quiet elimination.
A pound of prevention
G. C. Edmondson
This story follows three astronauts on a perilous, high-stakes mission to Mars, where they must confront a mysterious biological crisis that has claimed every previous crew. It is a sharp, atmospheric piece of mid-century science fiction that finds the intersection of clinical paranoia and human resilience.
Absolutely no paradox
Lester Del Rey
If time travel were truly possible, the future would surely be overflowing with visitors. Instead, we are left to wonder why the past remains undisturbed, a mystery that haunts the dreams of inventors and old men alike.
Last Night Out
Milton A. Rothman
A soldier and his telepathic, blue-furred alien partner face the mounting hostility of a war-torn Earth on their final night of shore leave.
Moonlight and Robots
Jerry Dunham
Hook Marriage in this future requires couples to navigate a series of robotic proxies, turning the path to the altar into a high-stakes game of deception.
Upstarts
Stecher, L. J., Jr.
A bold Earthman faces down an alien empire, securing his planet’s future through a gamble that alters the course of galactic history forever.
Cogito, Ergo Sum
John Foster West
HOOK Two minds, severed from their physical bodies by a cosmic distortion, drift through the void, desperately attempting to reconstruct their humanity through pure reason and fading memory.
Mr. Loneliness
Henry Slesar
In the hollow silence of deep space, a solitary man clings to the flickering ghosts of visitors who are not truly there. He learns, in the most devastating fashion, that the greatest distance between two people is the reach of a projection.
Nothing But the Best
Alan Cogan
A man journeys through parallel realities to find an existence where he never made a wrong choice, only to discover that the quest for perfection might be the greatest error of all.
Perfect Control
Richard Stockham
The return of a legendary, long-lost space crew forces a modern psychologist to confront the terrifying allure of absolute, isolated control. Can humanity survive its own history when the pioneers of the future refuse to let go of the past?
Righteous plague
Robert Abernathy
A cold, clinical scientist unleashes a biological weapon that feeds on human anxiety, proving that a civilization built on fear creates the very conditions for its own total annihilation.
The Builders
Fox B. Holden
A civilization of tireless builders, having lost all memory of the past, treats the forgotten relics of humanity as mere blueprints. They do not realize that in their pursuit of construction, they have accidentally restored the very life they replaced.
The Incredible Life-Form
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
An omnipotent observer reports on a rogue experiment where a sentient diamond creates human life, only to be outmaneuvered by the very creatures he designed to worship him.
Turning Point
Alfred Coppel
In a future world controlled by fear and prejudice, a single custodian of humanity’s secret must choose between protecting a moribund human elite or unleashing the next stage of evolutionary progress.
Wedding Day
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
In a future where men are scarce, four women combine their lives, minds, and identities to secure a single husband. The wedding day arrives, forcing them to reconcile their individual anxieties with the collective pressure of their unique marital arrangement.
Passage to anywhere
Merwin, Sam, Jr.
When an exhausted scientific director learns that an erratic genius has invented an instantaneous matter-transmitter, political titans and economic rivals scramble to suppress a discovery that threatens to shatter global stability.
Shandy
Ron Goulart
The arrival of a persistent suitor on a distant colony planet becomes complicated by the presence of a shapeshifting pet whose origins are as fluid as his physical form.
So Many Worlds Away
Dwight V. Swain
Raymond Horning steps across the threshold of dimensions not to conquer the unknown, but to escape the suffocating reality of an unhappy marriage, only to discover that every alternate life shares his inescapable burden.
The Statue
Mari Wolf
The passage of time can turn one’s origin into a phantom, leaving the heart caught between a remembered past and a changing present. Two aging pioneers must decide where they truly belong when the home they have built and the home they have lost begin to demand their final allegiances.
Beast of prey
Jay Williams
A strange paralysis claims the outpost's men one by one, driving a seasoned ecologist to hunt a phantom predator in an alien forest where beauty masks a silent, fatal design.
Grounded
William Sambrot
The desert holds more than heat and mystery; for those who fly too close to the truth, the landscape itself can become an instrument of silence.
Little Boy
Jerome Bixby
Six years after a devastating atomic blast levels Manhattan, an eleven-year-old feral boy survives by stealth and violence in the overgrown ruins of Central Park until a chance encounter changes everything.
Family Tree
Charles L. Fontenay
HOOK A self-appointed guardian of public morality encounters a man he believes is a monster, only to discover that the "superman" he intends to destroy represents the next, terrifyingly beautiful step in human evolution.
House Operator
Randall Garrett
A master poker player faces his final, high-stakes game against a mysterious opponent in a space-age casino, only to discover that his greatest rival is not human.
Lonesome Hearts
R. R. (Russell Robert) Winterbotham
The universe’s first romance concludes not with a grand reunion, but with a quiet, tragic evolution that leaves one lover isolated in the dark while the other becomes the foundation of all terrestrial life.
Six Frightened Men
Robert Silverberg
HOOK A team of space explorers finds themselves hunted by a sixty-foot monster on a desolate planet, only to discover the true terror is not a beast, but a man among them.
The Conquistadors Come
Mary Elizabeth Counselman
The conquerors of space bring their own definitions of progress to a dying world, only to find that misunderstanding is a language of its own. When the two worlds collide, the tragedy is not in the violence, but in the certainty of the men who believe they are right.
Time Payment
Sylvia Jacobs
A criminal on the run attempts to escape justice by hiding in the future, only to discover that the passage of time is a far more profound transformation than any mere change of scenery.
Hunt the red roe
John Jakes
The hunter sought only to escape his poverty, but in the shimmering fog of Venus, he found a target that forced him to choose between his survival and his soul.
Inhibition
James Causey
An interstellar agent tasked with suppressing human growth finds his cold, calculated mission upended when he discovers the true nature of the colonists he was sent to destroy.
"Next Stop, Nowhere!"
Dick Purcell
An elevator becomes a gateway between realities, trapping four disparate people in a world where the laws of scale have shifted entirely. This sudden transition reveals that a terrifying transformation is not a random accident, but a calculated delivery.
The forerunners
Norman Arkawy
HOOK A young cybernetics expert discovers he is a telepath, only to find himself trapped in a high-tech prison run by the government to suppress his kind.
When You Giffle
Stecher, L. J., Jr.
This whimsical tale follows an intergalactic freighter captain who, through a navigational error, stumbles upon the playground of powerful, reality-bending children. It is a playful exploration of how humanity might react when confronted by the truly impossible.
Bramble Bush
Alan Edward Nourse
A scientist risks his reputation to dismantle his own life’s work, realizing that being an "Authority" is the greatest obstacle to understanding the mysterious, untapped potential of the human mind.
Coffin for two
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
HOOK A returning space explorer finds his home planet transformed by a chilling technology: humans now live in coffins, delegating their existence to synthetic remote-controlled bodies.
Seller of the Sky
Dave Dryfoos
A wanderer brings tales of a forbidden world to people imprisoned in glass-domed cities. He offers them more than stories; he offers them the terrifying, beautiful reality of the sky itself.
The coming of the Amazons
Owen Johnson
John Bogardus awakes from a cryonic experiment into a future where women rule a depopulated, high-tech Earth. His struggle to reclaim male supremacy reveals a satiric, cautionary tale about the vanity of gender warfare.
The Thought-Men of Mercury
R. R. (Russell Robert) Winterbotham
A pair of earthmen struggle to escape a planet of telepathic aliens, only to realize their captors’ greatest weakness is the very thing that makes humanity uniquely capable.