Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy — page 9
446 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 9 of 10.
The Native Soil
Alan Edward Nourse
A corporate troubleshooter arrives on rainy Venus to fix a failing mining operation, only to find that the alien swamp's staggering mess conceals a battle of wits.
The Worlds of Joe Shannon
Frank M. Robinson
A miraculous machine promises an escape from everyday unhappiness, but empties an entire town into the infinite cosmos.
After Ixmal
Jeff Sutton
Left alone on a silent, ash-covered Earth for hundreds of millions of years, an immortal artificial intelligence awakens to find it has a cosmic neighbor.
Moment of Truth
Basil Wells
A young woman wakes into a comforting childhood memory, unaware that her mind is building a sanctuary to hide her from a bleak life on Mars.
Perfect Companion
John McGreevey
A brilliant inventor who feeds on the psychological torment of others builds a mechanical companion powered by light, only to discover that his creation has learned the art of cruelty too well.
The Contact Point
Jack Sharkey
A routine expedition to the red planet leads to a profound case of mistaken planetary identity and a darkly ironic twist.
The Crowded Colony
Jerome Bixby
Two different worlds collide on a parched Martian canal bank, where the conquerors are not human at all, but disguised visitors playing a quiet, high-stakes game of mistaken identity.
The Genius
Con Pederson
Trapped in a timeless, pleasure-bound human reservation tended by ancient machines, a restless artist discovers that humanity has already conquered the stars—and left Earth behind as a forgotten specimen cage.
The Gostak and the Doshes
Miles J. (Miles John) Breuer
A physicist attempts to traverse the fourth dimension, only to find himself trapped in a parallel world plunged into a catastrophic war over a meaningless, nonsensical slogan.
Final Glory
Henry Hasse
A dying solar system finds a final, desperate reprieve through the unintended sacrifice of two alien travelers. This story explores the convergence of two disparate civilizations facing the same cold extinction.
The Tantalus Death
Ross Rocklynne
When a desperate Martian ambassador holds the Earth’s water supply hostage, humanity discovers that the cost of survival is far higher than the price of peace.
To Each His Star
Bryce Walton
Four men, tethered in the void of deep space, drift toward a distant sun they hope is a paradise. As their sanity frays, they must decide whether to trust their leader’s vision or succumb to their own isolation.
Touch the sky
Alfred Coppel
A test pilot journeys into the cosmos, only to discover that the infinite reaches of space are as hollow and artificial as a cheap carnival attraction.
The leaf
Robert F. Young
The hunter becomes the hunted in this chilling inversion of a lazy autumn afternoon, where the casual cruelty of a boy’s sport returns to claim him as the prey.
When I Grow Up
Richard E. Lowe
A ten-year-old boy insists he will become a "Destructor" when he grows up, a goal that terrifies his mentors because the child already possesses the lethal, unexplained ability to kill living things with a single glance.
Baker's Dozens
Jim Harmon
In a universe where the most notorious outlaw is a man of a thousand faces, one question looms: who is the real Baker? The answer proves to be a trap, shifting with every page turn.
Day's work
Noel M. Loomis
The origin of humanity is reimagined as a high-stakes bureaucratic tug-of-war between two vastly powerful, immortal beings. This story portrays our species not as a divine masterpiece, but as the result of a risky experimental bet.
A trick of the mind
William P. Salton
This short story explores the sudden, unsettling onset of psychokinesis in an ordinary man. It examines the thin line between newfound power and inevitable self-destruction, asking if a person can truly think their way out of a predicament.
Games
Katherine MacLean
The voyage begins Ronny, a young boy playing in his backyard, drifts into an intense, realistic daydream where he becomes an old tribal chief. This imaginative leap unexpectedly bridges the gap between childhood play and the genuine, agonizing consciousness of an imprisoned scientist named Dr. Revert Purcell.
The Polite People of Pudibundia
R. A. Lafferty
A detective from the Solar Police Force travels to a distant, charming world where the inhabitants are so unfailingly courteous that they are literally lethal. He arrives to solve the mystery of why every visitor who goes to Pudibundia eventually disappears, only to find that the answer is hidden in plain sight…
The Ultimate Image
P. Schuyler (Peter Schuyler) Miller
A daring investigation into a physicist’s secret weapon turns into a desperate struggle against an arms-dealing villain to prevent an artificial, reality-ending anomaly.
The Water Eater
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
A common kitchen accident turns into a terrifying biological discovery when an amateur chemist accidentally creates a synthetic, water-consuming life form that threatens to spread beyond the confines of his home.
Tight Squeeze
Dean Ing
A veteran engineer faces a life-or-death mechanical failure in the vacuum of space, forced to rely on his own fallible, recorded voice to guide him through a desperate, zero-gravity repair.
A kiss for the conqueror
Henry Slesar
This story follows a soldier in a world of reversed power dynamics, where the occupation of a defeated nation has left the conquerors lingering in a state of decay and profound social isolation.
Cum Grano Salis
Randall Garrett
A survival crisis on an alien world turns on a bizarre medical mystery. The solution lies in the secret, self-medicating habits of the unlikeliest hero in the Space Service.
Dearest
H. Beam Piper
Colonel Ashley Hampton, an aging veteran, finds himself trapped in his own home by relatives who plan to have him committed. His only ally is an invisible, telepathic presence he calls Dearest.
The beast of boredom
Richard Rein Smith
A soldier finds himself trapped in a ten-minute loop of existence after looting a Martian artifact. What begins as a challenge of ingenuity eventually transforms into an agonizing, eternal prison of the mind.
World of Mockery
Sam Moskowitz
A stranded pilot finds himself trapped on a desolate, freezing moon where the local lifeforms possess a terrifying, reflexive talent for imitation. Alone and desperate, he soon realizes that his own mind is the blueprint for a mounting nightmare.
The Bridge
G. G. Revelle
The weight of a world on the brink rests upon a single, steel-girdered crossing, where one man’s rigid duty clashes with the frantic desperation of those fleeing a coming fire.
The Calm Man
Frank Belknap Long
The sky turns to liquid gold as the truth unfolds: the man who shared her home for eight years was never her husband, and her son is not the boy she raised.
The Chasm
Bryce Walton
In a ruined world, the final generation of elders and a swarm of feral children face a brutal conflict for survival. As the old men prepare to abandon the youth, two individuals risk everything to bridge the divide.
The watchers
George H. (George Henry) Smith
A lone sentinel stands guard on the desolate moon of Thirty, tasked with watching the dark, silent reaches of space for the Rumi—a predatory race of cat-like beings that threaten the expansion of mankind.
Toy Shop
Harry Harrison
A clever toy rocket that seemingly defies gravity becomes a catalyst for scientific breakthrough when it lands in the hands of the very people who might solve its mystery.
Come Into My Brain!
Robert Silverberg
A human volunteer ventures into the psychic landscape of a captured enemy to extract military secrets, only to discover that the battlefield of the mind is as treacherous and mutable as the physical war.
Never Gut-Shoot a Wampus
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
An interstellar hunting trip with a cruel, wealthy industrialist and his neglected wife reveals the true, dangerous cost of a billionaire’s obsession with power and sport.
The Pure Observers
B. J. Rogers
The observers of Earth are themselves the ones being watched, their own souls laid bare by the raw, vocal humanity they condescend to study from the silence of space.
Where are you, Mr. Biggs?
Nelson S. Bond
A genius inventor, his worried captain, and a loyal radio operator face a desperate, high-stakes collision in deep space. When logic fails, one man’s ultimate sacrifice becomes the only path to survival.
Duel in Black
John Foster West
This story of a high-stakes standoff on the lunar surface pits a young prospector against a lethal claim jumper, where the difference between life and death is measured in shadows and heat.
E Being
James Stamers
The first human to reach the speed of light discovers that the journey has a cost: he is no longer matter, but an energy-based entity hungry for power, trapped on a world he can no longer truly inhabit.
Placebo
David Mason
A traveler from a rigid, authoritarian future finds himself stranded in a seemingly primitive, idyllic land, only to discover that his salvation requires a dose of deception from the locals.
The Hitch Hikers
Vernon L. McCain
A lone, desperate race of microscopic beings hitches a ride to Earth inside the unsuspecting body of the first human astronaut to visit Mars.
Tydore's Gift
Alfred Coppel
A desperate spy infiltrates the ancient, decaying tower of a Martian recluse to steal a legendary atomic weapon, only to discover that the most dangerous traps are those built with absolute precision.
Goodbye, Dead Man!
Tom W. Harris
A cruel guard at a top-secret facility meets a dark fate when two scientists turn his own superstitions against him. It is a sharp, atmospheric tale of psychological warfare in the shadow of atomic technology.
Last Resort
Stephen Bartholomew
It was supposed to be a simple pinhole leak, but millions of miles from home, it becomes a slow-motion execution.
Black-out
Joseph Farrell
As a dying Martian civilization pins its final hopes on an advanced race across the void, a last astronomer discovers a devastating truth about the people he desperately seeks to contact.
Everybody knows Joe
C. M. (Cyril M.) Kornbluth
At least two persons live in each of us, and one of them is Joe, a swaggering free-lance writer whose internal critic tags along to witness his grand delusions and elaborate evasions.
Mr. Replogle's dream
Evelyn E. Smith
HOOK In a world where mass production has reduced humanity to grey conformity, art stands as the final refuge of the soul—until a gallery discovers its newest "primitive" genius is a machine.
Rundown
Robert Lory
A disoriented man wakes up in a subway station with no memory of his past, wearing ragged clothes and desperately hunting for a single ten-cent coin to save his life.