Classics of Imagination and Science Fiction
Explore timeless classics of imagination and science fiction with our curated list of must-read books. Dive into legendary tales that shaped the genre and inspired generations of readers.
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The War in the Air
by Herbert George Wells
At the beginning of the twentieth century the invention of the airplane revolutionizes warfare and precipitates a devastating world war between the United States and Germany and the Confederation of Eastern Asia.
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Savage Pellucidar
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
When David Innes and Abner Perry set out to search for mineral deposits in Perry's newly invented Mechanical Prospectro, they never dreamed of discovering the beautiful, terrifying world of Pellucidar five hundred miles beneath their feet. Cast into a country of fierce fighting men, beautiful women, and vicious beasts, David and Abner take sharply diverging paths. David and his mate, Dian the Beautiful, set out to teach Pellucidar the ways of civilization and succeed in gathering a number of primitive kingdoms into the Empire of Pellucidar. Meanwhile, Abner turns his inventive genius to the science of aeronautics, with dire results for both David and Dian. The seventh and final book in Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar series, Savage Pellucidar continues the epic story with a masterful blend of action, humor, and suspense.
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Shadrach in the Furnace
by Robert Silverberg
In the twenty-first century, a battered world is ruled by a crafty old tyrant, Genghis II Mao IV Khan. The Khan is ninety-three years old, his life systems sustained by the skill of Mordecai Shadrach, a brilliant young surgeon whose chief function is to replace the Khanâs worn-out organs. Within the vast tower-complex, the most advanced equipment is dedicated to three top-priority projects, each designed to keep the Khan immortal. Most sinister of these is Project Avatar, by which the Khanâs mind and persona are to be transferred to a younger body. Shadrach makes the unsettling discovery that it is his body that is to be used. His friends beg him to flee, but he refuses to panic. Instead, and with startling composure, he evolves a dangerous plan that could change the face of the earth or, if it backfires, mean the end of life. Shadrach in the Furnace is at once a broad, sweeping novel and a harsh, abrasive, irreverent book about a life-and-death battle between two titansâone the epitome of evil, the other a paragon of idealismâin a society pushed to extremes.
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Voices of Vision
by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
As the world around us becomes more fantastic, and science itself more surreal, the realms of science fiction and fantasy become correspondingly both more bizarre and more relevant. Voices of Vision offers a rare look into the inner workings of this realm and into the very thoughts and methods of those who make it tick: editors and writers of science fiction and fantasy, and creators of comic books and graphic novels. In wide-ranging interviews that are by turns intimate and thought provoking, irreverent and outrageous, Jayme Lynn Blaschke talks shop with some of the most interesting voices in these genres as well as the people behind them, such as current Science Fiction Weekly and former Science Fiction Age editor Scott Edelman. ø A host of authors talk to Blaschke about what it?s like to do what they do, how they work and how they started, and where they think the genre is headed. Blaschke talks to writers such as Robin Hobb, Charles de Lint, Patricia Anthony, and Elizabeth Moon; revered authors of comic books and graphic novels, including Neil Gaiman and Brad Meltzer; and icons such as Samuel R. Delany, Gene Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, and Jack Williamson. Editors such as Gardner Dozois, editor of Asimov?s Science Fiction magazine, discuss their publishing philosophies and strategies, the origins and probable directions of their magazines, and the broader influence of such ventures. For devoted reader, aspiring writer, and curious onlooker alike, these interviews open a largely hidden, endlessly engrossing world.
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The Moon Pool
by Abraham Merritt
On the island of Ponape in the South Pacific, the cold light of a full moon washes over the crumbling ruins of an ancient, vanished civilization. Unleashed from the depths is the Dweller, a glittering, enigmatic force of monstrous terror and radiant beauty that stalks the South Pacific, claiming all in its path. An international expedition led by American Walter Goodwin races to save those who have fallen victim to the Dweller. The dark mystery behind the malevolent force is Muria, a forgotten, mythic world deep within the earth that is home to a legendary people intent on reclaiming what was theirs long ago. This commemorative edition of The Moon Pool features an introduction by Robert Silverberg, a review of the first edition, and a glossary of the Murian language.
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The Croquet Player
by Herbert George Wells
Something is horribly wrong in the remote English village of Cainsmarsh. An elderly woman stiffens in dread at her own shadow; a terrified farmer murders a scarecrow; food prepared by others is eyed with suspicion; family pets are bludgeoned to death; loving couples are devoured by rage and violence. A spirit-corrupting evil pervades the land, infesting the minds of those who call Cainsmarsh home. Is this vision real, or a paranoid fantasy generated by an even darker, worldwide threat? And is the call to resist the danger itself a danger? These are questions that disturb the calm of an indolent croquet player who happens to hear the tale of the unlucky village. ø H. G. Wells?s ambiguous story of horror is a modern classic, a prophetic, disturbing glimpse of the primitive distrust and violence that gnaw at the heart of the modern world.
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The Purple Cloud
by Matthew Phipps Shiel
"If now a swell from the Deep has swept over this planetary ship of earth, and I, who alone chanced to find myself in the furthest stern, as the sole survivor of her crew . . . What then, my God, shall I do?" The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction and one of the best "last man" novels ever written. A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his survival was no accident and that his destiny?and the fate of the human race?are part of a profound, cosmological plan.
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The Nightmare, and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy
by Francis Stevens
Slithering from these pages are never-before-collected tales of suspense and wonder by the woman who invented modern-day dark fantasy: A man goes quietly to bed aboard the doomed Lusitania and awakens on a magical South Pacific Island just as the passenger liner is torpedoed. In a future where women rule the world, a sentient island becomes murderously jealous of a shipwrecked couple. Dire consequences await a human swept into the dark, magical world of elves. A deadly labyrinth coils around the dark heart of a picturesque landscape garden. Within an Egyptian sarcophagus lies the horrifying price of infidelity. Swirling unseen around us are loathsome creatures giving form to our basest desires and fears. A beautiful, veiled medium may hold the key to preventing unspeakable evil from slipping through the borderlands between life and death. On a lost island a woman pipe player and her monstrous dancing partner bring death and terror to five adventurers. ø The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.
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The Wonder
by John Davys Beresford
"Long recognized as a classic of speculative fiction but never before widely available, The Wonder is one of the first novels about a "superman.""--BOOK JACKET.
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Under the Moons of Mars
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Ambushed in the cold moonlight of an Arizona night, Captain John Carter is inexplicably teleported to Mars, called Barsoom by its inhabitants. Legendary Barsoom?where hostile tribes of towering green warriors roam an arid landscape of dead cities and feuding city-states; where pilgrimages are made to a river of death that conceals a terrifying secret; where lifespans are measured in centuries; and where airships speed through the thinning atmosphere while duels are fought with swords below. Stranded and fighting for his life in a dying, savage world, John Carter embarks on one of the greatest adventures of all time as his destiny and Barsoom?s become one.ø ø The first three books of Edgar Rice Burroughs?s brilliantly conceived Barsoom series?A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and The Warlord of Mars?are brought together here for the first time. The trilogy follows the saga of John Carter from his unexpected arrival on Barsoom through hair-raising adventures and startling discoveries from pole to pole of the planet.
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Tanar of Pellucidar
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The third installment in the Pelludicar series from the legendary creator of Tarzan.
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Back to the Stone Age
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The fifth installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs?s Pellucidar series, Back to the Stone Age recounts the strange adventures of Lieutenant von Horst, a member of the original crew that sailed to Pellucidar with Jason Gridley and Tarzan who is left behind in the inner world. Von Horst wanders friendless and alone from one danger to the next among the Stone Age peoples, mighty reptiles, and huge animals that have been extinct on the outer crust for thousands of years. But woven among the tales of savage cave men in the country of the Basti, the hideous Gorbuses in the caverns beneath the Forest of Death, and the terrible Gaz is the story of the love this cultured hero feels for a barbarian slave girl who has spurned and discouraged him, working instead toward her own mysterious goal.
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The Twentieth Century
by Albert Robida
Humorous, illustrated novel by the âfather of science fiction illustrationâ.
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Masterpieces
by Orson Scott Card
A collection of the best science fiction short stories of the 20th century as selected and evaluated by critically-acclaimed author Orson Scott Card. Featuring stories from the genre's greatest authors: Isaac Asimov ⢠Arthur C. Clarke ⢠Robert A. Heinlein ⢠Ursula K. Le Guin ⢠Ray Bradbury ⢠Frederik Pohl ⢠Harlan Ellison ⢠George Alec Effinger ⢠Brian W. Aldiss ⢠William Gibson & Michael Swanwick ⢠Theodore Sturgeon ⢠Larry Niven ⢠Robert Silverberg ⢠Harry Turtledove ⢠James Blish ⢠George R. R. Martin ⢠James Patrick Kelly ⢠Karen Joy Fowler ⢠Lloyd Biggle, Jr. ⢠Terry Bisson ⢠Poul Anderson ⢠John Kessel ⢠R.A. Lafferty ⢠C.J. Cherryh ⢠Lisa Goldstein ⢠Edmond Hamilton In much of the science fiction of the past, the twenty-first century existed only in the writersâ imaginations. Now that itâs here, itâs time to take a look back at the last one hundred years in science fiction through the works of the most celebrated and acclaimed authors of the centuryâto see where weâve been and just how far weâve come. Along with a critical essay by Orson Scott Card reassessing science fiction in the twentieth century, Masterpieces includes short fiction by writers who have forged a permanent place for science fiction in the popular culture of today...and tomorrow. It offers a glimpse of the greatest works that mixed science with fiction in trying to figure out humanityâs place in the universe. Featuring bold, brave, and breathtaking stories, this definitive collection will stand the test of time in both this century and those to come.
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The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
by Justine Larbalestier
How women and feminism helped to shape science fiction in America.
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H. G. Wells
by Herbert George Wells
Includes the first serialized version of The Time Machine, short stories from Wells' student days at South Kensington, and essays from the 1890's that speculate on the future
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50 Short Science Fiction Tales
by Isaac Asimov
Stories of 300 to 3,000 words from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Kornbluth, Leiber, Sturgeon, et al. which have been selected to surprise, shock, and delight.
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The Moon Pool
by Abraham Merritt
The first scholarly edition of a classic science fiction novel.
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The World as It Shall Be
by Ămile Souvestre
The first future dystopia in modern European literature, now available in English.
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The Begum's Millions
by Jules Verne
Verne's first cautionary tale about the dangers of science â first modern and corrected English translation. When two European scientists unexpectedly inherit an Indian rajah's fortune, each builds an experimental city of his dreams in the wilds of the American Northwest. France-Ville is a harmonious urban community devoted to health and hygiene, the specialty of its French founder, Dr. François Sarrasin. Stahlstadt, or City of Steel, is a fortress-like factory town devoted to the manufacture of high-tech weapons of war. Its German creator, the fanatically pro-Aryan Herr Schultze, is Verne's first truly evil scientist. In his quest for world domination and racial supremacy, Schultze decides to showcase his deadly wares by destroying France-Ville and all its inhabitants. Both prescient and cautionary, The Begum's Millions is a masterpiece of scientific and political speculation and constitutes one of the earliest technological utopia/dystopias in Western literature. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices, and a critical introduction as well as all the illustrations from the original French edition.
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Paris in the Twentieth Century
by Jules Verne
In 1863 Jules Verne, famed author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth, wrote a novel that his literary agent deemed too far fetched to be published. More than one hundred years later, his great-grandson found the handwritten, never-before published manuscript in a safe. That manuscript was Paris in the Twentieth Century, and astonishingly prophetic view into the future by one of the most renowned science fiction writers of our time. . . . Praise for Paris in the Twentieth Century âJules Verne was the Michael Crichton of the 19th century.ââThe New York Times âFor anyone interested in the history of speculative fiction . . . this book is an absolute necessity.ââRay Bradbury âVerne's Paris is a bustling, overcrowded metropolis teeming with starving homeless and âvehicles that passed on paved roads and moved without horses.â Years before they would be invented, Verne has imagined elevators and faxmachines. It was a vision Verne's editor flatly rejected. Contemporary readers know better.ââPeople âAn excellent extrapolation, founded on 19th-century technical novelties, of a future culture.ââThe Washington Post Book World âVerne published nearly seventy books, many of them now considered classics. But this little jewel catches him just reaching stride as a writer of science fiction, a genre that he, of course, helped put on the literary map.ââThe Denver Post
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Subterranean Worlds
by Peter Fitting
Exploring the hollow earth from the 17th century to the present.
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The Mysterious Island
by Jules Verne
First new unabridged translation since 1876 of one of Verne's best-known novels.
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Science Fiction After 1900
by Brooks Landon
First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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To Seek Out New Worlds
by Jutta Weldes
Through detailed analyses of such texts as 'Blade Runner', 'Stalker', 'Star Trek', and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', the chapters in this volume examine the complex and sometimes contradictory relations between world politics, both as discipline and as practice, and discourses of science fiction.
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The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One 1929-1964
by Robert Silverberg
Twenty-six of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. Robert Heinlein in "The Roads Must Roll" describes an industrial civilization of the future caught up in the deadly flaws of its own complexity. "Country of the Kind," by Damon Knight, is a frightening portrayal of biological mutation. "Nightfall, " by Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest stories in the science fiction field, imagines a planet where the sun sets only once every millennium and is a chilling study in mass psychology.
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The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A
by Robert Silverberg
The mysteries and marvels of the science fiction world are brought to life in this compilation of stories representing the work of major authors in this field.
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The Philip K. Dick Reader
by Philip K. Dick
Includes the stories that inspired the movies Total Recall, Screamers, Minority Report, Paycheck, and Next "More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." --The Wall Street Journal The Philip K. Dick Reader Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount, and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works. Dick won the prestigious Hugo Award for the best novel of 1963 for The Man in the High Castle. In the last year of his life, the film Blade Runner was made from his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This collection includes some of Dick's earliest short and medium-length fiction, including We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (the story that inspired the motion picture Total Recall), Second Variety (which inspired the motion picture Screamers), Paycheck, The Minority Report, and twenty more.
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Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s (LOA #173)
by Philip K. Dick
This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original, mesmerizing, and surprising novels: "The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," and "Ubik."
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Burning Chrome
by William Gibson
Best-known for his seminal sf novel Neuromancer, William Gibson is actually best when writing short fiction. Tautly-written and suspenseful, Burning Chrome collects 10 of his best short stories with a preface from Bruce Sterling, now available for the first time in trade paperback. These brilliant, high-resolution stories show Gibson's characters and intensely-realized worlds at his absolute best, from the chip-enhanced couriers of "Johnny Mnemonic" to the street-tech melancholy of "Burning Chrome."
