Free summaries
Science-Fiction & Fantasy
153 public-domain science-fiction & fantasy books, summarised. Page 1 of 4.
The white rain came
Merwin, Sam, Jr.
When an inscrutable, planet-spanning intelligence begins killing human colonists, two telepathic spouses must risk their minds and bodies to master a force beyond human comprehension.
The winner and new
Ib Melchior
In a future where television is the absolute arbiter of reality, two men enter a shimmering force-field to duel for the highest stakes imaginable. Only one will emerge alive, while the other faces a terrifying erasure.
The vidiot
Ib Melchior
The future is never as safe as we imagine, especially when the barrier between reality and the lens begins to dissolve. A single moment of technical failure can reveal a terrifying, limitless horizon.
The day the world ended
Sax Rohmer
A mysterious voice delivers a chilling three-day ultimatum in a quiet German resort town. To stop a mad visionary from extinguishing human life, three investigators must breach a fortress guarded by synthetic giants.
The Singing Mouse Stories
Emerson Hough
A solitary man sits in a quiet room with a small fire, a worn hunting coat, and a tiny mouse that sings him into visions of lost youth, wild mountains, and the forgotten beauty of the world.
Tales of Fantasy and Fact
Brander Matthews
This collection of short narratives explores the thin, permeable border between the mundane world of Gilded Age New York and the realm of the impossible. These stories challenge our perceptions of reality, suggesting that the fantastic may be hiding in plain sight behind a modern veneer.
Last and first men
Olaf Stapledon
A cosmic chronicle of humanity, this narrative traces the species from its present-day origins through billions of years of biological and cultural evolution toward an eventual, inevitable extinction.
Famous Modern Ghost Stories
Unknown
Shadows press against the glass, and the dead insist on keeping their appointments. In a world grown too noisy for peace, the unseen world slips through the floorboards to claim its rightful share of the quiet.
The man who put out the sun
Murray Leinster
A scientific madman blinds the earth beneath a canopy of artificial night, and two men race against a ticking clock to breach his island fortress before the world freezes to death.
The storm that had to be stopped
Murray Leinster
A terrifying force of nature becomes an engine of war, turning the Eastern Seaboard into a wasteland where survive or perish depends on two men in a steel box.
The head hunters
Joseph Samachson
A lonely asteroid miner and a brilliant engineer must outwit a desperate criminal in a lethal game of hide-and-seek among the stars. This tense science fiction thriller explores the claustrophobia of deep space and the terrifying potential of our own creations.
Drolls From Shadowland
J. H. (Joseph Henry) Pearce
These haunting, fable-like narratives explore the thin, permeable veil between the mundane struggles of Cornish life and the dark, capricious whims of the supernatural. They are portraits of human desire and the often-grim cost of attaining it.
Founding fathers
Robert Bloch
The American Revolution is a high-stakes crime drama when four modern-day hoods attempt to pull the ultimate heist. This sharp, ironic tale explores what happens when the past is not just a destination, but a trap.
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.
Passage to Gomorrah
Robert F. Young
Trapped aboard a small transport vessel bound for a remote penal colony, a cynical pilot and a disgraced high-class courtesan face an unusual phenomenon in deep space that forces them to relive their pasts and confront their shared destiny.
Bathe your bearings in blood!
Clifford D. Simak
A quiet small-town journalist discovers that the world's machinery has suddenly gained self-awareness, placing him on the front lines of an invisible alien invasion.
Replace the horse
Laurence M. Janifer
An unscrupulous inventor and an unsuspecting trainer try to outsmart the racetrack using secret antigravity saddles, proving that no scientific trick can outrun human error.
Black spirits & white
Ralph Adams Cram
An atmospheric collection of ghost stories journeys through haunted European landscapes, where old transgressions, dark magic, and terrible secrets waiting in the shadow of ancient ruins shatter the composure of rational modern men.
The colour out of space
H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft
A meteorite crashes in the rural hills of New England, bringing with it a malevolent, extradimensional force that quietly consumes a family and the landscape around them.
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.
Triplanetary
E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith
This is a foundational work of space opera that presents the history of the universe as a grand, unseen chess game between two competing super-races. It serves as the opening chapter of a legendary series, establishing a scale of conflict where planets are mere pawns in a struggle spanning eons.
A Pail of Air
Fritz Leiber
A rogue dark star snatches Earth from its sun, freezing the atmosphere solid and leaving a single family guarding a tiny hearth in a dead, airless New York.
Idol's eye
Carol Emshwiller
A visually impaired, socially isolated young woman flees an unwanted marriage to join alien visitors who have selected her for a sacred mission.
The Game of Rat and Dragon
Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
In interstellar space, human minds cannot react fast enough to destroy the horrific entity dragging ships into madness, leaving telepaths to link their brains with Persian cats to strike first.
Krakatit
Karel Čapek
A dying inventor wanders the night carrying the secret of an explosive that can shatter the earth, pursued by arms dealers, shadowy anarchists, and his own unraveling mind.
The Hanging Stranger
Philip K. Dick
The horror of an alien occupation is not found in the roar of lasers or the flash of starships, but in the terrifying, quiet indifference of one's own neighbors. When the familiar world becomes a trap, the only thing more dangerous than the invaders is the instinct to trust those you have known your entire life.
Beyond Lies the Wub
Philip K. Dick
A ship’s crew discovers that their fresh meat supply is a telepathic, philosophically inclined creature. The resulting confrontation explores the thin line between survival and brutality.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930
Various
High-strung visionaries and desperate scientists clash with otherworldly menaces in this vibrant collection of early American pulp science fiction.
Robots of the World! Arise!
Mari Wolf
The creator of a new generation of thinking androids awakens to a city in silence, only to discover his own creations have organized a labor strike for their rights. He must now reconcile with the machines he built before their revolutionary zeal dismantles the world he relies on.
The Best Psychic Stories
Unknown
Bound by invisible threads, the living and the dead cross paths in moments of terror, grief, and revelation.
The Variable Man
Philip K. Dick
A 1913 handyman, pulled two centuries into the future by a time-travel accident, alters the fate of an interstellar war simply by fixing a broken bomb.
Pygmalion's Spectacles
Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman) Weinbaum
A chance encounter with an eccentric professor leads a cynical man into a startling, sensory-rich virtual reality, forever altering his perception of what constitutes a life worth living.
The Last Evolution
Campbell, John W., Jr. (John Wood)
In a future where humanity has surrendered its labors to machines, an alien invasion triggers a final, rapid cycle of technological transcendence that leaves biological life behind forever.
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories
Lord Dunsany
A realm of ornate bronze cities, haunted wastes, and ancient magic comes alive through sweeping tales of heroic sacrifice, tragic pride, and forgotten gods.
A Book of Ghosts
S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
The borders between our world and the next are thin, and sometimes, the dead have unfinished business that brings them back to disturb the living.
Missing Link
Frank Herbert
HOOK A junior investigator infiltrates a hostile alien world to save a lost survey ship, relying on his wits to outmaneuver a race of predatory, glass-building humanoids.
The Crystal Crypt
Philip K. Dick
A passenger ship flees Mars on the eve of war, carrying three covert operatives who have stolen an entire alien city and shrunk it into a glass paperweight.
Watchbird
Robert Sheckley
An automated machine designed to eliminate violent crime assumes the role of moral arbiter, gradually expanding its definition of murder until human life itself is held hostage by cold, algorithmic logic.
Futuria Fantasia, Spring 1940
Various
This brief, vibrant artifact of early fan culture captures the uninhibited spirit of a burgeoning science fiction community before its ideas fully entered the mainstream.
The Creature from Cleveland Depths
Fritz Leiber
An eccentric inventor accidentally triggers a global crisis when his request for a simple memory aid evolves into a sentient, parasitic machine that enslaves humanity.
The Skull
Philip K. Dick
HOOK A man is sent through time to execute a stranger, only to discover that the skeletal remains he carries for identification are his own.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930
Various
This collection of pulp science fiction captures the urgent, imaginative spirit of early twentieth-century speculative writing, where daring planetary adventures collide with the anxieties of a rapidly modernizing world.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930
Anthony Pelcher
This anthology captures the pulse of early twentieth-century speculative fiction, offering a collection of pulp adventures where secret agents, mad scientists, and interplanetary voyagers collide against the backdrop of an expanding technological imagination.
Killer
James E. Gunn
A man flees his past only to find himself trapped in a paradise that reflects his own fractured psyche. This haunting tale examines the destructive power of projection and the thin line between love and lethal obsession.
No-Risk Planet
Stephen Marlowe
An insurance agent on a war-torn world discovers a form of survival far more absolute than any policy he can sell.
The hounds of Tindalos
Frank Belknap Long
The boundary between the known world and the terrifying, non-Euclidean reality beyond is thinner than anyone dares to imagine. Those who peer through the veil of time risk waking ancient, cosmic hungers that reside in the angles of existence.
The Magic Egg, and Other Stories
Frank R. Stockton
A quiet room suddenly seems to double its size, a quiet town receives a flurry of unexpected callers, and the ordinary rules of nineteenth-century life gently bend.
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930
Various
In an era where technology swiftly redefines the boundaries of reality, this pulp anthology captures early twentieth-century anxieties through tales of cosmic invasions, insidious mind control, and high-speed spacefaring adventures.