Audio Books

Men in the Walls

William Tenn
There are giant, technologically superior aliens who have conquered Earth. People live like vermin in holes in the insulation material of the walls of the homes the monsters have built, sneaking out to steal food and other items from the aliens. A complex social and religious order has evolved, with women preserving knowledge and working as healers, while men serve as warriors and thieves. For the aliens, men and women are just a nuisance, neither civilized nor intelligent, and are generally regarded as vermin to be exterminated. This story begins "Mankind consisted of 128 people.The sheer population pressure of so vast a horde had long ago filled over a dozen burrows."

Jewel of Bas

Leigh Douglass Brackett
There was a boy-God, sleeping through eternity. And there were his "Stone of Life" and the androids he had createdof matter and energy. And there was a world that was to die from the machinations of the androids' diabolic minds. There were Mouse and Ciaran tostem the death-flood—two mortals fighting the immortals' plans for conquest.[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromPlanet Stories Spring 1944.

Equation of Doom

Gerald Vance
A world weary space pilot on the lam from earth for crimes unspecified; the most beautiful (earthly) tri-D woman in the universe who is determined to be the most powerful too; a planet of crafty and unscrupulous giant frogs intent on kicking out all aliens; and finally beings who live outside of time. Mix them all together and some very interesting things happen. Very interesting. And disastrous. But there's more! Why did 3000 worlds across the galaxy suddenly blossom almost simultaneously with very similar life and intelligence? Could there have been a common ancestor? Well, give or take a million years, simultaneously. The answer to all these questions is in this story. Listen and find out what happens in Equation of Doom.

World Beyond, The

Cummings, Ray
Lee Anthony finds himself and two of his friends kidnapped and taken on a strange voyage.

Penal Cluster

Randall Garrett
What do you do with telepaths? Chain them to an asteroid of course and just leave them there ..... but why? Wait a minute ... did I just say that the punishment for being a telepath in the future earth was to be chained to an asteroid 50 million miles from earth and then leave them there, comatose, to spin forever in their lonely orbits? Well, yes, that is what earth's draconian solution was to the sudden emergence of telepath ability. The world wide psychodeviant police had the job of tracking down these terrible deviants and then sending them into space immediately. But are all telepaths evil? Could one of these psychodeviant police be secret telepath himself? Listen to this great story and find out why earth felt so terrified of telepaths.

Lord of Death and the Queen of Life

Homer Eon Flint
A doctor, an architect, an engineer, and a geologist step into a space car. In their new invention, they set off on an expedition to Mercury, planning to visit Venus on the return voyage. On Mercury they find a strange city eerily abandoned. Sculptures of giant figures alarm them. In a building they discover a machine. The engineer gets it running, and blaring out of the machine a thundering voice speaking Mercurian begins to sound in a way that conveys to them that it is telling a story. After an enormous effort the men translate the audio book. Here is the story translated from the Mercurian’s recording explaining what happened to him, and the story of the space travelers of what happened next.

Short Life

Francis Donovan
At two years old, Timmy was an imbecile, incapable of talking or controlling his own body. At four years old, he abruptly stood up and began speaking in full sentences. Within a few years, he was a genius. But it was all a terrible mistake, one that might put the whole universe at risk.

Out of the Iron Womb!

Poul William Anderson
Behind a pale Venusian mask lay hidden the arch-humanist, the anti-tech killer ... one of those who needlessly had strewn Malone blood across the heavens from Saturn to the sun. Now—on distant Trojan asteroids—the rendezvous for death was plainly marked. This is an outstanding story from Poul Anderson, renowned as one of the greatest science fiction writers.

Thralls of the Endless Night

Leigh Douglass Brackett
This is a classic story from the early days of science fiction pulp magazines. Leigh Brackett, a female author who stood with the best of them during the period, always has a quirky way of examining human behavior whether on earth or a distant planet. A "tribe" composed of Hans, Officers and a Captain have been marooned on a strange place, out of touch with other humans for many generations. They have to eke out a living with great difficulties in a difficult and hostile environment. Does this sound sort of familiar? There are also really neat 'Piruts' in the story who always try to get the supposed benefit of living close to the Ship. I liked it and the ending is cool too.

Terror Out of Space

Leigh Douglass Brackett
In the wake of unexpected meteor activity, a wave of inexplicable madness sweeps the already strange and ill-charted world of Venus. Racing to locate the source of the disturbance, Lundy and his team from Tri-World Police, Special Branch quickly find that locating the problem isn't half so tough as transporting IT back to headquarters. Out of his depth metaphysically and quickly sinking into the black pit of a Venusian sea, Lundy is about to discover his own profound reserves of strength and pit them against that which lurks behind a veneer of beauty-- the Unknown.

Coffin for Jacob

Edward W. Ludwig
Recently graduated and now a junior astrogator, Ben Carson punches an irritating drunkard in Luna City, killing him with one punch. Fleeing the scene, he heads to Venus.

There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs.

But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways obscure the dead face?

Arriving on Venus, he joins an underground movement in exchange for their help. Unfortunately, his tortured conscience prevents his wholehearted commitment to their cause.

Terror Out of Space (Version 2)

Leigh Douglass Brackett
"An eerie story of a silver land beneath the black Venusian seas. A grim tale of brooding terror whirling out of space to drive men mad, of a menace without name or form, and of the man, Lundy, who fought the horror, his eyes blinded by his will. For to see the terror was to become its slave—a mindless automaton whose only wish was to see behind the shadowed mysterious eyelids of "IT". From the publishers blurb about this story in Planet Stories, 1944 where it was first given to the public.

Warrior of Two Worlds

Manly Wade Wellman
"He was the man of two planets, drawn through the blackness of space to save a nation from ruthless invaders. He was Yandro, the Stranger of the Prophecy—and he found that he was destined to fight both sides." Another swashbuckler in space from Manly Wade Wellman. Who could ask for anything more?

Green World

Hal Clement
The planet was an enigma. Among the thousands of inhabitable planets that had been discovered and visited, Veridis alone seemed to defy the laws of planetary development and evolution. It was extremely young, barely 10 million years had passed since it was completely molten and yet now it was covered with life of all kinds; kinds that should have not had a chance to even begin to develop, much less reach their current stage. To investigate this anomaly among the stars, a team of experienced specialists was sent out to delve further into the mystery and if possible, solve it. Other than the obvious fields of planetology and geology, other specialties were included like paleontology and archaeology. The highly dangerous flora and fauna of the planet do not help at all. So, what is the cause? It lies deeper in the Green Planet than anyone thinks and is much more dangerous than they can ever imagine.

Life in a Thousand Worlds

Harris, William Shuler
A jolly romp, which could be described as Gulliver's Travels Through Our Solar System and Beyond, as written by C. S. Lewis on a rainy Sunday afternoon after one too many mugs of cocoa.

Cubs of the Wolf

Raymond Fisher Jones
The Markovian Nucleus was once an existential threat to the council worlds, but then, in the space of only 70-80 years, their culture completely changed. They became model galactic citizens and everyone was too relieved to question their good fortune. Now, Doctoral Candidate Cameron Wilder and his new bride, Joyce Wilder, are on the case. What actually happened to the Markovians?

Man Obsessed

Alan E. Nourse
Jeffrey Meyer had a killing on his mind. It meant nothing to him that his towering Twenty-first Century world was going mad. He shouldered aside the rising tide of narcotics-mania, the gambling fever, the insatiable lust for the irrational. Jeff had his own all-consuming obsession—Paul Conroe must die!After a five-year frenzied chase, Jeff had his victim cornered; he'd driven him into the last hideaway of the world's most desperate men—the sealed vaults of the human-vivisectionists. And Jeff knew that to reach his final horrible objective, he must offer himself also as a guinea pig for the secret experiments of the world's most feared physicians!

5 SF stories by Mack Reynolds

Mack Reynolds
Five Science Fiction stories from the strange mind of Mack Reynolds. Always innovative and interesting, these were published in the early science fiction and fantasy magazines of the 1940's and 50's.

Shannach-The-Last

Leigh Douglass Brackett
A true pulp science fiction from 1952 from the pen of Leigh Douglas Brackett. In the deep caves of Mars an alien race ruled and enslaved men and women with cruel and unfeeling desires. This was about the challenged by one weak man. He knew what he had to do and would die trying to do it. The question is, was he hurting or helping them? A cryptic summary because this is a cryptic story. What looks like a simple straightforward plot has layers of deception and subtle humor. Was he destroying the aliens, or were they just using him? Listen and find out.

Citadel of the Green Death

Robert Emmett McDowell
At the coldly gleaming Experimental Station they flung this choice in Outlaw Joel Hakkyt's teeth: "Grinding, endless slavery on Asgard, that Alpha Centauri hell—or a writhing, screaming guinea-pig's death here?" He chose Asgard, naturally. But what was natural—on Asgard?

Centaurians

L. D. Biagi
Published in 1911, 15 years before the first verified discovery of the North Pole and in the same year when F. Cook published a memoir claiming his own discovery of the Pole, this short SciFi about the discovery of the Pole and the civilisation on the other side which is supposedly 6 centuries in advance compared to our own, was doomed to sink in the unknown from the beginning on. But reading it a century later, this SciFi shows its own charm by conveying the general sentiment in the society short before the big discovery and the motivation behind the continued exploration despite the associated hardships. Some predictions, such as the manmade diamonds, even came true very recently, while some others are overtaken by the real advancement in science already.

Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream

Louis Pope Gratacap
This book is ostensibly about a theoretical catastrophic geologic event. It turns into a meditation on what it means to be an English person, and at the end, includes a ringing defense of America.

Olga Romanoff

George Griffith
Olga Romanoff (1894) is a science fiction novel by the English writer George Griffith, first published as The Syren of the Skies in Pearson's Weekly.The novel continues (from The Angel of the Revolution) the tale of a worldwide brotherhood of anarchists fighting the world armed with fantastical airships, ending on an apocalyptic note as a comet smashes into the earth.

Giphantia

Charles-François Tiphaigne de La Roche
After having gone over the whole world and visited all the inhabitants, I find it does not answer the pains I have taken. I have just been reviewing my memoirs concerning the several nations, their prejudices, their customs and manners, their politicks, their laws, their religion, their history; and I have thrown them all into the fire. It grieves me to record such a monstrous mixture of humanity and barbarousness, of grandeur and meanness, of reason and folly.
The small part, I have preserv’d, is what I am now publishing. If it has no other merit, certainly it has novelty to recommend it. (Introduction to Giphantia)

Revolution

Mack Reynolds
The collapse of the U.S.S.R. in the future. What would happen after a collapse? This story is set many years before the actual collapse of the Soviet Union when there was speculation that questioned what the world would look like, and what would happen to the future of the Soviet State. This Mack Reynolds science fiction book presents one possible reality that could come to life in this futuristic view of the world.

I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon

Richard Sabia
Poor Dolliver Wims is a terribly misunderstood teen age boy from the backwoods. Is he mean or evil? Quite the opposite: He does nothing wrong, hurts no one and wants only to be liked and to help, yet he seems to be blamed for every accident that ever happens to anyone in the University research facility where he 'works' as a porter. Why does disaster seem to swirl around him like a tornado whips around it's eye. He never is hurt in the slightest way while others slash themselves with previously innocent knives, are smashed by falling bookcases that had no cause to fall, and are shot by guns that are safely tucked away. And of course when he enters the army, with it's concentrated availability of destructive equipment, the situation only seems to get worse. Why? Listen to this delightful tale of future wars and a secret weapon named Dolliver Wims and how he may be the key to world peace. Or perhaps it's the other way around ....

Knyght Ther Was, A

Young, Robert F.
"But the Knyght was a little less than perfect, and his horse did not have a metabolism, and his 'castle' was much more mobile - timewise! - than it had any business being!" In 2178, once time travel had become a simple task, it had also been outlawed. Those who chose to ingnore this law were known as time-thieves, and Tom Mallory was among the best of them. When he learns the precise whereabouts of the Holy Grail in 542, he sets out to obtain it with the intention of returning it to the 22nd century to make a handsome profit and to settle on Get-Rich-Quick Street. Off to the year 542 he travels to the castle of Carbonek where the great Knight Sir Launcelot is said to have possession of the Sangraal.

Venus Enslaved

Manly Wade Wellman
A rip-snorting, 1940s science fiction adventure from the pen of Manly Wade Wellman. What chance had the castaway Earthman and his crossbow-weaponed Amazons against the mighty Frogmasters of the Veiled Planet? Hmmm? What chance indeed? From his broad shoulders, rippling muscles fighting spirit and keen intelligence, our hero finds a way to victory and perhaps even love. Listen and enjoy.

In the Clutch of the War-God

Milo Hastings
In three parts, from Physical Culture magazine, July - September, 1911. In this story, the author warns of the coming of a world war between Japan and U.S. While the Japanese have a superior society, they suffer from food shortages and over-population so go to war with the U.S., who is plagued by a society of ill health and habit. Some predictions are remarkably accurate. The story itself was commissioned by Bernarr Macfadden, who was an early proponent of health and fitness in the U.S. and founded the magazine publisher McFadden Publications.

New Lamps

Robert Moore Williams
Ronson came to the Red Planet on the strangest mission of all ... he only knew he wanted to see Les Ro, but he didn't know exactly why. It was because he knew that Les Ro had the answer to something that had never been answered before, if indeed, it had ever been asked! For Les Ro traded new lamps for old—and they were the lamps of life itself! A story of what life holds for all of us.

Great Stone of Sardis

Frank R. Stockton
The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but good enough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from the station, and near it were the extensive buildings which he called his Works. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in which many men were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and other materials; and besides other small edifices there was a great round tower --like structure, with smooth iron walls thirty feet high and without windows, and which was lighted and ventilated from the top. This was Clewe's special workshop; and besides old Samuel Block and such workmen as were absolutely necessary and could be trusted, few people ever entered it but himself. The industries in the various buildings were diverse, some of them having no apparent relation to the others. Each of them was expected to turn out something which would revolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to his lens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention. Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyes than anything else which had engaged human endeavor. . . .

Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix

Homer Eon Flint
In the Devolutionist, space travelers experiment with Venusian methods of telepathic space travel. They leave our solar system to discover and explore the earthlike planet Capellette of the star Capella. In the Emancipatrix, they go to the planet Sanus of the star Arcturus. In both unique worlds, they become embroiled in the struggles and challenges of the inhabitants, and much more. This is Book Two of the Dr. Kinney adventures.

Nequa or The Problem of the Ages

Jack Adams
Nequa or The Problem of the Ages is one of the first feminist science fiction books published in the United States. It was first serialized in the newspaper Equity, and two editions were published in Topeka, Kansas in 1900. The voyage described in Nequa is to the Arctic. The captain of the ship is amazed to find that when they reach a certain spot, which should be close to the North Pole, the compass shows that the ship is suddenly traveling south. Actually they have sailed into the interior of the earth, where they meet the Altrurians, a people who have developed into a more cooperative society than those of the outer earth. Individual Altrurians describe how the evolution of their society took place. These explanations reflect the Populist thought of the time, with definite feminist proclivities, thereby providing the tone of a political novel.
While the book was published with the pseudonym of Jack Adams, it was copyrighted under the names Alcanoan A. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe, who are presumed to be the true authors.

Venus Boy

Lee Sutton
If you ever make a trip to the green planet of Venus, the first thing you'll see will be the fifty-foot high statue of Venus' greatest hero. It stands on the very top of towering New Plymouth Rock at the edge of the old colony of New Plymouth. Even from the rocket cradle, anyone can tell that the statue is of a twelve-year-old boy smiling up at the Venusian jewel bear perched on his shoulder. Cut into the huge rock below the statue are the words,

"Virgil Dare (Johnny) WatsonAnd the Marva, Baba.May their Friendship Endure!"

Virgil Dare Watson, called Johnny by his friends, was the first human being born on Venus. He was named after Virginia Dare, the first pioneer child born in North America, and for a long time he was the only child on all Venus. And that would have been a lonely thing to be if it had not been for Baba. Baba, the bear, was not only Johnny's pet, but his best friend, too, and the only one who knew about his three secrets.

Because of these secrets, Johnny got himself, his jewel bear, Baba, and the whole colony of New Plymouth into desperate trouble. And because of these secrets, he also became a hero worthy of a statue—Venus' greatest hero.

Arqtiq: A Study of the Marvels at the North Pole

Anna Adolph
Described by author Liza Daly as a "strange masterpiece of outsider art," Arqtiq is a bizarre, borderline hallucinatory work of feminist utopian fiction. Equal parts sci-fi adventure, philosophical tract, and pro-Symmesian pamphlet, Anna Adolph’s strange, self-published novella centers its narrative around an aviator (also named Anna) who, along with a ragtag group of family and friends, charts an expedition to the North Pole in a retro-futuristic airship of her own invention. There, Anna and her crew travel into the hollow earth, encounter a race of telepathic giants, and uncover secrets about God and the universe. Written in a style that teeters somewhere between modernist abstraction and amateurish enthusiasm, Arqtiq almost defies comprehension. It is a maddening and oftentimes incoherent tale that nonetheless fascinates with its unhinged imagination. It is perhaps one of the most exuberantly surreal and dreamlike works of utopian fiction from this era.

Venus Boy (Version 2)

Lee Sutton
The colony on Venus is struggling to survive. All animal life on the planet, from the deadly Arrow Birds to the huge Rhinosaurs are deadly and out to kill any human they can get at. But Venus is home to an extremely valuable resource, the claws and teeth of the little 'bears' called Marva. One of the beautiful diamond hard claws is worth a million dollars. Hunters flock to the planet to find and kill these bears. This story is about the first boy born on Venus and his pet bouncing bear BaBa and their scary adventures and ultimate success in saving the colony ... and the bears!

Mists of Mars

George A. Whittington
The Wild West, reimagined as the Martian landscape, where law is defined by whoever has the biggest weapons, be they guns, ships, or things more mysterious. As stand-ins for Indigenous Americans, the Martians themselves.

When Barry Williams, special investigator for the Terrestrial Bureau of Martian Affairs, finds out the state of play, he seeks to change the status quo and relieve destruction and suffering. He's going up against the nature of law itself.

Cosmic Castaway

Carl Richard Jacobi
"Within a year Earth would be a vassal world, with the Sirian invaders triumphant. Only Standish, Earth's Defense Engineer, could halt that last victorious onslaught—and he was helpless, the lone survivor of a prison ship wrecked in uncharted space."

Moon Destroyers

Monroe K. Ruch
The tremendous speed of the dive brought them so close that they could see the skeletons of wrecked ships piled up at the base of the precipice. The moon is not only the most prominent object in our heavens, but also an integral part of the earth. We are, so to speak, an astronomical unit, and we affect each other for better or for worse. We know that the gravitational attraction of the moon causes our tides, and tends to slow up the earth in her daily rotation. It has also been deemed responsible for earthquakes, causing untold suffering among earth's people. Does the moon hold other secrets?

Four Science Fiction Stories by G.L.Vandenburg

G. L. Vandenburg
G.L.Vandenburg wrote quirky and funny Science Fiction stories for Amazing Science Fiction Stories, and similar magazines in the 1950's. These four are a selection that give a good taste of his offbeat approach, strange sense of humor and relaxed narrative style that brought joy and excitement to those of us who bought these magazines and saw his name on the cover. In the first, Martian V.F.W., some strange visitors join a parade; in the second, Jubilation, U.S.A, our first visitors from outer space encounter a One-Armed Bandit and don't exactly hit the jackpot; in the third, Moon Glow, the first Americans on the Moon receive an unwelcomed surprise; and in the last, The Observers, a sinister plot involving bald men is thwarted by a dumb secretary ... well kinda. Enjoy!

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