Showing results by narrator "Harry Shaw" in All Categories

"I have two proposals to make, sir, and either is fair. Take your choice. I will give you twenty-five thousand when you deliver the falcon, and another twenty-five thousand as soon as I get to New York; or I will give you one quarter—twenty-five percent—of what I realize on the falcon. There you are, sir: an almost immediate fifty thousand dollars or a vastly greater sum within, say, a couple of months."

The second book in what would become known as Booth Tarkington's "growth trilogy" is about a small Midwestern town rapidly transforming into a modern industrial city. The Ambersons, once the town's most glamorous old-money family, is unable to adapt to the changing environment and is slowly declining toward oblivion, while Eugene Morgan and his newly invented motorcar are the future.

The American War is ended, and the intrepid artillerists of the Baltimore Gun Club have nothing left to do. So why not build a giant cannon and shoot three men to the moon?

All hail the Well-Doer! All hail the United State! Mathematician D-503 is building The Integral, the spaceship that will spread freedomless happiness to all the planets! Yevgeni Zamyatin's classic dystopian science fiction novel in its original English translation.

First published in 1897, The Nigger of the Narcissus is the story of a black West Indian, James Wait, who signs aboard the Narcissus, a merchant sailing ship on a journey from Bombay to London. Wait almost immediately becomes ill and bedridden for the remainder of the journey, splitting the crew into factions. It has long been considered one of Joseph Conrad's best and most important works.

Under the double moons of Barsoom, an invisible flier sped to the mysterious city of Jahar where Sanoma Tora, the kidnapped princess of Helium, had been taken. Hadron of Hastor was at the controls, hatching a rescue plan that required unusual daring and great ingenuity. For invisibility alone was not a great enough weapon against "The Death." And should Hadron succeed, what fate would await him at the hands of the madman whose very genius had created the means of that rescue?

Ninety-Three is the story of the Marquis de Lantenac, an exiled French nobleman snuck back into France to raise a Royalist army which will make the English invasion possible, Gauvain, Lantenac's great-nephew leading the Republican army to thwart him, and Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's teacher and mentor, tasked to keep Gauvain on the right path. And in the end, who will face the guillotine?

A galactic war has left the Terran Federation in ruins. Formerly civilized planets have decivilized into barbarism. Space Vikings roam the wreckage, plundering and killing for gain. Lord Lucas Trask of Traskon was no admirer of the Space Vikings, but when murder takes his wife on his wedding day, Trask trades everything he has for his own Space Viking ship and sets out on a galaxy-wide quest for revenge.

The Inter-Planetary Corporation has sent the space ship Arcturus on a routine fact-finding mission, only to have it ambushed by a strange alien craft, leaving physicist Steve Stevens and Nadia Newton first stranded on Ganymede, and then caught up in the Vorkul-Hexan war. A space adventure of staggering proportions by science fiction master writer E. E. “Doc” Smith.

No human had ever landed on the hidden planet of Arisia. A mysterious space barrier turned back both men and ships. Then the word came to Earth; "Go to Arisia!" Samms of the Galactic Patrol went—and came back with the Lens, the strange device that gave its wearer powers no man had ever possessed before. Samms knew the price of that power would be high. But even he had no idea of the ultimate cost, and the weird destiny waiting for the First Lensman.

Bigger, newer, faster. Demolish and rebuild, then demolish and rebuild again. Smoke, soot, and noise are the badges of prosperity, and growth is for growth's sake.

Mysterious deaths and disappearances on a doomed ship on its final voyage. Another ship appears out of nowhere, then vanishes. A single survivor of the Mortzestus gives his account of terror and haunting on the high seas in this classic tale by master writer William Hope Hodgson.

Bigger, newer, faster. Demolish and rebuild, then demolish and rebuild again. Smoke, soot, and noise are the badges of prosperity, and growth is for growth's sake.

The Masters had ruled all space with an unconquerable iron fist. But the Masters were gone. And this new, young race who came now to take their place - could they hope to defeat the ancient Enemy of All?

In the distant future, the sun has burned out, plunging the world into perpetual twilight. All of the remaining humanity has dwindled to a single, eight-mile-high pyramid called The Last Redoubt. Horrific creatures have evolved that lurk in the darkness. After a second dying Lesser Redoubt is discovered, one man is determined to rescue its last surviving inhabitant, but that means traversing the unknown and terrifying Night Land.

Conan has become King of Aquilonia by slaying its previous king, Numedides. However, Numedides’ heir, Valerius, seeks to depose Conan and assume the throne using the dark powers of Xaltotun, an ancient sorcerer resurrected by Valerius. Follow Conan’s adventures through the lands of Hyboria to retrieve the magic Heart of Ahriman in order to defeat Xaltotun and regain his kingdom!

New Texas: its citizens figure that name about says it all. The Solar League ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task of convincing New Texans that a s'Srauff attack is imminent, and dangerous. Unfortunately it's common knowledge that the s'Srauff are evolved from canine ancestors - and not a Texan alive is about to be scared of a talking dog. But unless he can get them to act, and fast, there won't be a Texan alive, scared or otherwise.

David Innes and his captive, a member of the reptilian Mahar master race of the interior world of Pellucidar, return from the surface world in the Iron Mole invented by his friend and companion in adventure, Abner Perry.

There's some reaction these days that holds scientists responsible for war. Take it one step further: What happens if "book-learnin'" is held responsible? A classic science fiction novelette by H. Beam Piper, first published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1953.

"Storm" Cloud, the only man who could destroy the ravening nuclear vortices that struck and killed at random. The Vortex Blaster was also the name of Cloud's space-ship, an incredibly advanced arsenal of modern science, in which Cloud and his crew of colorful space castaways hunted the source of the lethal vortices, battled a criminal mastermind, developed unheard-of sciences, and made an ultimate discovery of shattering importance to the destiny of the Universe!