Showing results by narrator "Frank Harrison" in All Categories

"A Martian Odyssey" (1949) is a science fiction classic by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The story is set in the early 21st century, nearly twenty years after the invention of atomic power and ten years after the first lunar landing. The four-man crew of the Ares has landed on Mars in the Mare Cimmerium. A week after the landing, Dick Jarvis, the ship's American chemist, sets out in an auxiliary rocket to photograph the landscape. Eight hundred miles out, the engine on Jarvis' rocket gives out, and he crash-lands into one of the Thyle regions.

"The Fisherman and his Soul" is a fairy tale from Oscar Wilde. The protagonist, a young Fisherman, finds a Mermaid and wants nothing more than to marry her, but he cannot, for one cannot live underwater if one has a soul. He goes to his priest, but the priest tells him his soul is his most precious possession, and the soulless mermen are lost. He tries to sell it to merchants, who tell him it is not worth anything. He goes to a witch, who tells him his soul is his shadow, and says how it can be cut away with a viper-skin knife after he dances with her.

"A Horse's Tale" (1907) is a novel by Mark Twain, written against bullfighting. It was written partially in the voice of Soldier Boy, who is Buffalo Bill's favorite horse, at a fictional frontier outpost with the U.S. 7th Cavalry. Excerpt: I am Buffalo Bill's horse. I have spent my life under his saddle - with him in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his clothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on the war-path and has his batteries belted on.

"The Status Civilization" is a science fiction novel by Robert Sheckley. The protagonist is Will Barrent, who finds himself, without memory of any crime, or, indeed, of his previous life, being shipped across space to the planet Omega. Omega, used to imprison extreme offenders, has a hierarchical society of extreme brutality, where the only way to advance (and avoid dying) is to commit an endless series of crimes. The average life expectancy from time of arrival on Omega is three years.

"Second Variety" is a science fiction story about self-producing and developing, speaking robots, which aim to extinct the human race, by Philip K. Dick. Excerpt: It was interesting, the use of artificial forms in warfare. How had they got started? Necessity. The Soviet Union had gained great initial success, usual with the side that got the war going. Most of North America had been blasted off the map. Retaliation was quick in coming, of course. The sky was full of circling disc-bombers long before the war began; they had been up there for years.

"The Variable Man" is a science fiction story by Philip K. Dick. Excerpt: At this moment, 9:30 AM, May 7, 2136, the statistical ratio on the SRB machines stood at 21-17 on the Centauran side of the ledger. All facts considered, the odds favored a successful repulsion by Proxima Centaurus of a Terran military attack. 21-17 on the Centauran side. But a month ago it had been 24-18 in the enemy's favor. Things were improving, slowly but steadily. Centaurus, older and less virile than Terra, was unable to match Terra's rate of technocratic advance.

"The Ethical Engineer" (1963) is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. Excerpt: The ship touched down and the flaring rockets died. There was only the click of cooling metal from the ship: no one emerged, nor did any of the Pyrrans seem interested enough in the newcomer to approach it. That must mean that no one had any business with it, and, of course, no curiosity either, for this along with imagination was in very short supply on the war-torn planet. Since no one else was making any moves, Jason went forward to investigate for himself.

"This Crowded Earth" (1958) is a science fiction novel by Robert Bloch. Excerpt: The telescreen lit up promptly at eight a.m. Smiling Brad came on with his usual greeting. "Good morning - it's a beautiful day in Chicagee!" Harry Collins rolled over and twitched off the receiver. "This I doubt," he muttered. He sat up and reached into the closet for his clothing. Visitors - particularly feminine ones - were always exclaiming over the advantages of Harry's apartment. "So convenient," they would say.

"Deathworld" (1960) is a science fiction novel about a gambler, by Harry Harrison. Excerpt: Some planet in the galaxy must - by definition - be the toughest, meanest, nastiest of all. If Pyrrus wasn't it... it was an awfully good approximation! JASON dinALT sprawled in soft luxury on the couch, a large frosty stein held limply in one hand. His other hand rested casually on a pillow. The gun behind the pillow was within easy reach of his fingers. In his line of work he never took chances. It was all highly suspicious.

Santos & Santos centers around a morally ambivalent Mexican-American law firm that subsidized its well-meaning political battles with drug money. A chain reaction of tragedy ensues when the youngest and well-meaning "good brother" betrays his older siblings.

"Black Amazon of Mars" (1951) is a novel about a female warrior on the Mars, by Leigh Douglass Brackett. Excerpt: Grimly Eric John Stark slogged toward that ancient Martian City -with every step he cursed the talisman of Ban Cruach that flamed in his blood-stained belt. Behind him screamed the hordes of Ciaran, hungering for that magic jewel - ahead lay the dread abode of the Ice Creatures - at his side stalked the whispering spectre of Ban Cruach, urging him on to a battle Stark knew he must lose!

"The Runaway Skyscraper" is a science fiction story about Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer who works in a midtown Manhattan office building called the Metropolitan Tower. When the sun suddenly begins moving backwards in the sky, setting rapidly in the east, he is the only one to realize what is actually happening: a flaw in the rock beneath the building has caused it to subside, but instead of moving in space, the building is falling backwards into the past.

"Rastignac the Devil" is a science fiction novel about the world in the 22nd century by Philip Jose Farmer. Excerpt: After the Apocalyptic War, the decimated remnants of the French huddled in the Loire Valley were gradually squeezed between two new and growing nations. The Colossus to the north was unfriendly and obviously intended to absorb the little New France. The Colossus to the south was friendly and offered to take the weak state into its confederation of republics as a full partner.

"The People of the Crater" (1947) is North's first published science-fiction novel. The author summarizes the story as follows: "Send the Black Throne to dust; conquer the Black Ones, and bring the Daughter from the Caves of Darkness." These were the tasks Garin had to perform in order to fulfill the prophecy of the Ancient Ones - and establish his own destiny in this hidden land!

"The Ego Machine" is science fiction story by Henry Kuttner. Excerpt: "Was your mother's name Helena Glinska?" the robot asked. "It was not," Martin said. "Ah, then she must have been the Great Hairy One," the robot murmured. Martin took his feet off the desk and sat up slowly. "It's quite all right," the robot said hastily. "You've been chosen for an ecological experiment, that's all. But it won't hurt. Robots are perfectly normal life forms where I come from, so you needn't..."

"Let'em Breathe Space" is a science fiction story by Lester del Rey. Excerpt: Eighteen men and two women in the closed world of a space ship for five months can only spell tension and trouble - but in this case, the atmosphere was literally poisoned. Five months out from Earth, we were half-way to Saturn and three-quarters of the way to murder. At least, I was. I was sick of the feuding, the worries and the pettiness of the other nineteen aboard. My stomach heaved at the bad food, the eternal smell of people, and the constant sound of nagging and complaints.

"Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit To Heaven" (1909) is a science fiction short story by Mark Twain. Excerpt: Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them!

"The Stars, My Brothers" (1962) is a science fiction story by Edmond Hamilton. Excerpt: He was afraid - not of the present or the future, but of the past. He was afraid of the thing tagged Reed Kieran, that stiff blind voiceless thing wheeling its slow orbit around the Moon, companion to dead worlds and silent space. Something tiny went wrong, but no one ever knew whether it was in an electric relay or in the brain of the pilot. The pilot was Lieutenant Charles Wandek, UNRC.

"The Thing in the Attic" depicts a very successful seeding project (humans are modified to live in various alien environments). It tells the story of a small group of intellectuals from a primitive culture of modified monkey-like humans living in the trees of their jungle world. Having openly voiced the opinion that the godly giants do not literally exist as put down in the book of laws, they are banished from the treetops for heresy.

"The Hate Disease" (1963) is a science fiction short story about the interplanetary medical service, by Murray Leinster. Excerpt: The Med Service people hit strange problems as routine: if they weren't weirdos, they weren't tough enough to merit Med Service attention. Now the essence of a weird problem is that it involves a factor nobody ever thought of before... or the absence of one nobody ever missed... The Med Ship Esclipus Twenty rode in overdrive while her ship's company drank coffee.