Isaac Asimov. All the Troubles of the World

William F. Temple. Moon Wreck

Arthur C. Clarke. Before Eden

John Wyndham. Survival

Michael Shaara. Grenville’s Planet

John Christopher. Christmas Roses

Ray Bradbury. The Veld

Isaac Asimov. Take a Match

Arthur C. Clarke. Jupiter Five

Ray Bradbury. A Sound of Thunder

Poul Anderson. Wings of Victory

Murray Leinster. Keyhole

Robert A. Heinlein. “And He Built a Crooked House”

Frederik Pohl. The Middle of Nowhere

Brian W. Aldiss. Outside

Robert Silverberg. The Artifact Business

John Christopher. Museum Piece

Clifford D. Simak. Beachhead

Henry Kuttner. Happy Ending

Robert Sheckley. The Prize of Peril

John Wyndham. Dumb Martian

Larry Niven. Neutron Star

J. G. Ballard. Billennium

William Tenn. Betelgeuse Bridge

“Pebble in the Sky” is the first novel by celebrated, multi-award winning science fiction Grand Master Isaac Asimov.

Full of wonders and ideas, this is the book that launched the novels of the Galactic Empire, culminating in the Foundation books and novels. It is also one of that select group of SF adventures that since the early 1950s has hooked generations of teenagers on reading science fiction. This is Golden Age SF at its finest.

One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in 1949 Chicago. The next he’s a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it’s the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil–so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty.

Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two.

«The Fountains of Paradise» is a Hugo and Nebula Award winning 1979 novel by Arthur C. Clarke.

In the 22nd century visionary scientist Vannevar Morgan conceives the most grandiose engineering project of all time, and one which will revolutionize the future of humankind in space: a Space Elevator, 36,000 kilometers high, anchored to an equatorial island in the Indian Ocean.

Such a structure would be used to raise payloads to orbit without having to use rockets, making it much more cost-effective.

“Time’s Arrow” is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1950.

This is the story of a human visit to time when dinosaurs still roamed earth, in a time machine.

Dr. Henderson’s discovery of negative entropy allows a paleontologist and himself to travel back fifty million years – straight into the jaws of a massive predator. Their untimely end is discovered by the paleontologist’s two assistants in the present day who discover the tracks of both the monster and the battered research Jeep.

Probably accidentally, as hinted towards the end of the story.

When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, the novel was quickly recognized as a classic.

Since then, its fame has grown steadily among the multitudes who have read the novel or seen the film based on it. Yet, along with almost universal acclaim, a host of questions has grown more insistent through the years.

Who or what transformed Dave Bowman into the Star-Child? What purpose lay behind the transformation? What would become of the Star-Child?

What alien purpose lay behind the monoliths on the Moon and out in space?

What could drive HAL, a stable, intelligent computer, to kill the crew? Was HAL really insane? What happened to HAL and the spaceship Discovery after Dave Bowman disappeared?

Would there be a sequel?

Now all those questions and many more have been answered.

In this stunning sequel to his international bestseller, Clarke has written what will truly be one of the great books of the ’80s.

Cosmic in sweep, eloquent in its depiction of Man’s place in the Universe, and filled with the romance of space, this novel is a monumental achievement.

Only rarely does a novelist weave a tapestry so compelling that it captures the imagination of the entire world. But that is precisely what Arthur C. Clarke accomplished with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It is even more unusual that an author is able to complement so well-received an invention with an equally successful sequel. But Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two enthralled a huge audience worldwide.

Now, in 2061: Odyssey Three, Arthur C. Clarke revisits the most famous future ever imagined, as two expeditions into space are inextricably tangled by human necessity and the immutable laws of physics. And Heywood Floyd, survivor of two previous encounters with the mysterious monoliths, must once again confront Dave Bowman – or whatever Bowman has become – a newly independent HAL, and the power of an alien race that has decided Mankind is to play a part in the evolution of the galaxy whether it wishes to or not.

In the year 2276, Duncan Makenzie travels from Saturn’s moon, Titan, to Earth as a diplomatic guest at the United States’ Quincentennial.

As a member of Titan’s ‘First Family’ descended from the moon’s original settlers five hundred years before, Duncan finds himself welcomed back to Mother Earth and into Washington’s glittering political and social scene.

But Duncan isn’t just on Earth for ambassadorial reasons. Haunted by the memory of a woman from Earth he once loved, Duncan is also on a mission to continue his family line . . . despite a devastating genetic defect.

A tour-de-force of vivid characterization, futuristic vision, and suspense, Imperial Earth is one of Arthur C. Clarke’s most ambitious and thought-provoking novels.

In one volume, here are two novels in the classic SF adventure series, The World of Tiers: “Behind the Walls of Terra” and “The Lavalite World”.

The tierworld books are full of non-stop action and typify Farmer’s boundless imagination.

Who else would have thought of stacking up pocket universes like a ziggurat or the layers of a cake?

Join Earthlings Robert Wolff and Paul Janus Finnigan (alias Kickaha) on an unforgettable adventure to big for any single world.

Travel to other planets is a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity to find habitable worlds is growing ever more urgent.

With no time to wait years for communication between slower-than-light spaceships and home, the Long Range Foundation explores an unlikely solution–human telepathy.

Identical twins Tom and Pat are enlisted to be the human radios that will keep the ships in contact with Earth.

The only problem is that one of them has to stay behind, and that one will grow old while the other explores the depths of space.

Always a master of insight into the human consequences of future technologies, this is one of Heinlein’s triumphs.

“Stranger in a strange land” by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein – one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time.

Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived…

Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a second expedition to Mars discovers him.

Upon his return to Earth, a young nurse named Jill Boardman sneaks into Smith’s hospital room and shares a glass of water with him, a simple act for her but a sacred ritual on Mars.

Now, connected by an incredible bond, Smith, Jill and a writer named Jubal must fight to protect a right we all take for granted: the right to love.

Before “The Matrix”, before “Star Wars”, before “Ender’s Game” and “Neuromancer”, there was “Dune”: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.

Melange, or “spice”, is the most valuable – and rarest – element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person’s life-span to making intersteller travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world Arrakis.

Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.

When the Emperor transfers stewardship of Arrakis from the noble House Harkonnen to House Atreides, the Harkonnens fight back, murdering Duke Leto Atreides. Paul, his son, and Lady Jessica, his concubine, flee into the desert.

On the point of death, they are rescued by a band for Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, who control Arrakis’ second great resource: the giant worms that burrow beneath the burning desert sands.

In order to avenge his father and retake Arrakis from the Harkonnens, Paul must earn the trust of the Fremen and lead a tiny army against the innumerable forces aligned against them. And his journey will change the universe.

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society.

Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers.

Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress…

Huxley’s ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.

In the second novel of Stephen King’s bestselling fantasy masterpiece, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger, encounters three mysterious doors which open – for Roland, and Roland alone – to different times in our world. He must draw the three who should accompany him on the road.

In 1980s New York, Roland joins forces with defiant Eddie Dean.

The second door leads to the 1960s and conflicted civil rights activist Odetta Holmes.

The final door reveals Jack Mort, a deadly serial killer, in the 1970s.

Mort is stalking Jake, the young boy Roland met in Mid-World.

As titanic forces gather, a savage struggle between underworld evil and otherworldly enemies threatens to bring an end to Roland’s journey toward the Dark Tower…

“Arrive at Easterwine” is an autobiographical story, told in the first person, of an intelligent computer, Epiktistes the first Ktistek machine.

The novel focuses on the three tasks for which he was created, to find a leader, a love, and a liaison – an understanding of the true shape of the universe.

When Epikt announces these tasks near the beginning of the novel, he states that he is likely to fail in one or all of them, and that his failure may be as important as the tasks themselves.

Each of the three tasks fails to some degree, and each failure tells us about humanity and asks us how ready we as a species and a culture are for the approach of the divine.

W “Solaris” Stanisław Lem podejmuje jeden z najpopularniejszych tematów literatury fantastycznej – temat Kontaktu.

Z obcą cywilizacją, odmienną formą życia, a może po prostu z Nieznanym, tego Lem jednoznacznie nie dopowiada.

Jego treść stanowią trzy pozycje: “Powtórka” (z Cyberiady, acz włączone do niej w późniejszych niż pierwsze wydaniach); “Godzina przyjęć profesora Tarantogi” (słuchowisko radiowe nawiązujące do postaci profesora Tarantogi – znanego z Dzienników Gwiazdowych); “Noc księżycowa” (słuchowisko radiowe, nie mające nic wspólnego z Nocą księżycową, zbiorem opowieści wydanym w 1963 i nie zawierającym tej pozycji).

Stanisław Lem planował dwa, może trzy opowiadania o pilocie Pirxie. Ku radości czytelników powstało ich więcej. Dzięki temu możemy dziś obcować z jednym z najsłynniejszych bohaterów literatury science-fiction.

Kim jest Pirx? Jest jednym z nas. Nie ma w sobie nic z herosa i zdarza mu się wpadać w panikę. W decydujących momentach jednak dzięki inteligencji, a czasem dzięki łutowi szczęścia, udaje mu się znaleźć wyjście z opresji.

Pirx dojrzewa z każdym kolejnym opowiadaniem. Razem z nim dojrzewają problemy, którym musi stawić czoła. Ale nie tylko to stanowi o wartości tych przygód – w każdym opowiadaniu pilot udowadnia, że człowiek ma szansę w konfrontacji z bezkresnym i zimnym kosmosem. Pilot Pirx pokazuje, że nasze słabości czasem mogą być naszą siłą.

“Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus”, the book by 20-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel.

In Shelley’s tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and becoming increasingly brutal as it fails to find a mate.

Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, their friend Lord Byron and Lord Byron’s physician, John Polidori.

The group, trapped indoors by the inclement weather, passed the time telling and writing ghost stories. The ideas for both “Frankenstein”, and Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, which was published in 1819, were both born that day.

Although serving as the basis for the Western horror story and the inspiration for numerous movies in the 20th century, the book “Frankenstein” is much more than pop fiction. The story explores philosophical themes and challenges Romantic ideals about the beauty and goodness of nature.

En 1866, une chose mystérieuse hante les océans.

De la taille d’une baleine mais bien plus rapide, cette chose apparaît et disparaît comme par enchantement. Le professeur français Pierre Aronnax, professeur au Muséum de Paris, auteur entre autres des «Mystères des grands fonds sous-marins», et Conseil, son fidèle domestique, partent au bord de l’Abraham Lincoln, une frégate américaine, dans le but d’éclaircir le mystère de ce monstre.

La chasse à travers les océans commence, mais sans succés. Arrivé aux environs des mers de Chine, l’équipage commence à …

In this thrilling adventure tale by the father of science fiction, three men embark on an epic journey under the sea with the mysterious Captain Nemo aboard his submarine, the Nautilus.

Prof. Pierre Aronnax, author of the book The Mysteries of the Ocean Deep, his companion Conseil and Canadian harpooner Ned Land are hired by the U.S. government to help put and end to this mystery by joining an expedition on the Abraham Lincoln.

After months of searching the Abraham Lincoln finds its quarry and in the ensuing collision, Prof. Aronnax, Conseil and Ned Land are thrown overboard. In their efforts to survive, the trio find themselves on the surface of the “monster” itself, which turns out to be a submarine.

Captain Nemo allows them to remain alive on board his submarine, the Nautilus, as his permanent guests, meaning he will never allow them to leave and reveal his secrets.

The Captain uses this meeting with Prof. Aronnax, whose book he has read, to begin a new cruise through the oceans and seas of the world, so that he can show Prof. Aronnax where his book was lacking in details; meanwhile, Ned Land’s primary interest is in escape.

Over the course of their fantastical voyage, they encounter the lost city of Atlantis, the South Pole, and the corals of the Red Sea. Along the way, they must battle countless adversaries both human and monstrous.

This triumphant work of the imagination shows the limitless possibilities of science and the dark depths of the human mind.

The first great novel to imagine time travel, H. G. Wells’s “The Time Machine” (1895) follows its narrator on an incredible journey that takes him eventually to the earth’s last moments.

When a Victorian scientist invents a machine that allows him to travel to the year A.D. 802,701, he encounters a highly evolved society of people called Eloi, for whom suffering has apparently been replaced by refinement and harmony.

First impressions are misleading, however, and his discovery of the Eloi’s true relationship to the brutish Morlocks who lurk in tunnels beneath them leads him to a horrifying insight into the fate of mankind and its roots in his own time.

Корисні посилання:

sfdictionary.com  Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction 

This site is a historical dictionary of the vocabulary of science fiction. It is edited (and coded) by Jesse Sheidlower, formerly the Editor at Large of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It was previously an official project of the OED, aimed at crowdsourcing research materials; now it is an independent dictionary itself. While it is being run with OED approval, and we maintain an informal association (and maintain British practices of spelling, typographic features, and date formatting), it is no longer formally connected to the OED.

This site is a work in progress, meant to illustrate the core vocabulary of science fiction; it also aims to cover several related fields, such as critical terms relating to science fiction (and other genres of imaginative fiction such as fantasy and horror), and the vocabulary of science-fiction fandom. While most entries are complete, a small number remain mostly unresearched or unedited; we also maintain a fairly extensive list of entries for potential inclusion. It is hoped that the site will grow to include subfields or related areas, such as gaming, comics, or anime/manga. Editing will be open to dedicated moderators, and we are actively recruiting volunteers who would like to be involved. Please see How to Help for details.