A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum

A Collection of Science Fiction Short Stories

Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his pioneering science fiction short story, A Martian Odyssey, published in 1934 to large (and continuing) praise, which introduces a sympathetic alien, Tweel.

Other stories by Weinbaum deal with Dixon Wells, a playboy who runs afoul of the inventions of his erstwhile tutor in "Newer Physics", Prof. van Manderpootz, a boastful genius who rates Einstein as his intellectual equal (or even a bit inferior). In "The Worlds of If", the professor’s invention exposes what might have been; in "The Ideal", Manderpootz constructs a device that can show the image of someone's ideal (in Wells' case, his perfect woman); the invention in "The Point of View" allows one to see the world from another's perspective.

This collection of Weinbaum's stories include A Martian Odyssey, Valley of Dreams, The Adaptive Ultimate, The Mad Moon, The Worlds of If, The Ideal, The Point of View, Pygmalion's Spectacles, Parasite Planet, The Lotus Eaters and The Circle of Zero.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available in paperback from Lulu.com and in PDF E-book format from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920414-11-5, 978-1-920414-12-2.

The Girl in the Golden Atom by Ray Cummings

This novel is a classic work of science fiction, and it was one of the first to explore the world of the atom. The Girl in the Golden Atom is the story of a young chemist who finds a concealed atomic world within his mother's wedding ring. Under a powerful microscope, he sees within the ring a beautiful young woman sitting in front of a cave. Captivated by her, he uses a method he discovered to shrink himself and does so to join her in her world. Eventually, four friends join him through many adventures to assist the beautiful woman, Lylda, in her conquest of her microscopic world.

Having worked for Thomas Alva Edison, Ray Cummings (1887 – 1957) was inspired by science's possibilities and began to write science fiction.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available in paperback from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-75-5

Hunters Out of Space by Joseph Everidge Kelleam

Jack Odin and Gunnar enter deep space to hunt down Grim Hagen who have killed millions of Opal's people, stole their treasures, as well as Maya, their beloved princess. Their aim - to find Grim Hagen and make him pay, and to get back Maya and the treasures. But they do not know about the traitor in their midst...

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-30-4

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

"The Time Machine", H.G. Wells' classic science fiction story, is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively.

The Time Traveller, a scientist and inventor, developed a time machine and travels to the year A.D. 802,701 in the future. He finds a peaceful race, the Eloi, who are unimaginative and incurious about the world. Very soon the Time Traveller finds that the Utopian existence of the Eloi turns out to be deceptive when he discovers the downtrodden working classes who have evolved into the bestial Morlocks, cannibal hominids resembling human spiders. The Morlocks toil underground maintaining the machinery that keep the Eloi docile and plentiful.

Eventually, the Time Traveller has to battle the Morlocks for possession of his time machine.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-29-8

A Journey to the Interior of the Earth by Jules Verne

"A Journey to the Interior of the Earth" is Jules Verne's classic science fiction adventure about Professor Liedenbrock and his nephew Axel who discover an ancient document written by an Islandic adventurer who went to the center of the earth many years before. Being the ever-ardent discoverer and scientist, Professor Liedenbrock immediately sets off to Iceland, taking Axel along with him. Together with their guide, Hans, they enter the weird and wonderful world deep beneath the surface of the earth.

They have to endure many dangers along the way, frequently threatening to bring their journey to an abrupt end and leave them to die in a place where no one will ever find them. Will the three adventurers be able to survive all the perils of this concealed world and live to tell their tale?

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com and from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-02-1

Plague Ship by Andre Norton

The tramp-freighter spaceship Solar Queen had exclusive trading rights to Sargol and its fabulous gems. But the crew's bravery and resourcefulness strained to the breaking point as they met Sargol's three challenges: the enigmatic obstinacy of the planet's catlike natives, ruthless incursions of an illegal competitor, and worst of all -- an invisible, undetectable stowaway whose presence branded the Solar Queen a plague ship . . . off limits to the rest of the galaxy!

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-28-1

Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison

72 HOURS IN HELL...

Dis was a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous place and the Magter made it worse. They might have been human once--but they were something else now. The Magter had only one desire--Kill! Kill everything, themselves, their planet, the universe if they could-- Brion Brandd was sent in at the eleventh hour. His mission was to save Dis, but it looked as though he was going to preside over its annihilation.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-27-4

The Pirates of Zan by Murray Leinster

Because Bron Hoddan was a serious electronics engineer, he didn't want any part of his particular planetary heritage. For he was from Zan - and Zan's only occupation was space-ship piracy!

Therefore, Bron went to Walden, the most civilized planet of all. His first step to making himself a good reputation was to invent a machine that would save the government millions. But when instead he was seized and jailed as the most unspeakable criminal in Walden's history, he realized that there was only one way open to remedy this "civilized" disaster - and that was by putting into use some of Zan's old-fashioned buccaneering techniques!

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-25-0

Storm Over Warlock by Andre Norton

Stranded on the unfamiliar world of Warlock, Shann Lantee's expedition camp has been wiped out by the Throgs, beings so alien that humans have yet to communicate with them. And so Lantee was left alone and weaponless in the strange, hostile world, becoming the human prey of the aliens. Lantee must quickly learn how to survive under harsh conditions while being chased by the Throgs - and how to distinguish the real from the dreamed when he meets the mysterious Wyverns.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-24-3

Triplanetary by Edward Elmer Smith

Triplanetary was first serialized in Amazing Stories in 1934 and it later on formed the first of the Lensman series, where it set the stage for what is one of the greatest space-opera sagas ever written. This original publication brings us to a distant planet inhabited by a highly developed aquatic race called the Nevians. They have managed to harness the atomic power of iron and have an enormous need for the metal to generate energy, but their planet has virtually no iron reserves. They build a spaceship to venture into the universe and find iron.

Eventually they discover that Earth has huge amounts of iron and the Nevians start to extract all the iron out of Pittsburgh with a special ray. This ray shoots into the city and immediately vaporizes and removes any iron from the buildings, machines, earth, and even from human blood. It is up to Conway Costigan, a mercilessly competent, two-fisted whiz agent of the military Triplanetary Service, and his colleagues to save the planet.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-23-6

Space Platform by Murray Leinster

Reach for the Stars: We now accept space travel as a reality, but what of a city in space, built on an ever suspended platform? When young Joe Kenmore came to the little desert town of Bootstrap to install pilot gyros in the top secret Space Platform project he hadn't bargained on sabotage or murder or love. But Joe soon learned that ruthless agents were determined to wreck the project.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-22-9

Key Out of Time by Andre Norton

Ashe Gordon and Ross Murdock, infuriated about the loss of their fellow American Time Agent, Travis Fox, on the planet Topaz, travel to a warm ocean planet, Hawaika, where they intend to set up a time gate. The world is so different from what they expected that they decide on a risky experiment: travel into the past of the planet, accompanied by two mutant dolphins and a female agent of Polynesian ancestry.

Murdock gets trapped in the ancient past of the water world of Hawaika, facing terrifying wizards in a kingdom he knows will soon be utterly annihilated by an alien empire that is bent on the conquest of the entire galaxy. The fates of two worlds, and possibly the galaxy itself, will be determined by the actions of these castaways in time - and whatever happens, the lives of Time Agents everywhere will be changed forever.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-21-2

Talents, Incorporated by Murray Leinster

Pretenders or Prophets? At best, the tiny Kandarian Air Fleet would fight until its last ship was blown into infinity. At worst, it would be annihilated without a chance.

To young Captain Bors, either option was unthinkable. The ruthless Dictator of Mekin had already conquered twenty-two helpless planets. Now he wanted Kandar's unconditional surrender, or his vastly superior forces would blast it out of existence. It took a lot of guts, and the hope that is frequently born of despair, for a military man like Bors to throw in his lot with Talents, Incorporated, an untried, unscientific organization.

Through peculiar gifts of extra-sensory perception, its personnel could, their leader insisted, out-think and out-guess even the most deadly dictator in the history of mankind. Could it? It just might. And it just might not. . . . But there was absolutely nothing to lose, and a free world (and a beautiful girl) to win. Captain Bors made his decision, and the loaded die was cast!

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-20-5

The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton

"A tiny sound--perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder. Travis edged back into a compartment. A flash of light momentarily lighted the corridor; the approaching figure was using an electric torch. Travis drew his knife with one hand, reversed it so he could use the heavy hilt as a silencer. The other was hurrying now, on his way to investigate the burned-out engine cabin. Travis could hear the rasp of his fast breathing. Now!"

Alien technology scavenged by U.S. and Russian scientists has started a race to colonize planets outside our solar system, but the U.S. scientists are losing the race. In a desperate move the U.S. government decides to use a group of Apache volunteers in an experimental attempt to colonize a primitive planet, but before they can even begin their spaceship crashes on the planet Topaz...

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com and from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-08-3

The Time Traders by Andre Norton

American scientists are investigating the fact that Russian scientists have discovered how to transport themselves back in time to learn long-forgotten secrets of the past. That is why young Ross Murdock, above average in intelligence but a destructively independent nonconformist, finds himself on a clandestine government project at a secret base in the Arctic. The very qualities that make him a menace in civilized society are valuable traits in a man who must successfully act the part of a merchant trader of the Beaker people during the Bronze Age.

When they are transferred by a time machine to the remote Baltic region where the Russian post is located, Ross and his partner Ashe are swept into a fantastic action-filled adventure involving Russians, superstitious prehistoric men, and the aliens of a lost galactic civilization that demand every ounce of the Americans' courage.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com and from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-07-6

At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burrough's classic science fiction novel. Adventurer David Innes and inventor Abner Perry drill to the core of the Earth with the machine built by Perry, called the "Iron Mole". They discover a weird and wonderful primitive world called Pellucidar with strange people and living beings. Here is no sense of time, and danger is on the lurk around every cranny and nook of this world. Innes falls in love with "Dian the Beautiful" and spends many adventures to find her after being separated from her. He also has to contend with "Jubal the Ugly One", a hideous giant of a savage man who wants Dian for himself. Will Innes and Perry be able to survive this terrifying and treacherous world?

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com and from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-01-4

Space Prison by Tom Godwin

AFTER TWO CENTURIES.... "The sound came swiftly nearer, rising in pitch and swelling in volume. Then it broke through the clouds, tall and black and beautifully deadly--the Gern battle cruiser, come to seek them out and destroy them. Humbolt dropped inside the stockade, exulting. For two hundred years his people had been waiting for the chance to fight the mighty Gern Empire ... with bows and arrows against blasters and bombs!"

"Space Prison" is an epic tale of survival. After war between Humans and Gerns erupted, a human interstellar ship with eight thousand colonists is captured. Half of the group is left to die on a hellish planet called Ragnarok -- a planet of high gravity, impossible temperature extremes, murderous wildlife, and no usable resources. "Space Prison" covers the two-century history of this stranded colony, and describes its survival and how it eventually adapts and thrives.

You can view more about this title at the CruGuru website. It is available from Amazon.com and from Lulu.com. ISBN: 978-1-920265-05-2