PDF Books in Space Opera Fiction
Animat
by Basil WellsFor too long had the Sun Maiden been plunging sunward, her meteor-crushed jets and warped plates feeling the relentless chill of space eating swiftly inward. Past the orbit of Mars; down past Earth's sector of space, and into the pull of Venus she flashed, her pace quickening. And crew-members, sweating and hollow-eyed within the foul closeness of ..
Heir Apparent
by Alan Edward NourseWe watched in silence as grim-faced, uniformed guards carried the small bronze casket down from the space ship. There were thousands of us standing there in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin. Yet somehow we didn't notice the rain or the discomfort. We had waited years for this moment, to honor a great man's triumphal return to Earth.... He had w..
World Without Glamor
by Stephen MarloweMarsden had filled a basin with well water and began to lather his hands and face with soap when Marie entered their cabin. He looked up and clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Lord," he said. "Look at yourself."Marie scowled at him as she removed her bandanna and shook loose her short-cropped hair. "How do you expect me to look?" Her plain but pre..
One for the Robot—Two for the Same
by Rog PhillipsI took an instinctive disliking to him from the very first. I don't know exactly what caused it. His appearance? He wore a well tailored gray plaid suit draped on what I would have sworn to be nothing but a skeleton. Blue-veined skin fitted over the exposed parts, such as his long slender hands, folded together on his lap, the stretch of bare leg b..
Spacemen Are Born
by Bolling BranhamThe God of Time, he is, and you're looking out over the flatness of the rings at the yellow bulk of a planet, filling your sky ahead. Yellow, streaked with purple streamers, fading away at the edges into the blackness that is eternal space. Yes, fortunes have been made and lost on trips to Saturn, but no one loses the memory of how it looks when yo..
Venus Hate
by John McGreeveyWhen the patrol found her it was impossible to say how long she had been in the humidi-hut alone. She was incoherent but, as Morrissey observed, most Venusians are.Not that Selo was an ordinary Venusian woman. Even in her madness, as she babbled to the patrol about red dust devils and punctured thermiteens, there was a haunting beauty about her. Th..
Werwile of the Crystal Crypt
by Gardner F. FoxThe arklings were coming for him. Through the opening in the stone traceries of the ancient doorway, he saw the red aura that floated over them as they came up the stone ramp. Clark turned and ran along the sloping floor, down into the black, labyrinthine windings of the ancient city. His spacebooted feet made soft, slapping sounds. His beamlight c..
The Old Ones
by Betsy CurtisDr. Warner didn't usually burst into Dr. Farrar's office. Usually he paced slowly up the hospital corridor, pulling down his glistening white lastijac uniform, meditating on all the mistakes he might have made during the past week, reluctantly turning the knob on the outer door, hesitatingly asking Miss Herrington if the doctor wished to see him no..