Classic Science Fiction Collections

This majestic novel by the author of India Unbound is the extraordinary chronicle, rich in passion and incident, of a Punjabi family that is uprooted from its settled existence in Lyallpur by the violence of Partition and forced to flee to India. Everything is lost in the transition, but when a...

This collection of five different tales gives some new takes on old stories. It's like following a familiar road, only to discover a new, unusual side path that takes you to an alternate destination. Here are new worlds to explore, with magic, swords, vampires, princesses in peril, and choices to be made. Heroes and villains and something in between. Monsters, both internal and external. Encounters with the unusual to make you think, laugh, and shiver with fright.

H.P. Lovecraft's most famous story in an amazing audio experience! “The Old Ones ruled the earth aeons before the rise of man. Traces of their cyclopean cities can still be found on remote islands, buried amid the shifting desert sands, and in the frozen wastes of the polar extremes. Originally they came to this world from the stars. They sleep now, some deep within the earth or beneath the sea. When the stars are right they shall again walk the earth.”

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle delves into the question of what is best for mankind and humans as individuals. His conclusion is that happiness is the best possible human condition, though he is not referencing the emotion of happiness. Instead, Aristotle concludes that true happiness comes as a way of life in which the individual contributes to the good of his community, as well as his mind.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals, such as the Clarion, Labour Leader, and Social Democrat. Based on familiar genres, these stories were meant to entertain readers of all ages - and some challenged the conventional values promoted in children’s literature for the middle class. Acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen brings together more than 40 of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beautiful volume.

The Gods of Pegana was the book that marked the transition from imaginary creatures in the real world to the gods of imaginary world. Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, of which his stories set trends for that continue to this day.

Imagine a future in which traditional gender roles are reversed and men have quite literally become enslaved to the capricious whims of their female masters. Irving E. Cox created a masterpiece, a futuristic story where men, and not women, are marketable products in a matriarchal, and not patriarchal, society. The role reversal as propounded in this story sounds unthinkable in our times, but it sounds plausible at some point in the distant future. This story shows how love always is a major part of life...and how it can either aid or break someone.

Originally published as part of a contest between Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, Frankenstein has since captured countless imaginations. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein learns the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter, he is eager to test his theories. The bones he collects to construct his human subject become a gruesome, frightening creature, endowed with supernatural size and strength. Lonely and miserable, the created comes to hate his creator. When the monster murders Frankenstein’s brother and his bride, the doctor embarks on a heated pursuit, only to put his own life in grave danger.

In search of an ideal civilization, Socrates leads Glaucon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and others in debates about various subjects, including justice, truth, class, and art. For without righteousness, tyranny and injustice give rise to oligarchy. The influential dialogues of The Republic helped shape all of Western literature and philosophical thought. It is as much a doctrine of ethics and politics now as it was for the ancient Greeks, and its dilemma remains: how to create a perfect society populated by very imperfect human beings.

Politics is the second half of a single treatise by Aristotle (384 B.C.E - 322 B.C.E.), Ethics being the first. Both deal with one and the same subject: what Aristotle calls the philosophy of human affairs. He also refers to it as political science and social science. Aristotle collected and studied the constitutions of over 150 city states before writing his Politics.

"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "Aladdin", "Sinbad the Sailor": These are just some of the strange and amazing stories that clever Scheherazade tells to captivate her husband, King Shahryar…and to save her own life. Each one is more fantastic than the last, filled with demons and dervishes, caliphs and genies, men transformed into dogs and monsters with eyes that glow. Like the king, children will find themselves enchanted by every tale.

Old English legends have been around for centuries, and few are more popular than the stories of Arthur, Merlin, and the Lady of the Fountain. In this collection, we dive into all three stories and the history behind them. Let the words hypnotize you into a soothing sleep with each story's unique sleep induction. You'll feel relaxed, quiet your mind, and get a deep sleep that will last all night long.

Thomas Bulfinch introduces us to the gods of the Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies. We learn their stories and we also observe the similarities between the deities of yore. Comparing these stories and characters to those of some modern religions may produce some surprising results!

Rog Phillips' Rat in the Skull and Other SF Classics is a giant helping of classic Golden Age science fiction. The main ingredient is Phillips' science fiction masterpiece Rat in the Skull (unavailable for nearly 50 years). What the magazine editors said then about this controversial Hugo nominee novelette remains true today: "Some people will be shocked by this story. Others will be deeply moved. Everyone who reads it will be talking about it. Read the first four pages: then put it down if you can."

Straight out of the pages of the legendary vampire novel Dracula comes a demon hunter for the modern world. Mina Murray and Jonathan Harker had a son. They named him Quincy. His guardian angel calls him Q. Dracula calls him nephew. Demons call him The Reaper.

Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era.

Of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, The Odyssey serves to some extent as a sequel to The Iliad. The poem describes the journey home of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. In the Greek sources, the Trojan War lasted 10 years, and Odysseus spent 10 more years on the return journey due to the hostility of Poseidon, the god of earth and sea. Odysseus' fantastical adventures include a period of captivity on Calypso’s island, a visit to the lethargic lotus eaters, an encounter with a one-eyed Cyclops, and more.

Flatland, like our own world, is on the verge of the millenium. On the last day of the year 1999, a Square—hitherto undistinguished from the other shapes of his two-dimensional world—receives the Gospel of Three Dimensions, revealed to that world's flat inhabitants only once every...

In a futurist Kafkaesque world on the brink of war, Frances, an alien in fear for her life, tries to make her escape in face of an enemy invasion. Her only companion is Laitel, her lover and servant of Lohno, a fugitive of sorts whose philosophy of life has left him alone and in hiding. But...

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's collection of fairytales called Kinder- und Hausmärchen ( Children's and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Filled with moral lessons that are not wrapped up in the now-expected "Disney-esque" feel, these stories may shock or scare you, but they have been the inspiration for some of the most beloved modern fairytales we know and love. Sixty-two fairytales are included in this collection.