Fiction

If at First You Don't..

A moody kind of horror story.

Excerpt-I have decided after some thought, to write this journal.

Excerpt-The Aztlan ship had landed early that July morning, dropping silently through the overcast covering International Airport.

"If you called me here to tell me to have a child," Mary Pornsen said, "you can just forget about it. We girls have made up our minds."

Harry Houdini asks Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to help him expose Maximillian Cairo—a spiritualist medium. But the two men underestimate Cairo. He's a master of the occult and the most debauched man in London. When they interrupt a magic ritual, a force for ecstasy and chaos explodes on an unsuspecting 1903 London.

Lee slid off the examining table and began buttoning his shirt. He had had a medical examination every six months of his adult life, and it always seemed strange to him that, despite the banks of machines the doctor had which could practically map a man from a single cell outward, each examination always entailed the cold end of a stethoscope against his chest.

"Shurgub," said the tape recorder. "Just like I told you before, Dr. Blair, it's krandoor, so don't expect to vrillipax, because they jus won't stand for any. They'd sooner framish."

Where did all the men go? When aliens make all men disappear from Earth, the women left behind struggle to rebuild the shattered human culture.

Thirteen of the author’s most famous short stories of adventure in the Canadian Northwest, the Arctic Circle, the Great Barrens, Hudson's Bay posts, and with Royal Northwest Mounted Police. The title story is an amazing hero-tale easily comparable to Jack London -- for the hero is a Great Dane brought to the Frazer River by a Chinese gold prospector, and the dog, Wapi, fought against unbeatable odds to defend the honor of a woman he had decided was his mistress

He stood watching while George Atkinson spun around, dark eyes flashing, hair tousled. There was a two days' growth of beard darkening Atkinson's face. "Why, George," Loveral said, swiftly examining the litter of metal and wood which was spread over a table behind Atkinson. There was a home-made hammer in Atkinson's hand. "What have we here, George?" "Something for you," Atkinson said, tightening his fingers about the handle of the hammer. Loveral grinned his famous Loveral grin. "That's fine. What could it be?" "None of your damned business." "George," Loveral said, his smile still white but his eyes narrow and quick. The woman was behind them. Her voice screeched. "George, I told you. Why didn't you listen, George?

“Why don’t you find yourself some nice little American girl,” his father had often repeated.

This is a classic science fiction short story by James H. Schmitz that first appeared in Analog Science Fact and Fiction.

This is a classic science fiction short story by James H. Schmitz that first appeared in Analog Science Fact and Fiction.

Suddenly, Honath lost his temper. "Lose it, then!" he shouted. "Let us unlearn everything we know only by rote, go back to the beginning, learn all over again, and continue to learn, from our own experience. Spokesman, you are an old man, but there are still some of us who haven't forgotten what curiosity means!" "Quiet!" the Spokesman said. "We have heard enough. We call on Alaskon the Navigator." "Much of the Book is clearly untrue," Alaskon said flatly, rising. "As a handbook of small trades it has served us well. As a guide to how the universe is made, it is nonsense, in my opinion; Honath is too kind to it. I've made no secret of what I think, and I still think it." "And will pay for it," the Spokesman said, blinking slowly down at Alaskon. "Charl the Reader." "Nothing," Charl said, without standing, or even looking up.

You're down in the jungle with death staring you in the face. There is nothing left but prayer. So you ask for your life.

You can do a great deal if you have enough data, and enough time to compute on it, by logical methods.

Wilbur Murphy sought romance, excitement, and an impossible Horseman of Space. With polite smiles, the planet frustrated him at every turn - until he found them all the hard way!