PDF Books in Fiction Short Stories
The Ghost in the Red Shirt
by B. M. BowerThe proper way to begin this story would be to assure the reader, first of all, that I have never believed in ghosts; that is the way ghost-stories usually begin, I think. Also, I should say that what I am about to relate is perfectly true—but I won’t begin it like that. As a matter of fact, I don’t care much whether you believe me or not, and I al..
Kid Stuff
by Winston K. MarksQuit standing in front of the mirror, naked and shaking, looking for scars, counting your fingers and toes. You've taken a hundred inventories, and it always comes out wrong. And it always will, unless ... unless they come back. But that's hopeless. They'd never find me again. Not out of all the people on earth. Besides, they didn't seem to give a ..
Placebo
by David MasonThe object appeared in the middle of Main Way, about fifty feet from the statue of Vachel Lindsay, and at least a hundred from anything else. It was much too big and complicated to have been hidden anywhere, and it hadn't any wheels, tracks, wings, or other visible means of movement.Corrigan, looking the object over, decided that it could not have ..
The Best of Fences
by Randall GarrettBut now they found that their speech was old-fashioned and their beautiful new ships were completely out-moded. They could not be told immediately that the new hypersee ships were transporting colonists to the stars faster than the old near-light ships were coming out of the fitzgerald. They could not be told that they had gone out in vain.A psych ..
Course of Empire
by Richard WilsonThe older man sat down on the grassy bank on the hill overlooking the orchard. The autumn sun was bright but the humidity was low and there was a breeze. The younger man sprawled next to him."Thanks," said Roger Boynton. He looked across the valley, past the apple trees, to the fine white-columned house on the hill beyond. He smiled reminiscently. ..
The Engineer
by Frederik PohlStill, it did look kind of serious. The water driving in the pitted faults had the pressure of eighteen hundred meters behind it, and where it struck it did not splash—it battered and destroyed. As Muhlenhoff watched, a bulkhead collapsed in an explosion of spray; the remote camera caught a tiny driblet of the scattering brine, and the picture in t..
The Marriage of William Durrant
by Ray CummingsMy marriage has been a failure. I am one of those unfortunate men with whom fate deals unjustly. I tried my best. I started with plenty of opportunity, with what I thought was every chance of success. I worked the whole thing out carefully—I knew what was necessary for our happiness and I went after it, sanely and unswervingly. I lacked neither amb..
The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician
by Edwin Lester ArnoldIn the garden of my Japanese home in Tokyo I have just perused the last sheets of my son’s philosophical and historical romance, “Phra the Phœnician.”Amid other scenes I might be led to analyze, to criticize, perhaps a little to argue about the singular hypothesis upon which he builds his story. Here, with a Buddhist temple at my gate, and with Jap..