PDF Books in Space Opera Fiction
Cosmic Tragedy
by Thomas S. GardinerThe big man with the iron grey hair stared morosely out the quartz window and across the roofs of Greater New York. Far down the canyon streets a few motor cars still ran and over the swinging aerial bridges scattered pedestrians carefully wended their way. Their grotesque figures with the heavy metal helmets that reminded the watching man of the h..
The Planet of Illusion
by Donald A. WollheimThe captain's keen gray eyes stared carefully at the glowing panel before him. On it shone out tiny points of light which revealed each of the different bodies through whose vicinity the Astralite was passing. A remarkable device actuated by delicate gravital detectors which marked out every body they approached. And according to this chart, there ..
Lie on the Beam
by John Victor PetersonSweeping from perihelion, the black destroyer curved toward the gibbous white ball of Venus, its jets stabbing mocking fingers at the majesty of the sun whose clutching gravity it had cheated. Within the heavily shielded control cabin, the hard skull-face of the commander split into a fleshless smile. Back on dead sea bottoms the word had been but ..
Ice Planet
by Carl SelwynThere were twelve seats but only five passengers. Further down was a tubercular-looking Martian and near the pilot room sat a fat man with a woman. The fat man chewed sleepily on a dead cigar and the woman stared out of the window. They were handcuffed together. Slowly a faint siren hum penetrated the cabin, not unlike the sound of a power plant. A..
Space Blackout
by Bryce WaltonLove of their homes and the soil beneath them and the life they had achieved. It's a story I believe Earthmen could ponder, and benefit from. For we are the youngest of terrestrial civilizations within the space orbit the Martians have shown us.I'm Jerry Kos, master navigator, twenty-seven and entitled to three stripes on my jacket to prove I've co..
Derelicts of Uranus
by J. Harvey HaggardLonny Higgens, once of the earthly planet, stretched out in the conning-tower of his mud-submarine, an aquatic monstrosity of globular reinforced steel that was at home either above or below the surface of the squirming mud seas of Uranus, and sighed lazily. The circular hatch was open over his head, showing a patch of black swirling mists through ..
Earth's Maginot Line
by Roy PaetzkeJimmy Lorre saw the Earth spinning away from under him. It was odd, this sensation of having nothing under you, nothing to keep you from falling back upon the world from which the sleek grey space ship had lifted you. Lorre felt uneasy. He had traveled in rockets hundreds of times, of course; but this was his first flight into space.Rockets had alr..
Into the Sun
by John L. ChapmanLejeune, the wiry French biologist, lowered the half-empty bottle from his lips and scowled at the ship's doctor. "But not for long, my dear Geitz, not for long. Our fate lies within a few hours. The ship will be drawn closer and closer to the sun. The heat will become unbearable. Then—pffffft!—the ship will be a little spark—""You're a pain," grow..