PDF Books in Space Opera Fiction
Message from Venus
by R. R. WinterbothamThe Venusians had one admirable characteristic. When they set out to do a thing, nothing could stop them. Captain Paul Bonnet had said something to this effect to Major Rogers and it made the old man so angry that he almost court-martialed the youth. Captain Bonnet glanced up into the sky, already dark with the ballooned bodies of the Venusian bipe..
The Vibration Wasps
by Frank Belknap LongJoan was a little chit of a girl with spun gold hair and eyes that misted when I spoke of Pluto and Uranus, and glowed like live coals when we were out in space together. Joan had about the worst case of exploritis in medical history. To explain her I had to take to theory. Simply to test out whether she could survive and reach maturity in an envir..
Healing Rays in Space
by J. Harvey HaggardThe big library was of platinum-and-teakwood. There were two occupants, a monstrous man who wore expensive vitrilex, and a wisp of a girl in a wheel chair. One entire wall space was taken up by a chart of the solar system. Below the chart was the label: Marshall Space Lines, 1990 to 2055, First In Astral Commerce.Spaceports, marked by red pins, dot..
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..