Uncontrolled, terribly violent Atomic Vortices are slowly destroying civilization on every human planet throughout the galaxy. Nothing can contain or stop them despite the lensmen's best efforts until one destroys the home and family of "Storm" Cloud, brilliant atomic physicist. The tragedy triggers actions on his part that pit him one-on-one against the horrible vortices. Introducing "storm" Cloud as THE Vortex Blaster

A shot penetrates the still night air and one of Galton's leading citizens is a victim of a desperate killer's gun. Murder becomes entangled with politics and it takes a parish priest to discover "whodunit" in this thriller by a husband and wife novelist team.

Jack Hare is a young cowboy who was rescued from sure death by an old settler by the name of August Naab. Hare learns that Naab's ranch is a dangerous place and is challenged by cattle thieves and a corrupt rancher who is after Naab's water rights. The greatest danger Hare faces though, is over Mescal, a half-Navajo shepherdess who is already promised in marriage to Naab's first-born son. Hare must stop the marriage, but can't kill the son of his benefactor, August Naab...until a gun battle with rustlers brings the two face-to-face over drawn pistols.

26 of Uncle Remus's stories put into verse and song. With the exception of the Tar Baby story, they were all new to this publication of 1904 and cover a variety of humorous subjects from Adan and Eve (De Appile Tree) to Brer Rabbit's Gigglin' Place. There are also genuine Camp Meeting Songs and a Corn Shuckin' Song.

A parody of its famous predecessor, this short piece was written by Owen Wister for the Harvard Lampoon

This is the third of Buchan's Richard Hannay novels, following The Thirty-nine Steps and Greenmantle. Set, like Greenmantle, durinig World War I, it deals Brigadier-General Hannay's recall from the Western Front, to engage in espionage, and forced (much to his chagrin) to pose as a pacifist. He becomes a South African conscientious objector, using the name Cornelius Brand. Under the orders of his spymaster, Sir Walter Bullivant, he travels in the book through England to Scotland, back to the Western Front, and ultimately, for the book's denouement, into the Alps...

"I consider the story as a whole to he good, though I am not aware that the public ever corroborated that verdict." - the author The Claverings is the best wrought of the novels designed for The Cornhill, and as surely conceived as any book he ever wrote." - Sadleir. "It is a novel of atmosphere, and the atmosphere is of that sort very dangerous for the English novelist, the atmosphere captured so supremely well by Thackeray the green-lighted, close-scented gambling rooms, the shabby adventures of half-deserted spas, the shelving beaches of foreign watering-places, concealed accents, stolen passports, impoverished counts and impertinent ladies' maids...

Excerpted anecdotes from the biographies of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell, relating humorous snippets of politics in 18th and 19th century Ireland. For some these may be poignant in addition to being humorous and for others they may be humorous in addition to being poignant. (

A woman is apparently murdered in a New York auditorium under very suspicious circumstances one evening during a performance. Helen Hardwick happened to be in attendance that evening, as she had written the play that was being performed, and she was the only person to have caught a glimpse of something peculiar just before the murder. She also heard an ominous laughter which would continue to haunt her. Was it coincidence that the 'retired' Gray Phantom arrived in the city immediately after the murder...

Jacqueline seems to have contracted a touch of amnesia, as she is found in an apartment with a dead man, and with a weapon in her hand. But she remembers nothing of any incident, remembers not her name nor where she comes from, not even why she is where she was found. She only remembers her father, and that he is in danger. Action and adventure soon follow, as Paul Hewlett and Jacqueline attempt to get answers to her questions, taking them on a journey into Quebec and points northward, and Paul knows that they are being followed during their trip...

The full title of the novel is Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress Or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim. The novel concerns the story of an unnamed "fallen woman", the second time Defoe created such a character (the first was a similar female character in Moll Flanders). In Roxana, a woman who takes on various pseudonyms, including "Roxana," describes her fall from wealth thanks to abandonment by a "fool" of a husband and movement into prostitution upon his abandonment. Roxana moves up and down through the social spectrum several times.

As usual, gentleman thief Arsene Lupin finds himself wrongfully accused of murder, and must find the real killer to clear his coloured name.

This is a collection of 3 of Harry Harrison marvelous early stories that were published in Galaxy, Analog and Fantastic Universe. The Repairman (1958) is a straight fun SF story of a man getting a job done. It is most typical of his later style in series like the Stainless Steel Rat; Toy Shop (1962), a short piece exploring bureaucratic blindness and one ingenious way around it and The Velvet Glove (1956), my favorite for its writing style, fun perspective, sly social commentary on the scene in 1956 and just plain delightful imagination. And he manages to pack excitement and mystery in at the same time.

A collection of nine enchanting short stories filled with curious beasts and unexpected endings. Included are The Bee-Man of Orn; The Griffin and the Minor Canon; Old Pipes and the Dryad; The Queen's Museum; Christmas Before Last: Or, The Fruit of the Fragile Palm; Prince Hassak's March; The Battle of the Third Cousins; The Banished King; and The Philopena

The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, where he accused Maugham of plagiarism. Maugham wrote The Magician in London, after he had spent some time living in Paris, where he met Aleister Crowley. The novel was later republished with a foreword by Maugham entitled A Fragment of Autobiography. (Wikipedia)

Lee Anthony finds himself and two of his friends kidnapped and taken on a strange voyage.

The hero of the book is at a loose end, weary and bored of his old life after returning from the Great War. After an argument with his uncle and a railway strike he finds himself lost in the county of Norfolk at ten o’clock one night. When he seeks shelter in a country home, the butler immediately recognizes him as “Mr. Alfred”, the missing son of the house. From that point onwards, our hero, who gives his name as “James Smith”, finds himself in for an exciting time.Not only does he inherit the friends of “Mr...

Mysterious, dark, out of the unknown deep comes a new satellite to lure three courageous Earthlings on to strange adventures.

End of the world sci-fi tale borrows heavily from H.G. Wells' WOTW and In The Days of the Comet -- looks like fun !

Frances Baird is a detective with the Watkins Agency of New York City. She and a colleague are sent undercover to "The Maples" to guard a valuable set of diamonds during the festivities leading up to the marriage of Mr. Deneen's eldest son, James Jr. Within a few hours of their arrival, however, this seemingly simple task turns into something much more sinister, and it is ultimately left to Frances to unravel the truth of the matter.

Celtic Fairy Tales is a collection of 25 folk and fairy stories collected from Ireland and Scotland. At what I imagine is the Frontispiece, or the dedication page, is the phrase: “SAY THIS Three times, with your eyes shut ‘Mothuighim boladh an Éireannaigh bhinn bhreugaigh faoi m’fhóidín dúthaigh.’And you will see/What you will see_” A loose translation of this Gaelic phrase is “I sense the smell of a sweet, enchanting Irishman around my dear homeplace.”

Wessex Tales is a collection of six short stories written by Hardy in the 1880’s. If you’ve never read Hardy they’ll serve as a good introduction to his writing. Though not as comprehensive as his major works they do contain all the ingredients that make him instantly recognisable. (Introduction by T. Hynes.)

Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first was published in the spring of 1837, and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings.In "A Spinner in the Sun" she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance

Can a spaceship go crazy? Well, yes it can if it has a brain. And the new MG (magnetogravitic drive) experimental robot space ship does indeed have a 'brain'. Completely bewildered as to why the first six models of their supposedly perfect new ship model, the MG-YR, nicknamed the McGuire, have gone totally bonkers after activation and before they could ever be used, the company has called in the services of Daniel Oak. They suspect sabotage of course. Daniel Oak is the hard boiled private investigator with nerves of steel and a mind of the same substance...

This is a collection of works -- short stories or poetry -- by women writers in English from around the world and first published before 1923.

From the moment Madame Sara arrived on the scene, she has taken London society by storm. Madame is both beautiful and mysterious, but it soon becomes clear to both Dixon Druce and his friend, police surgeon Eric Vandeleur, that there is something sinister about the woman and the goings on at her shop on the Strand. They soon become obsessed with proving her guilty of the many crimes that follow in her wake!

County Prosecutor Wally Brighton was found shot to death one evening, a broken rosary in one hand and a .32 automatic inches away from the other. Was it murder or suicide? It takes two sharp-eyed reporters, who combine romance with amateur sleuthing, to find the surprising solution to this baffling and thrilling murder mystery.

Published in 1899 by Houghton Mifflin, Chesnutt's first book, The Conjure Woman, was a collection of seven short stories, all set in "Patesville" (Fayetteville), North Carolina. While drawing from local color traditions and relying on dialect, Chesnutt's tales of conjuring, a form of magic rooted in African hoodoo, refused to romanticize slave life or the "Old South." Though necessarily informed by Joel Chandler Harris's popular Uncle Remus stories and Thomas Nelson Page's plantation fiction, The Conjure Woman consciously moved away from these models, instead offering an almost biting examination of pre- and post-Civil War race relations...

New Arabian Nights is a collection of short stories which include Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest fiction as well as those considered his best work in the genre. The first and longest story stars Prince Florizel of Bohemia who appears in the later collection of stories "More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter."

Satyricon (or Satyrica) is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius. As with the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a "Roman novel", without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.The surviving portions of the text detail the misadventures of the narrator, Encolpius, and his lover, a handsome sixteen-year-old boy named Giton...

It is pleasant to have another book about a group of merry, natural girls, who have the attractions of innocence and youthful faults. "The Sweet Sixteen" Club made fudge, and went on picnics, and behaved just as jolly, nice maidens should. (The Outlook, vol. 82, Mar. 24, 1906)