Golden Age Fiction

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea, Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be.  — Chesterton: Lepanto. "The Black Kiss" appeared in the June 1937 issue of Weird Tales on pages 678 to 690. Although Robert Bloch is credited, "The Black Kiss" was written entirely by Henry Kuttner. ----- Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917, Chicago, Illinois...

The Relict, Finn, retained a few tattered recollections of Old Earth, ruled by the laws of cause and effect, which enabled the environment to be subject to the dominion of man. The Organisms survived because they were mad, the Relicts because they were the most strongly charged with cause and effect, which was enough to allow control of their metabolisms, but no further... "The Men Return"...

Ran Rarak, captain of a cruiser belonging to the Federation of Stars, has been called back from duty to confront an extraordinary threat. The Dark Star, which is being tracked by the Bureau of Astronomical Knowledge, has changed course and is now veering dangerously close to the Sun. Ran Rarak must lead a fleet of ships to confront this menace. "The Star-stealers" appeared in the February...

Trixie O'Neill had had enough of the miners in Finchburg not treating her like a lady. So, she was going to go to Saturday Wells with Goreck, the Martian. What was worse was that she was taking her dandelions in their precious Terran soil with her! Well, the miners of Finchburg weren't going to stand for that... "One Touch Of Terra" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," Decembe...

Looking for signs of intelligent life on other planets by trying to detect radio signals was a waste of time; it would take too much power to broadcast any significant distance. Light, however, was easier to project over the distances required to traverse interstellar space. And perhaps, signals from another intelligence have been detected, mistakenly interpreted as a star pulsating, its brightnes...

The Sheriff of Tonto City could expect anything to come out of the night in Wild Horse Valley—even an idea... "Henry Goes Prehistoric" appeared in the January 25th, 1948 issue of "Short Stories" magazine on pages 48 to 70. ----- W C Tuttle (November 11, 1883, Montana – June 6, 1969, Los Angeles County, California) was an American writer who sold more than 1000 magazine stories and...

David Greaves began as a hero with his ship, Defiance, crash landing on Venus, but surviving unconscious in his Crash Capsule by using an experimental gas that might offer a chance to survive.  Eons later and a universe away, he became instead a god! "Die, Shadow!" appeared in the May 1963 issue of "Worlds of If Science Fiction" on pages 61 - 76. ----- Algirdas Jonas "Algis&#34...

The normal progress of a technology produces simpler and simpler gadgets involving more and more complex fundamental laws. And, of course, requiring less and less of the user . . . "The Little Black Bag" appeared in the July 1950 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" on pages 132 to 161. "The Little Black Bag" is a complementary story to "The Marching Morons," also...

When is an SOS not an SOS? When it's a trap. Lieutenant Dave Carter is lured to Deneb IV while on his way to recuperate on the vacation planet of Ophiuchus VII after a reactor explosion on his previous ship. Little did he know that, due to the nature of his treatment, he is the only man in the universe equipped to combat what awaits... "The Mystery of Deneb IV" appeared in "Fantast...

The robot was strictly logical, reasoning, as only its perfect machine mind could, from observed facts to inevitable—if wacky—conclusion.  "Reason" appeared in the April 1941 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" on pages 33 to 45. "Reason" is part of Asimov's Robot series, and was the second of Asimov's positronic robot stories to see publication. In 1967, this sho...

The old man could feel orbits, sense trajectories, and calculate faster than the best computators. But he couldn't be trusted when he got a drink inside him. He was, however, Captain Kroll's only hope of getting home to the colony on Jupiter... "Jonah of the Jove-Run" appeared in "Planet Stories," Spring 1948, pages 50 - 58. ----- Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – Jun...

Across the frozen cliffs they loomed—the unbelievably ancient towers with the unimaginable engines deep inside them still pouring out their endless power. Dr. Sidney Lee, back from time away due to a breakdown, and believing the towers to represent a threat to humanity, vowed to uncover their secrets...  "The Towers of Titan" appeared in the January 1962 issue of "Amazing Stories."...

No crime had been committed; no untoward event had occurred. But the astute Poirot saw, in the mere advertisement of a flat at too low a price, the manifestation of a curious plot.  "The Adventure Of the Cheap Flat" appeared in the May 1924 issue of "Blue Book Magazine" on pages 86 to 92. ----- Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 –...

A year in total isolation exploring distant galaxies is too long to spend with just one other person, even for newlyweds on their honeymoon. Wanting to get to Ganymede to start divorce proceedings, Jan and Karin get caught between two warring stars, as inconsequential as a bird roosting in the No Man's Land of the great battlefields of old Earth. "No Star's Land" appeared in "F...

In this century, as before, women and Stonehenge share one trait; they serve both men! "Second-hand Stonehenge" appeared in the July-August 1970 issue of Worlds of If Science Fiction magazine on pages 4 to 29 and 157 to 158. ----- Ernest Henry Taves (February 1, 1916 – August 16, 2003) was an American psychiatrist, author of three non-fiction books, two on Mormonism and one on UFOs, and se...

Life for their kind was becoming more difficult. So, Rathsden conceived a plan to stow away on a flying saucer and travel in secret to another planet. He was confident of surviving and finding another source of food... "The Deadly Ones" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," July 1954, pages 147 - 156. ----- F L Wallace (February 16, 1915 – November 26, 2004), sometimes credited as Floy...

A brief tale of the dismal success of a scientist's experiment. "Anton's Last Dream" appeared in the May 1937 issue of Weird Tales on pages 607 to 611. ----- Edwin Baird (June 28, 1886 – September 27, 1954) was the first editor of Weird Tales, the pioneering pulp magazine that specialized in horror fiction. Baird, hired by Weird Tales publisher J. C. Henneberger, put out the magazi...

The children were told not to mess with the rocket while their father slept. And they didn't. They really didn't. It was the little men. The little men from space who wanted to use it to get back home.  "Little Men of Space" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," June-July 1953, pages 67 to 80. ----- Frank Belknap Long Jr. (April 27, 1901 – January 3, 1994) was an American write...

Returning home to his native land from a secret mission to the tribes of Cornwall, Cororuc is captured by a strange people, a people out of myth and legend, with a chilling message to all Celtic Britons. "The Lost Race" appeared in "Weird Tales," January 1927, pages 74 - 82. ----- Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp fiction i...

In San Teodoro De Los Angeles, a gentleman was a man who wears shoes. One of the madmen who stumbled into Juan's camp had on a pair of boots... Today's story is "Boots" by Murray Leinster. It appeared in the August 15, 1929 issue of "Adventure" on pages 124 to 131. ----- Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American...

The crew of the Clarion had found the remains of civilizations in decreasing states of advancement the farther they got from Earth. Had they all destroyed themselves in a kind of contagious Armageddon, or was there an advanced alien species that was destroying these civilizations as they moved through space? "Battleground" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," July 1954, on pages 33 to...

When enemies of peace threaten the System, they must be eliminated. There are many ways to do this. And if all else fails, you can always go to war with them. "An Enemy of Peace" appeared in the February 1957 issue of "Fantastic Science Fiction" on pages 86 to 98. It appeared under the pen name of Ralph Burke , as Robert Silverberg had another story published in that month's is...

A quiet concert in the evening by the lake ... a harmless hi-fi hobbyist ... yet why did Woodard tremble at the sound, sound, sound. "Hystereo" appeared in "Amazing Stories," November 1961, pages 41 - 53. ----- Maurice Baudin was an American writer of science fiction and a TV script writer, most notably writing for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "General Electric Theat...

The boy and his siblings were born with strange powers, but were also criminally insane. They had killed countless people and had been hunted down, one by one. The boy was now the only one left and Sheriff Derwin had him in custody for the killing of three White Bear Lake residents. The Sheriff would question the surviving relatives one last time to make sure he had all the evidence necessary to s...

Before there were men on Earth, that signal-sending pyramid had stood alone on a lifeless moon. What would happen now that its alarm was silenced?  "Sentinel of Eternity" appeared in the Sring 1951 issue of "10 Story Fantasy" on pages 41 to 47. This story, originally called "The Sentinel," was written in 1948 for a BBC competition in which it failed to place. ----- Sir Arth...