Golden Age Fiction

The Repairman A Mark III beacon, one of the earliest beacons deployed, possibly even the first, had broken down, and he had to go and fix it. Trouble was, there was a religious war going on around it. Time to get creative with the rules surrounding interactions with native species...  "The Repairman" appeared in "Galaxy Science Fiction" February 1958, pages 60 - 73. ----- Navy Day...

Satellite Number Four had been knocked out of its orbit, disrupting communications around the world. James Fitzpatrick MacIlheny, "Mac" to his colleagues and "Fitz" to his friends, the Operational Vice-President of Circum-Global Communications had to get Number Four back into its correct orbit, and fast! However, what they found when they sent up the repair drone was beyond what an...

The Hunter's Lodge Case Even from his sick-bed, Hercule Poirot's famous "little gray cells" solve an apparently unsolvable murder mystery. "The Hunter's Lodge Case" appeared in "The Blue Book Magazine," June 1924, pages 54 - 59.  ----- The Plymouth Express Affair The murder of an American steel magnate's daughter on a train from Plymouth to Bristol. A box of...

Mr Lonliness It is lonely out there in space. Very, very lonely! A man needs to see a human face, hear a human voice. So visitors have to be sent out somehow—by some means. "Mr Lonliness" appeared in "Super-Science Fiction," February 1957, pages 40 - 45. ----- A Kiss for the Conqueror There is always a disparity of power between the conquered and the conqueror, a desire to exercise...

Blind Play Nick Pappas, hired-killer from Callisto, was strictly out for Pappas--out for Number One, as they used to say. And now those fools in the vanishing spaceship thought that number was up! "Blind Play" appeared in "Planet Stories," May 1951, pages 24 - 31. ----- The Statistomat Pitch The Statistomat was no different from General Computer's Incomac when growing one's...

Mr. Fotheringay was a sceptic. He didn't believe in miracles, and he was going to prove it to Mr. Beamish, only... "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" appeared in "Tales of Space and Time," Harper & Brothers, London and New York, 1900, pages 325 - 358. ----- Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He wrote more than fifty novels and do...

How Deep the Grooves Dr. James Carroad was prepared to experiment on his own unborn son to demonstrate that he could condition unquestioning loyalty in potential citizens, removing certain freedoms. However, Nature, or God, or the universe, had beaten him by a long way.... "How Deep the Grooves" appeared in "Amazing Stories," February 1963, pages 106 - 117. ----- The Wounded No one...

The aliens wouldn't accept help, though their world was about to explode. They were adolescents. Adolescence is the time when you aren't smart enough to ask for help.... "The Untouchable Adolescents" appeared in the February 1957 issue of "Super-Science Fiction" on pages 68 - 86. It was published under the pen name of "Ellis Hart", which Ellison used when publishing...

Stopover Planet Early morning deliveries were part of the Honeychile Bakery Service. But on this particular morning the bakery was collecting, not delivering! "Stopover Planet" appeared in "Imagination," August 1953, pages 132 - 140. ----- The Space Between Jak and Drusilla were on their way back to Earth, to the Wollongong Obstetric Hospital to be precise, for Drusilla had develop...

What was he prepared to do to pursue his life's ambition become the foremost microscopist? It turned out, almost anything. But what he discovered was to change, and ruin, his life. "The Diamond Lens" appeared first in "Atlantic Monthly," January 1858, pages 354 - 367, and later in "Amazing Stories," October 1933, pages 600 - 615. ----- Fitz James O'Brien (also spell...

Infiltration Werewolves don't necessarily conform to all the superstitions people have. They may even know fear... "Infiltration" appeared in "Infinity Science Fiction" October 1958, pages 114 - 123. ----- Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen n...

Steena was background stuff, never out of her baggy shapeless gray space-alls, with the gray personality of the machines she minded. Her only companion was a gray cat called Bat. So when she told Cliff Moran, a down-on-his-luck spacer, that it was time to seek out the famed "Empress of Mars" and bring it into port, he had no choice but to take her seriously. Little did he know that he'...

Violet Marsh's uncle had written two wills—one public, one hidden—and challenged his niece, and his sole heir, to pit her educated wits against his uneducated wits and find the hidden will. Knowing that she was outmatched, Violet contacted an expert in solving riddles... "The Missing Will" appeared in "Blue Book Magazine," January 1925, pages 146 - 150.  ----- Dame Agatha Mary...

Ades has vanished! And kings, emperors and despots are annexing the planets Kim Rendell, matter-transmitter technician, inter-galactic criminal, and space explorer, and Dona, his wife and ship-mate, freed from the Sinab Empire. In his ship, the Starshine, Kim must investigate what has happened to Ades, and then devise a plan to free those planets from further tyranny... "The Boomerang Circuit&...

The planet Sinab II has altered the fighting-beams to kill only men, and they're spreading across the First Galaxy by wiping out all the men on a planet, waiting until the women are desperate, and then re-colonizing it with their own men, creating the first Galactic Empire. The planet Ades is in line to be colonized and become part of the Sinab Empire. But Kim Rendell, matter-transmitter techn...

Kim Rendell, matter-transmitter technician, has defied the government of Alphin III by nullifying the Disciplinary Circuit, the system used to keep the planet's citizens under control in a condition of virtual slavery. He is given a choice, stay on the planet as a blocked man with no access to any facilities the planet provides and suffering daily the increasing pain of the Disciplinary Circui...

A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. You could find this type of humor anywhere, but only a topflight science-fictionist could have written this story, in just this way... "The Eyes Have It" appeared in "Science Fiction Stories," 1953, pages 128 - 130. ----- Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead—that it might possibly love a...

Mrs. Bellowes, along with a lot of other older women, had paid good money to stay at Mr. Thirkell's Restorium and eventually on to the greatest adventure life could offer. But after yet another delay, she just had to take matters into her own hands... "A Little Journey" appeared in "Galaxy Science Fiction," August 1951, pages 152 - 158. ----- The new game the children are playi...

Ed Loyce was a practical man. He liked to fix things himself. And if he couldn't fix it himself, he'd call someone. When he saw what was hanging in the town square, and no one doing anything about it, he had to go and investigate... "The Hanging Stranger" appeared in "Science Fiction Adventures" magazine, December 1953, pages 122 - 136. ----- Philip Kindred Dick (December 1...

How do you kill a man without killing him?  This was the problem Colonel Donovan had to solve if Earth was to win the war against Antares. Suicide was not an option; the killing of one's own soldiers was just wrong. But a way had to be found to prevent captured soldiers from divulging information about the disposition of Earth's forces. "The Way Out" appeared in "Infinity Scien...

The Pas-udeti war-fleet had turned the flank of the human war-fleet, and, for the first time in a century, the humans were retreating. But this planet around Orion was Tony's home. He'd been born here. He had Pas-udeti friends. He'd known them for five years. They were building a model spaceport. Nothing would change... "Tony and the Beetles" appeared in "Orbit," Decemb...

Dinner with Samlaan Britt at West o' Mars was the pinnacle of Peache's career, but he was determined to get to the truth of the rumors that surrounded the founding of West o' Mars. Peache believed that behind every man lies the influence of a woman. Influence, though, can take odd forms... "West o' Mars" appeared in "Infinity Science Fiction," April 1958, pages 110...

Rufus Sollenar, creator of EmpaVid, a revolutionary entertainment system, had everything. However, the Special Public Relations Office of the International Association of Broadcasters needs to ensure that its members investements were safe, especially as Cortwright Burr, Sollenar's biggest competitor, recently visited the Martian engineers...  "Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night" appeared i...

It was only a tiny scout ship from somewhere beyond the stars; only one alien creature occupied it. But the ship's mission spelled life to its fellow creatures and death to all living creatures on Earth. And against the super-science of the raider stood one terrified old man and his dog... "Nobody Saw The Ship" appeared in "Future combined with Science Fiction Stories," May-Jun...

In a small grimy shop selling bric-a-brac and antiquities in Seven Dials, London, was a large crystal egg. The shop's proprietor, a Mr. C Cave, was reluctant to sell, even when offered the outrageous sum of five pounds! His step-family didn't understand; there was so much they could do with such a fortune! What was it about that crystal egg that prevented Mr. Cave from selling? "The Cr...