Showing results by author "Murray Leinster" in All Categories

Critical Difference is the story of a Colonial Survey Officer named Massey assigned to a barren, frozen planet to check and approve colony installations. He discovers that this world's temperature is gradually getting colder. Eventually, the declining temperature will make the colony uninhabitable. The colony receives a coded message that the same thing is happening to their home world. The colonists rely on Massey to find a solution.

Lockley was working in the mountains on a survey mission when an alien spaceship smashed into a nearby lake. The Earth shook, and the people fled as the aliens swept the ground for miles in every direction with a beam weapon that induced mind-numbing terror and paralysis. Instead of running like everyone else, Lockley realises he has to go towards the alien menace to rescue the woman he loves....

Calhoun was assigned the sector because the previous Med Ship inspector had dropped the ball, and the whole sector had gone to rack and ruin. When he starts his first inspection he becomes embroiled in a pandemic driven war between worlds. What can a simple Med Ship pilot in a 50 ton flitter do to bring peace and health back to two worlds on the brink?

A classic sci-fi tale by the master Murray Leinster of the last catastrophic stages of our planet and its inhabitants. The true villain of this fascinating piece is excess carbon dioxide! The results on the earth, plant life, animals and humans are vividly imagined and described: giant insects, weird fungi, poisonous air and gases, fighting and conflict amongst humanity... How, or rather, how badly will all of this end?

Big Jake Connors is taking over his town through violence, intimidation and bribery but Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald can only grind his teeth in frustration. The gangsters seem to have everything going their way until the day that a little dry cleaning establishment declines their offer of 'protection' and strange things start to happen. Murray Leinster gives us another wonderful product of 'what if' from his limitless imagination to enjoy in this gem of a story. Listen and smile.

A physics professor at the American College in Istanbul, Dave Coglan, is visited by Lieutenant Ghalil of the Istanbul Police and M. Duval, a French scholar. After much deliberation, they query if, by any chance, he has been visiting the 13th Century. At first, Coglan does not take them seriously. Along with Ghalil and Duval, however, is a 700-year-old book with notations in English that includes his name and address. Further, the book has Coghlan's fingerprints and refers to an address and a reference to killing someone.

Murray Leinster's science fiction stories typically dealt with themes of frustration with human frailty and its limitations, cynicism vs. idealistic ethics and romance. When a mysterious alien spacecraft lands in a lake in Colorado and the invaders begin using a parylyzing ray that no one can understand or stop, it takes an ingenious man like Lockley to save the girl and solve the mystery of the aliens.

"The Runaway Skyscraper" is a science fiction story about Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer who works in a midtown Manhattan office building called the Metropolitan Tower. When the sun suddenly begins moving backwards in the sky, setting rapidly in the east, he is the only one to realize what is actually happening: a flaw in the rock beneath the building has caused it to subside, but instead of moving in space, the building is falling backwards into the past.

"Orejas de ellos" ("the things that listen") whispered the superstitious fishermen when the strange occurrences began off the Philippine coast. How else explain the sudden disappearance of a vessel beneath a mysterious curtain of foam? The writhings of thousands of maddened fish trapped in a coffin-like area of ocean? What monsters gorged at the bottom of the Luzon Deep and what were their plans? Radar expert Terry Holt and the crew of the Esperance had to devise a weapon against the horrifying creatures.

A sci-fi novel by Murray Leinster, published in 1962. An unidentified space ship lands in a Colorado lake. The creatures subsequently begin taking human prisoners with paralyzing laser weapons. A land surveyor and a journalist are the only remaining hope for humankind now, as the army is powerless.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

An intriguing novella by author Murray Leinster, published in 1949, about machines which have the capacity to retain emotions for the missions they accomplish, and weird signals from the future, which annihilate less advanced mechanisms! A classic piece of sci-fi pulp by the masterful Leinster.

The short story "Doctor" chronicles a fear of a virus that has already decimated one planet and is so deadly that there is no cure for it. Planets that are known to have chlorphage are quarantined from the rest of the galaxy. Unknown to others, a small girl who is infected manages to board an interplanetary ship and the ship's doctor tries to combat the virus.

"The Pirates of Ersatz" is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster. It tells the story of Bran Hodder, a one-time engineer who sets out on a career of interstellar piracy ostensibly to further more legitimate goals. Excerpt from the book: "My grandfather," said Hoddan defiantly. "What are you going to do about it? I'm outlawed! I've defied the planetary government! I'm disreputable by descent, and worst of all I've tried to use my brains!" "Deplorable!" said the ambassador mildly. "I don't mean outlawry is deplorable, you understand, or defiance of the government, or being disreputable.

Jed Cochrane and his crew are embarking on the first-ever interstellar voyage, thanks to his invention of the faster-than-light drive. His mission: Keep the TV viewers and sponsors happy! FTL meets Reality TV in this classic tale by science fiction master Murray Leinster. What new worlds will they see? What alien creatures will they meet? And most important, what will be the overnight ratings?

"Operation: Outer Space" is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster. It was first published in 1954. The novel introduces the first interstellar flight, financed by making it into a television show! In fact, this very funny work is much more of a biting satire on the world of television, the media and the rich than a regular space opera but with some elements of sci-fi still there of course.

A 1919 pulp-press tale of deepest darkest Africa. - Summary by david wales

Canna III is a water planet with a single large island. The island is bordered by a high cliff. Civilians irrigating the land has caused issues where soil and bedrock meet. The land has been turned into a saltwater swamp, turned upside down. The swamp is sliding into the ocean, taking inhabitable land with it. Compounding the problem is a fuel leak from underground tanks threatening to detonate. Two Colonial Survey troubleshooters have been called to the planet to try and rectify the situation.

"The Aliens" (1916) is a science fiction story by Murray Leinster. Excerpt from the book: "The human race was expanding through the galaxy... and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it? At 04 hours 10 minutes, ship time, the Niccola was well inside the Theta Gisol solar system. She had previously secured excellent evidence that this was not the home of the Plumie civilization. There was no tuned radiation.

"Space Platform" is a YA science fiction novel by author Murray Leinster. It is the first novel in the author's Joe Kenmore series. The novel concerns the sabotage of attempts to place a platform in Earth orbit. The book is remarkable for its sense of realism and technical exactitude whilst always being a chilling and breathtaking tale!