Science Fiction Short Stories Collection

Step into twenty science fiction short stories where strange possibilities become immediate human problems—and ingenuity, courage, ambition or sheer stubbornness may be the only way out. Buy a planet where the laws of physics refuse to cooperate. Escape a tyrannical Earth aboard the last rebel ship. Hunt the Great Secret of the Universe. Race to save a dying world. Watch reality disappear because everyone believes it should. Travel through time to Nero's Rome. And meet aliens, inventors, engineers, soldiers, con men and unlikely heroes confronting problems no one has faced before.

Fanner Marston has survived what killed every other man in his party. Driven by greed, power and obsession, he crosses a brutal landscape toward the legendary city of Parva, where the Great Secret of the Universe is said to wait. Marston wants absolute power. He has paid for it in blood, thirst and endurance. But reaching the secret is only the beginning—because the truth at the end of his quest may overturn everything he believed the prize would give him. Forty men began the journey. One man reaches the end. And the greatest secret in existence has one more surprise waiting for him.

Earth is nearly dead—its air ruined, its cities broken and its people scattered across distant worlds. Lars the Ranger once crossed the galaxy seeking the resources to save humanity’s home. Now he has returned to a planet running out of time. But the mission appears to have failed. As mysterious starships descend on the third planet from the sun, Earth’s remaining leaders face the possibility that the final chapter has already begun. A dying world. A returning commander. And a fleet whose arrival may mean destruction—or something no one on Earth understands yet.

Chuck Lambert has one dream: own a planet. After eleven years of saving, sacrifice and wishful thinking, he finally gets his chance through Madman Murphy, the self-proclaimed king of planetary realtors. The bargain world looks beautiful—until Chuck tries to live on it. Gravity does not behave. The air is wrong. The water is worse. Everything he bought is exactly as advertised, which may be the biggest problem of all. A bargain planet. A very persuasive salesman. And laws of physics that make the fine print look harmless.

George Marquis Lorrilard is a space exploiter with one dependable motive: profit. In a future where complacency has weakened the drive to explore and rival powers threaten the balance of worlds, Lorrilard’s appetite for wealth may be exactly the force no one expected to need. Armed with nerve, ambition and a technology that can turn air itself into an invisible barrier, he enters a struggle where personal gain and planetary power become impossible to separate. He wants a fortune. The world needs an advantage.

The revolt has failed. Executions have begun. And the Bellerophon—the last rebel ship—hangs beyond Earth with nowhere left to run. Firstin Guide and the surviving colonists refuse to surrender to the regime that crushed their rebellion. Their only hope is a new fuel capable of carrying them across thousands of light-years to another habitable world. Escape could save them—but leaving Earth means abandoning everyone they love. They flee tyranny to survive. They build toward a return.

A new guru has convinced the world that thought creates reality—and that the physical universe can simply be wished away. Nearly everyone accepts the idea. Shellback does not. As people, places and solid ground begin to vanish, one stubborn old man clings to the unfashionable belief that reality ought to stay put. To save what remains, he will have to outlast a movement built on belief itself—and confront the man who expects to be the last mind standing. The world is disappearing. Belief has become power. And stubbornness may be the only thing solid enough to stop it.