The Quiet Pools

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Lois McMaster Bujold

The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold is an acclaimed literary masterpiece celebrating major critical honors and timeless storytelling.

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Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a celebrated work by Mary Shelley (Creator of Frankenstein), recognized for masterclass storytelling and lasting literary resonance.

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James H. Schmitz

HIS LUCK HAD FINALLY TURNED... ... and for the worse. Unlucky at love, unsuccessful in business, unable to win friends and influence people, Pausert thought he had finally found his niche: captaining the stout old tramp starship VENTURE and her odd-lot cargoes around the fringes of the Empire. He'd even taken to performing the odd noble deed, such as freeing three poor little child-slaves from their abusive masters. Strange, though, how eager those sadistic bullies had been to let them go, and even stranger how quickly those adorable little girls made Pausert the mortal enemy of his fiancee, his planet, the Empire, the Sirians, the Uldunians, the dread pirate chieftain Laes Yango -- and the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space. It was all very mysterious -- until Pausert realized that he was dealing not with a trio of underage slaves, but three of THE WITCHES OF KARRES!

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Clifford D. Simak

Having just returned to Earth from an intergalactic research mission, Professor Peter Maxwell, specialist in Supernatural Phenomena, finds himself in most desperate straits. Earth, as the professor is well aware, has advanced beyond belief in many areas; time travel, for instance, has been perfected to such an extent that creatures from different ages (goblins, dinosaurs, and Shakespeare!) live together at the same time. But Maxwell has accidentally discovered a mysterious crystal planet which contains a storehouse of secret information, and he is sure that not even one-tenth of this knowledge is yet known on Earth. Realizing the value of the planet for the Earth's future development, he attempts to convince those in power that they must, at any cost, get control of the crystal planet. But his efforts are thwarted by a startling fact: Maxwell was ingeniously duplicated on his return trip. The "other" him came back before he did, and was soon after "accidentally" killed. Now no one will believe the new Maxwell really exists.