“Lilith is equal if not superior to the best of Poe,” the great 20th-century poet W.H. Auden said of this novel, but the comparison only begins to touch on the richness, density, and wonder of this late 19th-century adult fantasy novel. First published in 1895 (inhabiting a universe with the early Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde--not to mention Thomas Hardy), this is the story of the aptly named Mr. Vane, his magical house, and the journeys into another world into which it leads him.

Astor’s novel, with descriptions of an antigravity device, aeroplanes, television and space travel was widely read and became a bestseller on publication in 1894. Set in the year 2000, the book is a futuristic novel of three utopias: a Christian heaven on Saturn; an Eden-like new world on Jupiter; and a technologically-oriented, businessman's paradise on Earth.
John Jacob Astor (1864-1912), the great-grandson of the famous fur trader and financier of the same name, was one of the wealthiest men on earth, with assets somewhere around $100 million (compared to J.P. Morgan, who had amassed a fortune of only $30 million). Astor was an inventor (of a bicycle brake, a storage battery, an internal combustion engine, a flying machine, a machine for removing surface dirt from roads, and an improved marine turbine engine) and also founder of the Astoria (later the Waldorf Astoria) Hotel in New York City. His pneumatic walkway invention won a prize at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and he was one of the first Americans to own a motor car. One of his dreams was to find a way to create rain by pumping warm air from the surface of the earth into the upper atmosphere. His fascination with science led him to begin writing his only novel, A Journey In Other Worlds when he was only 28 years old, and spent over two years writing it. He served in the Spanish-American War, and lost his life in the Titanic disaster, leading his wife to a lifeboat but returning himself to the sinking ship.

The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future – of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.
Huxley is one of the most skillful and most successful social satirists of the twentieth century. His novels go far in defining the character of modern man, while his later work reflects an interest in mysticism and the effect of the consciousness-expanding drugs.

Bickley, Bastin and Arbuthnot encounter the strange tribe of Orofena and the terrible secrets of the underworld in this adventurous, enigmatic story of a seemingly dead, uninhabited city from one of the great masters of science fiction. A tale of shipwreck, mystery, and adventure set on an uncharted island in the South Seas. The brightly colored illustration on the front panel of the dust jacket depicts the island's powerful and mystical inhabitants, Oro, his daughter Yva, and a small black dog. Some soiling and stains to cloth, else very good in a fine lovely bright dust jacket.

Ships are disappearing all over the world and it believed to be caused by a sea monster. Dr. Pierre Aronnax, author of the book The Mysteries of the Ocean Deep, his companion Conseil and Canadian harpooner Ned Land are hired by the U.S. government to help put an end to this mystery by joining an expedition on the ship Abraham Lincoln. After months of searching the Abraham Lincoln finds its quarryand in the ensuing collision, Dr. Aronnax, Conseil and Ned Land are thrown overboard. In their efforts to survive, the trio find themselves on thesurface of the "monster" itself, which turns out to be a submarine. Captain Nemo allows the trio to remain alive on board his submarine,the Nautilus, as his permanent guests, meaning he will never allowthem to leave to reveal his secrets. The Captain uses this meeting withDr. Aronnax, whose book he has read, to begin a new cruise through theoceans and seas of the world, so that he can show Dr. Aronnax where hisbook was lacking in details. Meanwhile, Ned Land's primary interest is in finding a way to escape.

When the intrepid Time Traveller finds himself in the year 802,701, he encounters a seemingly utopian society of evolved human beings but then unearths the dark secret that sets mankind on course toward its inevitable destruction. An insightful look into a distant, bleak, and disturbing future, The Time Machine goes beyond the reaches of science fiction to provide a strikingly relevant discussion of social progress, class struggle, and the human condition.

This is the fourth book in Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" series. Satisfied with the combination of romance and pulp adventure, this fourth Martian novel turns to the next generation of Barsoomians. Cathoris, son of the Warlord of Mars and his beloved princess, is but one of two princes and a Jeddak who are seeking the hand of the Thuvia of Ptarth. When she is kidnapped by the sinister Prince Astok of Dusar, the entire planet is about to be thrown into a bloody war and Cathoris has to follow in his father's footstep and deal with savage beasts and phantom armies as he rescues Thuvia and saves Barsoom from a costly war. Of course, by the time he catches up with his beloved, Cathoris finds the situation is slightly more complicated than he thought, mainly because ERB never provides a smooth ending for his couples when he can avoid it.

This oddly satisfying humorous fantasy usually achieves the zany and frequently the bizarre. In the city of New Sfinctre the professional strangler and amateur philosopher Greyboar and his agent and sidekick, Ignace, accept a contract they're unable to fulfill, but which leads to some amusing adventures. At their watering hole, the Sign of the Trough, the pair encounter a nearsighted swordswoman named Cat (actually Schrdinger's Cat, but she can't find Schrdinger) and learn that Gwendolyn, Greyboar's Amazonian sister (who's active in the literally underground dwarf-liberation movement), has an artistic lover named Benvenuti. After Benvenuti's disappearance, the duo have to spring Cat from prison, help Abbess Hildegard of the Sisters of Tranquility intimidate a fallen angel and harrow hell and several even worse places to get Benvenuti back. The author's inventiveness is unblushingly demanding of the reader passages in the journey to hell satirize (or more accurately, skewer or even impale) role-playing games, Dante, the Greek playwrights and the Norse sagas with ferocious accuracy and a complete lack of scruples. Good taste prevails most of the time, and there are a fair number of serious grace notes, such as the cult of Joe, the caveman who invented God (aka the Old Geister). The sexual content is higher, but otherwise Flint can stand comparison with at least early Terry Pratchett. Fans of Harry Turtledove's elaborate wordplay will also revel in this volume. (May)with David Drake, and for the novel 1632.

In the year 2007, two UFO formations?one helmed by alien Kangas, the other by humans?burst into sight over the Atlantic. Both groups are from the future; the humans have been pursuing the Kangas through time in a desperate effort to stop them from showering Earth with biological weapons. Firing nuclear warheads at their enemies, and at a nearby navy carrier group, the Kangas almost win but are finally defeated by a special navy taskforce. One human from the future survives the battle. She is Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna, rescued by an ex-SEAL, Captain Richard Aston. But one of the human-brained Kanga cyborgs called Trolls also survives, and is determined to use his weapons and his ability to control minds to fulfill his masters' highest desire: the destruction of humanity. Aston and Leonovna, who retains one Troll-killing weapon, find themselves leading an international effort to locate and destroy the Troll, who is raising a following among hate groups in the Appalachians. Although not written on the magisterial scale of his recent Honor Harrington volumes, this is worthwhile Weber. The novel's final third is a particular delight, offering nonstop action that's both well executed and emotionally satisfying.

Murray Leinster was the nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins. He was born in Norfolk, VA on June 16, 1896. During World War I, he served with the Committee of Public Information and the United States Army (1917-1918). Following the war, Leinster became a free-lance writer. In 1921, he married Mary Mandola. They had four daughters. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information. He won the Liberty Award in 1937 for "A Very Nice Family," the 1956 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Exploration Team," a retro-Hugo in 1996 for Best Novelette for "First Contact." Leinster was the Guest of Honor at the 21st Worldcon in 1963. In 1995, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History was established, named after Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time."