Thursday, December 29, 2016

Galaxy Science Fiction Novels Collection

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Galaxy Science Fiction Novels Collection

DESCRIPTION

Galaxy novels, sometimes titled Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, were a series of mostly reprint American science fiction novels published between 1950 and 1961.

The series was started by H.L. Gold, the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, in 1950 as a companion to the main Galaxy magazine. There was one (often abridged) novel per issue, which appeared in digest size format, which made the books in the series look like digest magazines.

In 1959, after 35 issues, the series was sold to Beacon Books, which changed the format to mass-market (small size) paperback and introduced its own numbering scheme, continuing the series for another 11 issues. They also had the contents of some books revised to add mild sexual content and changed their titles accordingly.

RIGHTS
All items are placed into the Public Domain under a Creative Commons Non-Attribution License. No restrictions under any copyright statutes which may exist now or in the future; in the local, global, intergalactic, or Universe-wide realms (if present government corruption extends that far).

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The Knights of Arthur by Frederik Pohl

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The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl

* * *
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Knights of Arthur
Author: Frederik Pohl
Illustrator: Martin
Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
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The Knights of Arthur
By FREDERIK POHL
Illustrated by MARTIN

With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen … for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys!

I

There was three of us–I mean if you count Arthur. We split up to avoid attracting attention. Engdahl just came in over the big bridge, but I had Arthur with me so I had to come the long way around.

When I registered at the desk, I said I was from Chicago. You know how it is. If you say you’re from Philadelphia, it’s like saying you’re from St. Louis or Detroit–I mean nobody lives in Philadelphia any more. Shows how things change. A couple years ago, Philadelphia was all the fashion. But not now, and I wanted to make a good impression.

I even tipped the bellboy a hundred and fifty dollars. I said: “Do me a favor. I’ve got my baggage booby-trapped–”

“Natch,” he said, only mildly impressed by the bill and a half, even less impressed by me.

“I mean really booby-trapped. Not just a burglar alarm. Besides the alarm, there’s a little surprise on a short fuse. So what I want you to do, if you hear the alarm go off, is come running. Right?”

“And get my head blown off?” He slammed my bags onto the floor. “Mister, you can take your damn money and–”

“Wait a minute, friend.” I passed over another hundred. “Please? It’s only a shaped charge. It won’t hurt anything except anybody who messes around, see? But I don’t want it to go off. So you come running when you hear the alarm and scare him away and–”

“No!” But he was less positive. I gave him two hundred more and he said grudgingly: “All right. If I hear it. Say, what’s in there that’s worth all that trouble?”

“Papers,” I lied.

He leered. “Sure.”

“No fooling, it’s just personal stuff. Not worth a penny to anybody but me, understand? So don’t get any ideas–”

He said in an injured tone: “Mister, naturally the staff won’t bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?”

“Of course, of course,” I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there?

Anyway, the way to keep the staff on my side was by bribery, and when he left I figured I had him at least temporarily bought. He promised to keep an eye on the room and he would be on duty for four more hours–which gave me plenty of time for my errands.

[Read more…]

Saturday, December 24, 2016

/r/FreeEBOOKS

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Available for free on Amazon

A subreddit for free ebooks. Lots of Science Fiction and Fantasy. New recommendations all the time. To Gutenberg and beyond.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Runaway Cyclone

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Public Domain image by kai Stachowiak from publicdomainpictures.net

Runaway Cyclone by Jagadish Chandra Bose

Translated by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay

Part I—A Scientific Mystery

A few years ago a supernatural event was observed which rocked the scientific communities of America and Europe. A number of articles were published in various scientific journals to explain the phenomenon. But till now no explanation of the event has been found satisfactory.

On 28 September the leading English daily of Calcutta(1) published the following news received from Shimla: Shimla Meteorological Office, 27 September: A cyclone in the Bay of Bengal is imminent.(2)

On 29 September the aforementioned daily published the following news: Meteorological Office, Alipore: A tremendous cyclone is about to strike Bengal in two days. A Danger-Signal has been put up on Diamond Harbour.

On the 30th the news was extremely frightening: The Barometer fell two inches in the last half hour.

By ten o’clock tomorrow Calcutta will face the worst and most dangerous cyclone in years.(3)

No one slept that night in Calcutta. The timorous souls stayed awake in fear of their uncertain future.

On 1 October the sky remained cloudy, and a few drops of rain fell during the day. It remained dark throughout the day, but about four in the evening the sky suddenly became clear without a trace of the cyclone.

The next day the Meteorological Department sent the following news to the newspaper office: The cyclone that was to strike Calcutta has left the Bay of Bengal and has probably gone off in another direction in the Indian Ocean.

However, despite the attempts of many scientists to follow the trail of the cyclone, no one was able to discover the cyclone’s new direction.

The leading English daily(4) published the following news: Now it is certain that scientific knowledge is completely false.

Another daily(5) published the following: If science is false then why should the taxpayers be burdened by the totally unreliable Meteorological department?

Various other dailies(6) joined as chorus: Let it go! Scrap it!

The government was in a fix. A few days ago new equipment worth over one lakh Rupees had been purchased for the Meteorological Department. Now those items would not even sell for the price of broken glass bottles. Besides, where would one transfer the Chief Officer of the Meteorological Department?

[Read more…]

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The Linux Setup - Piers Anthony, Author

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The Linux Setup - Piers Anthony, Author

He uses Libre Office. For more details click on the link.