When today’s top science-fiction and fantasy authors look for inspiration, they turn to the classics. We continue reading those same books (year after year) because they stand the test of time. For a limited time, you can download these beloved science fiction and fantasy books for free!
Flatland
In Flatland, the more sides a man has, the more powerful he is. Triangles are laborers and soldiers. Squares and pentagons are middle-class doctors and lawyers. Hexagons are nobility. Women, however, are straight lines, incapable of advancement in a two-dimensional world. Everything in Flatland is clear-cut and orderly, until the day an average citizen—a Square—dreams of a land of three dimensions. If three dimensions are possible, why not four? Or one? Soon, the Square’s provocative imagination and corresponding adventures threaten to turn the whole of Flatland against him.
First published in 1884, two decades before Einstein’s theory of relativity defined time as the fourth dimension, Edwin Abbott’s Flatland is both a prescient exploration of the unseen and a delightful skewering of Victorian social strictures.
The Monk
Ambrosio has developed a reputation across Madrid for his piety and selflessness in his role as a monk. Left on the abbey’s doorstep as a child, Ambrosio took quickly to monastic life, and his fellow monks pronounced him a gift from the Virgin Mary. Despite his virtue, his status as the abbey’s favorite son is put in jeopardy with the arrival of Matilda, a woman with a terrible secret who disguises herself as a monk to be closer to Ambrosio.
A sensational Gothic horror novel that is as stunning to readers today as it was two hundred years ago, The Monk is a shocking rumination of the nature of good and evil, and a morality tale that explicitly details the consequences of desire.
The Well at the World's End
As the youngest son of a king, Ralph of Upmeads is expected to forsake adventure for the safety of home. But the call of the Well at the World’s End is too powerful to resist, and Ralph disobeys his parents in order to seek out his true destiny in its magical waters. The journey is long and arduous as the well lies on the far side of a distant mountain range and the lands beyond Upmeads are full of treacherous characters. With the help of a beautiful maiden and an ancient hermit, Ralph completes his quest and raises the cup of immortality and wisdom to his lips. The question is, what will he do with his newfound powers?
Planet of the Damned
Brion Brandd has just triumphed in the planetary contest called the “Twenties, ”a series of physical and mental trials meant to push contestants to their limits. But before he can fully recover from these tests, he’s recruited by former Twenties champion Ihjel for a mission of utmost importance.
Brandd and Ihjel travel to the hellish desert planet of Dis, where the ruling class, known as the magter, have suddenly begun acting wildly aggressive and unpredictable, threatening the peace in the region. With a nuclear blockade surrounding Dis, Brandd and Ihjel are sent planetside to investigate.
