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!
Lilith
The classic fantasy about a young man who travels through a mystical reflecting glass into a hidden world.
Mr. Vane spots the mysterious old man while reading in his family’s expansive library. His interest piqued, he follows the man up to the attic, where he finds a tall and dusty mirror. In its rather unremarkable glass, the reflection of the world behind him slowly melts away to reveal a sweeping country of moors and hills framed by the tops of faraway mountains. Enchanted by the sight, Vane steps through the mirror and is transported to a dreamlike land where myriad perils and adventures await.
With the old man, Mr. Raven, as his guide, Vane travels through the Evil Wood, where innocent children frolic in the day and dead men battle at night. He visits the ominous city Bulika, whose people live in silent fear of a menace roaming the streets. Each chapter building on the last, Lilith follows Vane to a final and universal truth in a stunning allegory of life, death, and redemption.
A Journey in Other Worlds
A stunning trip across the galaxy and into the future.
Focusing on Richard Ayrault, a stockholder of the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company, A Journey in Other Worlds takes readers across the solar system to Jupiter and Saturn. On Jupiter, Astor creates a fantastically outsize world of gushing volcanoes, crashing waterfalls, and otherworldly flora and fauna. In contrast, his Saturn is an introspective and philosophical land. While Ayrault’s journey is the main attraction, it is Astor’s vision of a future with maglev trains, a police force equipped with cameras, and an interconnected network of phones, solar power, wind power, and air travel that will astonish.
A Crystal Age
W. H. Hudson’s trailblazing story of a pastoral utopia that harbors a dark secret.
After a landslide, Smith awakens groggy and confused. The landscape around him has changed dramatically. He wanders through the countryside, searching for any semblance of civilization, until a family takes him in. As he recounts what happened to him and where he came from, it dawns on Smith that he has somehow left his own world behind and awoken somewhere entirely new.
What Smith finds is a gorgeous utopian vision of a peaceful world made real. Humans live in accordance with nature, respectful of the land and animals, untethered by technology. The cause of this new order is an alternate hierarchy of humanity that Smith must learn to adhere to—or face the consequences.
As he integrates into this foreign society, Smith finds himself falling for the daughter of the house. But when he tries to tell her, he realizes the most important difference between his former world and his new one: Romantic love no longer exists.
The Ghost Kings
An English teen finds danger, romance, and a lost African civilization, in this classic fantasy adventure by the author of King Solomon’s Mines.
Rachel Dove has spent all her young life traveling the wilds of Africa while her British missionary father tries unsuccessfully to convert the natives. Her mother, just like Rachel, has visions and believes her daughter will live a long, happy life.
But before Rachel can find happiness, she has many challenges to endure. A flash flood traps her with a handsome stranger. The Zulus take her prisoner, believing her to be the incarnation of their goddess. A brutish Englishman driven mad with lust plots to kidnap her. And she discovers a forgotten nation of little people who worship trees, and like her, can see the future.
