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!
The Invisible Man
On a frigid night in a remote English village, a visitor inquires about a room. The innkeeper welcomes him, filling the hearth with a roaring fire, but no matter how warm the room becomes, the traveler will not remove his coat or the scarf that hides his face. If he did, he would disappear.
The invisible man is Griffin, a brilliant scientist who tested a new invention on himself and found that it worked far too well. When his lab was destroyed in a fire, Griffin was forced out onto the streets of London, where he turned to theft to survive. He came to the English countryside in a last-ditch attempt to return himself to normal, but he will soon be driven back into the night—and to the very edge of madness—in this original science fiction novel that inspired the psychological horror film starring Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
Looking Backward, 2000–1887
In Boston in the year 1887, Julian West is hypnotized and falls into a deep sleep. He awakens at the dawn of a new millennium in an America where war, crime, and inequality no longer exist. In this brave new world, goods are delivered in the blink of an eye, public kitchens ensure that no one goes hungry, and the retirement age is forty-five. It sounds too good to be true, but Julian soon learns that this socialist utopia is not the stuff of dreams—it is a carefully planned, wondrously liberating reality.
One of the bestselling American novels of the nineteenth century, Looking Backward launched a vibrant political movement and sparked an enormous amount of debate. Today it stands as an enduring testament to the power of imagination and the best of human nature.
From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon
During the Civil War, the members of the Baltimore Gun Club delighted themselves by designing artillery the likes of which the world had never seen. But when the South eventually surrenders, the gun club languishes, until its president, Impey Barbicane, conceives of a project so preposterous it must be attempted: to build a gun large enough to fire a rocket to the moon.
From raising the money to casting the cannon to readying it to fire, the gun club overcomes one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another. But when a rival engineer and an intrepid French adventurer join Barbicane on the spaceship’s inaugural voyage, the three men soon discover that getting to the moon is only half the battle: Making it home will be their toughest challenge yet.
From the Earth to the Moon and its sequel, Round the Moon, were published nearly a century before the Apollo missions. Suspenseful, humorous, and prophetic, these captivating adventure stories sparked mankind’s enduring fascination with space travel.
Deathworld
The gravity is twice that of Earth. The weather is an unpredictable maelstrom. All species of life, both plant and animal, monstrous and microscopic, are lethal. And the environment is drenched with radioactivity.
This is planet Pyrrus, where telepathically gifted gambler Jason dinAlt has ended up after scamming a government casino out of a fortune. A small, fortified town stands against the nonstop natural onslaught, and its people are the descendants of hardened survivors. But there are some who exist outside the city—the “grubbers,” humans living in harmony with the nightmarish surroundings who share a mutual hatred with the technologically superior city dwellers.
These people fascinate Jason because they share his psionic abilities. And with their help he soon realizes that Pyrrus is more than just a planet. It’s alive. It’s intelligent. And it’s angry.
