By: H. G. Wells (1866-1946) |
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The First Men in the Moon
Written nearly seven decades before Neil Armstrong's historic “Giant leap for Mankind” this book by one of the most influential sci-fi writers in English is an interesting read.
The First Men in the Moon by Herbert George Wells, the English author who is today called the Father of Science Fiction, describes a strange and fantastic voyage. Businessman and budding playwright, John Bedford takes a sabbatical from his work and decides to write a play. He moves to a lonely cottage in Kent where he hopes to come up with a theatrical masterpiece...
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The Sleeper Awakes
Originally serialized from 1898 to 1903, Wells later made some crucial changes to the piece to create a flawless dystopian science fiction novel published in 1910 and renamed The Sleeper Awakes. The novel focuses on an Englishman, who falls in a deep sleep lasting two centuries, and sees him wake up in an unrecognizable setting and extremely wealthy. An enthralling tale of dystopian society depicted through a colorful imagination, The Sleeper Awakes concentrates on topics including dystopia, political power, religion, plutocracy, and individual and social awakening...
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The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth
Two stuffy English scientists, always looking to further their scientific knowledge, create a substance called Herakleophorbia, which in its fourth incarnation – known as Herakleophorbia IV – has the special ability of making things increase greatly in size. As the scientists begin experimentation on some chicks, the substance is misused by some “country folk” who don’t take it seriously and soon Herakleophorbia IV is running rampant throughout England and then across the globe, creating giant plants and animals that wreak havoc on the land and then the people...
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A Story of the Stone Age
This story is of a time beyond the memory of man, before the beginning of history. . .
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Anticipations
Wells considered this book one of his most important, a natural follow-up to such works as his Man of the Year Million and The Time Machine. His goal was to get people to think and act in new ways. The book starts with a look at how humans get along socially and how they carry out their business ventures. It then discusses how these elements influence others, such as politics, the world of work, and education. H. G. tried to make clear how the current social order was disintegrating without preparing another to take its place. He then traced the roots of democracy, which in its present state he saw as unworkable. Instead, he proposed a new republic. He also critiqued modern warfare.
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When the Sleeper Wakes
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Text Book of Biology, Vertebrata
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Mankind in the Making
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By: H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) |
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Prejudices, First Series
Mencken sharpens his pen and in a collection of short essays delivers acerbic opinions on issues and persons of the time. Among his targets in this volume are critics, H.G. Wells Thorstein Veblen, Arnold Bennett, William Dean Howells, Irvin S. Cobb. Mencken's critiques are delivered against a background of his own well known ethnic, racial, religious, and sectional prejudices. Not for the faint of heart, Mencken's prickly, yet unapologetic, prose reveals a window into American attitudes at the time they were written and their influences on the larger American culture. - Summary by DrPGould
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Notes On Democracy
American journalist H.L. Mencken’s Notes On Democracy was originally published in 1926, yet is still relevant almost 100 years later.
Mencken has proposed some succinct and satirical definitions of democracy, such as,
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” And,
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey house.”
One predictable result of democracy, Mencken explains, is that the professional politician, who’s objective is always the job, and not the principle, is in a constant struggle for office and its rewards...
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By: Hans Gross (1847-1915) |
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Criminal Investigation: a Practical Handbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers, Volume 1
Reputedly inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories, Austrian criminal jurist and examining magistrate Hans Gross wrote the first handbook on criminal investigation. This treatise covers everything from the qualities of a good investigating officer and how to utilize various experts, to tactics employed by criminals, how to analyze footprints and blood stains, and ways that criminals perpetrate crimes. Some of the remarks relate directly to India, such as disguising one's caste.Volume 1 (of 3) consists of Part 1 of the 4 parts in the work.
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Criminal Investigation: a Practical Handbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers, Volume 2
Reputedly inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories, Austrian criminal jurist and examining magistrate Hans Gross wrote the first handbook on criminal investigation. This treatise covers everything from the qualities of a good investigating officer and how to utilize various experts, to tactics employed by criminals, how to analyze footprints and blood stains, and ways that criminals perpetrate crimes. Some of the remarks relate directly to India, such as disguising one's caste.Volume 2 consists of Parts 2 and 3 of the 4 parts in the work. - Summary by TriciaG
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Criminal Investigation: a Practical Handbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers, Volume 3
Reputedly inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories, Austrian criminal jurist and examining magistrate Hans Gross wrote the first handbook on criminal investigation. This treatise covers everything from the qualities of a good investigating officer and how to utilize various experts, to tactics employed by criminals, how to analyze footprints and blood stains, and ways that criminals perpetrate crimes. Some of the remarks relate directly to India, such as disguising one's caste.Volume 3 consists of Part 4 of the 4 parts in the work. - Summary by TriciaG
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By: Harry Harrison (1925) |
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Deathworld
Jason dinAlit, an inhabitant of the planet Porgostrosaand, is a fast talking, conniving, tough as nails, gun toting gambler whose ethics wax and wane with each planet he travels to. He also has amazing psionic abilities which means he is gifted with a variety of psychic abilities including telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis and a host of other interesting capabilities. He is not above using these to tip the odds in his favor while gambling. A chance meeting with Kerk Pyrrus who is the Ambassador of planet Pyrrus ends up with dinAlit traveling back with the Ambassador to Pyrrus...
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Planet of the Damned
Once in a generation, a man is born with a heightened sense of empathy. Brion Brandd used this gift to win the Twenties, an annual physical and mental competition among the best and smartest people on Anvhar. But scarcely able to enjoy his victory, Brandd is swept off to the hellish planet Dis where he must use his heightened sense of empathy to help avert a global nuclear holocaust by negotiating with the blockading fleet, traversing the Disan underworld, and cracking the mystery of the savagely ruthless magter. Summary by Great Plains.
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The Ethical Engineer
The Ethical Engineer also known as Deathworld II finds our hero Jason dinAlt captured to face justice for his crimes, but the ever-wily gambler crashes his transport on a primitive planet populated by clans that hoard knowledge. It’s a difficult situation for a guy who just wants to get back to Pyrrus. – The Ethical Engineer was first published in the July and August 1963 issues of Analog Science Fact & Fiction.
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The Misplaced Battleship
"It might seem a little careless to lose track of something as big as a battleship ... but interstellar space is on a different scale of magnitude. But a misplaced battleship—in the wrong hands!—can be most dangerous." The world class con man and thief known as the Stainless Steel Rat (diGriz) has another very big problem to solve and this science fiction novella by the great Harry Harrison will see if he can solve it and perhaps four or five more like it before this fascinating and funny tale is finished. 'Use a thief to catch a thief' sounds great but it sometimes has unexpected results.
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Arm of the Law
A quiet backwater outpost on Mars gets a surprise in the form of a new police recruit - in a box! Yep, it's a prototype robot cop sent to the backwater station for testing. And Harrison tells the strange, funny and scary things that begin to happen after that, as only he can.
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The K-Factor
The human race has reached the stars, colonized many planets and done amazing things in all areas of scientific progress. But humans are still humans and remain both honorable and not so honorable; some with high ideals and others with very low ones indeed. So why hasn't war occurred in several centuries among the hundreds of planets? Has man really changed? Not on your life it hasn't! Read how science has given man peace but at what cost?
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The Repairman
This is a collection of 3 of Harry Harrison marvelous early stories that were published in Galaxy, Analog and Fantastic Universe. The Repairman (1958) is a straight fun SF story of a man getting a job done. It is most typical of his later style in series like the Stainless Steel Rat; Toy Shop (1962), a short piece exploring bureaucratic blindness and one ingenious way around it and The Velvet Glove (1956), my favorite for its writing style, fun perspective, sly social commentary on the scene in 1956 and just plain delightful imagination. And he manages to pack excitement and mystery in at the same time.
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Toy Shop
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Navy Day
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The Velvet Glove
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By: Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) |
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Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume One
The first of six volumes, this volume covers in extensive detail the topics of "The Evolution of Modesty", "The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity", and "Auto-Eroticism". Written as an anthropological and psychological study from the point of view of Havelock, the famous British sexologist of the late 19th century, who was also a physician and social reformer.
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Essays in War-Time Further Studies in the Task of Social Hygiene
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The Task of Social Hygiene
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Study of British Genius
The psychological and anthropological character of genius in the British Isles was investigated by Ellis. Citing and collating an extensive source of information from the Dictionary of National Biography, many pieces of informational are discussed, including the ancestral heritage, geographical distribution, professions, and health and morbidity of the most the most preeminent men and women of the time. This work also promotes his theory that large cities are not only counterproductive to the development of high achievers, but detrimental to national health.
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By: Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) |
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London Labour and the London Poor Volume I
Subtitled, "A Cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work."
"The history of a people from the lips of the people themselves .. their labour, earnings, trials and sufferings, in their own unvarnished language, and to pourtray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places ..." "My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor ...
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London Labour and the London Poor Volume II
Subtitled, "A Cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work."
"The history of a people from the lips of the people themselves .. their labour, earnings, trials and sufferings, in their own unvarnished language, and to pourtray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places ..." "My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor ...
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London Labour and the London Poor Volume III
Subtitled, "A Cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work."
"The history of a people from the lips of the people themselves .. their labour, earnings, trials and sufferings, in their own unvarnished language, and to portray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places ..." "My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under those sufferings, of the poor ...
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