Edmond Hamilton (1904 – 1977) had a career that began as a regular and frequent contributor to Weird Tales magazine. The first hardcover publication of Science Fiction stories was a Hamilton compilation, and he and E.E. “Doc” Smith are credited with the creation of the Space Opera type of story. He worked for DC Comics authoring many stories for their Superman and Batman characters. Hamilton was also married to fellow author Leigh Brackett. – Published in the May, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories “The Stars, My Brothers” gives us a re-animated astronaut plucked from a century in the past and presented with an alien world where the line between humans and animals is blurred.

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian novel by Edward Bellamy, first published in 1888. It was the third largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up more than a century later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts) but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the U...

The Masters had ruled all space with an unconquerable iron fist. But the Masters were gone. And this new, young race who came now to take their place–could they hope to defeat the ancient Enemy of All?

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-1873) was an English novelist, poet, playright, and politician. Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, and the infamous incipit “It was a dark and stormy night.” Despite his popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as a byword for bad writing. San Jose State University holds...

'Straight from the horse's mouth', as they say. Edward Ruppelt was the first head of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, the official project initiated to investigate UFO reports beginning in 1952. This report from 1956 takes us inside these initial investigations, separates fact from fiction, and gives insight into who, when, where, and how sightings were reported and researched in open-minded fashion (for which Ruppelt was renowned), rather than in the typical hushed and secretive (and censored) manner most often associated with government and military reports which are released to the public...

"Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends."The character, sensibilities, and intellectual faculties of animals have always been a favourite study, and they are, perhaps, more strongly developed in the dog than in any other quadruped, from the circumstance of his being the constant companion of man. I am aware how much has been written on this subject, but having accumulated many original and interesting anecdotes of this faithful animal, I have attempted to enlarge the general stock of information respecting it...

If you've never heard the term “Mathematical Fiction” before, Edwin Abbott Abbott's 1884 novella, Flatland can certainly enlighten you! Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions was published in 1884 and since then, it has been discovered and re-discovered by succeeding generations who have been delighted by its unique view of society and people. The plot opens with a description of the fictional Flatland. The narrator calls himself “Square” and asks readers to “Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Squares, Triangles, Pentagons, Hexagons and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about...

Slosson reviews the transformation of alchemistry from an obscure and imprecise practice to the science of chemistry. Along the way, he explains how the modern industrial world now relies on fertilizers, explosives, textile materials, polymers and metals.By exploring the properties of a once undervalued element, the high strength of vanadium steel made the Ford car possible. Another element, cerium, appears in butane lighters and was once seen as a threat to the match industry in France.In his chapter on oils, Slosson reviews the development of hydrogenated oils, especially during WWII, in the search for a way to reuse otherwise discarded components of corn and cottonseed...

This escapist novel, first published in 1905 as Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, follows the exploits of American Navy Lieutenant Gulliver Jones, a bold, if slightly hapless, hero who is magically transported to Mars; where he almost outwits his enemies, almost gets the girl, and almost saves the day. Somewhat of a literary and chronological bridge between H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jones’ adventures provide an evocative mix of satire and sword-and-planet adventure.

Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois and is considered by some writers to be the true inventor of the variable resistance telephone, despite losing out to Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone patent.

"On that bright spring afternoon when three happy, interested children went off to the woods with their governess to take their first lesson in the study of wild flowers, they saw also some other things which made a fresh series of "Elmridge Talks," and these things were found among the trees of the roadside and forest."

INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT ON THE BASIS OF RATZEL'S SYSTEM OF ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY BY ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE PREFACE The present book, as originally planned over seven years ago, was to be a simplified paraphrase or restatement of the principles embodied in Friedrich Ratzel's _Anthropo-Geographie_. The German work is difficult reading even for Germans. To most English and American students of geographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house bolted and barred. Ratzel himself realized that any English form could not be a literal translation, but must be adapted to the Anglo-Celtic and especially to the Anglo-American mind...

Chicago, May 4, 1886. In the Haymarket region of the city, a peaceful Labor Day demonstration suddenly turns into a riot. The police intervene to maintain peace, but they soon use violence to quell the mob and a bomb is thrown, resulting in death and injuries to scores of people. In the widely publicized trial that followed, eight anarchists were condemned to death or life imprisonment, convicted of conspiracy, though none of them had actually thrown the bomb. A young Russian immigrant, Emma Goldman, had arrived just the previous year in the United States...