The Nothings stemmed from the future’s tragic lack of courage. But one man and woman dared to shape a more audacious tomorrow.

This short story appeared in the January 1956 issue of "Fantastic Universe."

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Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was an American science-fiction author, best known for his 1965 novel Dune and five sequels, with Dune winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and sharing the Hugo Award in 1966 with ...And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny. He also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.

In 1942, he served in the U.S. Navy's Seabees for six months as a photographer, but suffered a head injury and was given a medical discharge. He subsequently moved to Portland, Oregon where he reported for The Oregon Journal.

Herbert was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's education writer from 1969 to 1972 and lecturer in general studies and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Washington (1970–1972). He worked in Vietnam and Pakistan as a social and ecological consultant in 1972, and in 1973 he was director-photographer of the television show The Tillers.

Herbert had retired from newspaper writing by the end of 1972, becoming a full-time fiction writer, and enjoying considerable commercial success during the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1979, Herbert met anthropologist Jim Funaro with whom he conceived the Contact Conference. In June 1981, Herbert was a guest of honour at Advention '81 in Adelaide, South Australia.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

“You will never take us away from our land, men from the stars ... and no one who has touched this, our sacred land, shall ever leave it!”

This short story appeared in the December 1952 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction.

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Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel (November 9, 1921 – May 30, 2004) was an American author. Born in Oakland, he served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his discharge, he started his career as a writer. He became one of the most prolific pulp magazine authors of the 1950s and 1960s, adopting the pseudonyms Robert Cham Gilman and A.C. Marin and writing for a variety of pulp magazines. Though writing in a variety of genres, including action thrillers, he is known for his science fiction novels and short stories.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

He told how murderers walk the earth

Beneath the curse of Cain,

With crimson clouds before their eyes

 And flames about their brain:

For blood has left upon their souls

 Its everlasting stain. — Hood

This short story appeared in the January 1929 issue of "Weird Tales".

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Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.

From the age of nine, Howard wanted to become an adventure fiction writer but did not have real success until he was 23. Thereafter Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines—mainly Weird Tales—journals, and newspapers, and he became proficient in several subgenres.

Howard was a fan of boxing, eventually taking up amateur boxing; he also spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding.

Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

It was a perfectly natural mistake for men to make...

This short story appeared in the December 1952 issue of Dynamic Science Fiction.

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Charles Dudley Dye (October 1925 - December 1960) was a US author who was active for less than half a decade. His first science fiction story, "The Last Orbit" was published in Amazing in February 1950. In 1952, he publishws his only science fiction novel, “Prisoner in the Skull”, in which ordinary Homo sapiens and a form of Superman engage in thriller-like confrontations. After publication this novel was also serialized in New Worlds from December 1954 to February 1955.

He was married briefly (1950-1953) to Katherine MacLean, who wrote “The Man Who Staked the Stars” (Planet Stories, July 1952) and "Syndrome Johnny" (Galaxy, July 1951) under his name. The latter story containing an amazingly early account of a Genetic Engineering technique (gene splicing), in which a "piggyback" virus transports genetic material (a silicon-using gene) into human cells.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

A new planet had qualified for entry into the Galactic Federation, but...

This short story vignette appeared in the February 1958 issue of Future Science Fiction.

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Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.

Asimov's most famous work is the "Foundation" series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the "Galactic Empire" series and the "Robot" series. He also wrote more than 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

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If there's a story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

A mangled corpse held them captive in that dark tunnel beneath the Earth's surface—and taught them a lesson about what freedom really means!

This short story appeared in the December 1956 issue of Infinity Science Fiction.

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Allen Kim Lang (b. 31 July 1928) is an American Science Fiction author who began publishing for Planet Stories in November 1950 and published a good number of action stories in the following decade: twenty titles are recorded, including the the comic novella "Cinderella Story" (May, 1961, "If"), and "Blind Man's Lantern" (December, 1962, "Analog").

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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

How far would you go to visit vengeance on the killer of someone you'd only just met, someone you didn't know.

This novelette appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales.

This was Howard's first published Soloman Kane story.

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Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.

From the age of nine, Howard wanted to become an adventure fiction writer but did not have real success until he was 23. Thereafter Howard's writings were published in a wide selection of magazines—mainly Weird Tales—journals, and newspapers, and he became proficient in several subgenres.

Howard was a fan of boxing, eventually taking up amateur boxing; he also spent some time in his late teens bodybuilding.

Howard remains a highly read author, with his best works still reprinted.

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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

How do you lie by telling the truth? Well, when your life, and the life of the human race is on the line, you find a way.

This short story appeared in the July 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, under the pen name of David Gordon.

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Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett (December 16, 1927 – December 31, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the Lord Darcy books set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references, particularly of detective and spy fiction; Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes.

Garrett wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including: David Gordon, John Gordon, Darrel T. Langart (an anagram of his name), Alexander Blade, Richard Greer, Ivar Jorgensen, Clyde Mitchell, Leonard G. Spencer, S. M. Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as "Randall of Hightower" (a pun on "garret.") The short novel Brain Twister, written by Garrett with author Laurence Janifer (using the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips), was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.

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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

How do you fight those who have the power to steal suns? Captain Dur Nal and his crew of the Interstellar Patrol are about to find out.

This novelette appeared in the April 1934 issue of "Weird Tales".

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Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. He is known for writing most of the Captain Future stories.

Hamilton was a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright, that included H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Through the late 1920s and early 1930s Hamilton wrote for all of the science fiction pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was popular as an author of space opera, a subgenre he created along with E. E. Smith. His story "The Island of Unreason" (Wonder Stories, May 1933) won the first Jules Verne Prize as the best science fiction story of the year (this was the first science fiction prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards).

In 1942 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics, specializing in stories for their characters Superman and Batman. He and artist Sheldon Moldoff created Batwoman in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956).

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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Royal babies were pretty important on Dynak, even if they did hatch out of eggs. So when Boccaccio di Vino mated with the Shannil, everyone held their breath. Especially di Vino. He might not have much more of it.

"The Price of Eggs", by Randall Garrett appeared in the December 1959 issue of "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories" on pages 96 to 119.

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Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett (December 16, 1927 – December 31, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for the Lord Darcy books set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references, particularly of detective and spy fiction; Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes.

Garrett wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including: David Gordon, John Gordon, Darrel T. Langart (an anagram of his name), Alexander Blade, Richard Greer, Ivar Jorgensen, Clyde Mitchell, Leonard G. Spencer, S. M. Tenneshaw, Gerald Vance. He was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as "Randall of Hightower" (a pun on "garret.") The short novel Brain Twister, written by Garrett with author Laurence Janifer (using the joint pseudonym Mark Phillips), was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960.

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If there's a particular story you'd like me to narrate, please let me know at [email protected].

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Music: "Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.