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First published more than 100 years ago, Hard Tack and Coffee is John Billings' absorbing account of the everyday life of a US Army soldier during the Civil War. It is written by a person who would know the material best, a genuine Civil War soldier.

In Planet of the Damned, Brion Brandd, the winner of "The Twenties", a kind of planet-wide Olympics of both mind and body, barely has time to savor his victory when he is called away by a previous winner to help save Dis, a planet that seems intent on its own destruction and the destruction of it's neighbor.

The 5th volume of Great Sci-Fi Stories includes stories by Lester Del Ray, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, and others.

More thrilling stories from this popular series. Titles include: "The Last Days of Earth" by George C. Wallace, "Contamination Crew" by Alan E. Nourse, "The Memory of Mars" by Raymond F. Jones, "A Traveler in Time" by August Derleth, "The Colonists" by Raymond F. Jones, "Doubletake" by Richard Wilson, "Stamped Caution" by Raymond Z. Gallon, "Success Story" by Robert Turner and "Disqualified" by Charles L. Fauntenay.

Philip K. Dick was an award-winning giant of American science fiction, right up there with Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. He became the first science fiction writer ever to be included in The Library of America series. Although he died fairly young at 53, he created many incredible sci-fi stories - 44 published novels and over 120 short stories! These 14 selections represent some of his most imaginative work. Included in this collection are: "Adjustment Team", "The Golden Man", "A World of Talent", "The Last of the Masters", "The Crystal Crypt", and more.

Acclaimed author JG Farrell came to fame with his Empire Trilogy, exploring the collapse of British colonialism and its repercussions in three different countries. The first book in the series, Troubles, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Lost Man Booker Prize, while the second, The Siege of Krishnapur, was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction. Included here are three BBC Radio adaptations of the trilogy, plus an edition of Witness History exploring Farrell's tragic accidental death.

At this stage in Conan's career, he is king of Aquilonia, having overthrown and killed the previous king. Although the previous ruler was not well loved in his lifetime, and at first the people welcomed Conan, now many of them resent Conan, and there is a plot to assassinate him. A strange dream awakens him, and he finds that his life is in danger. He meets the assassins well armed but alone. The troops who were supposed to protect him have been led away as part of the plot.

Zane Grey is considered the first and best author of "Western" novels. In this book, Lin Sloan's obsession with capturing a wild stallion he called "Wildfire" almost costs him his life. Bostil is a man who loves fast horses and is used to getting what he wants. Throw in a beautiful girl just coming into womanhood, a crazed young man with a grudge against her, a treacherous act, horse thieves and a yearly big race and you have all the elements Zane Gray so ably weaves into a fascinating story packed with action and adventure.

Ambitious young Essie Litsky defies a rigid upbringing by immigrant Russian Jewish parents to achieve wealth and success. But her children tear Essie and her husband Jack Auerbach's family apart in fights over their fortune, and Essie finds that money will not mend broken lives.

This story branches off into two tracks. The first begins thousands of years ago, when an alien ship from a doomed world, seeking a planet to colonize, crashes on earth. There is only one survivor, and it becomes his mission to find an intelligence on Earth - or in Earth's future - equal to his own. To do this, he puts himself into a suspended animation and makes jumps forward in history, at each stop looking for the most intelligent human of that time.

A science-fiction editor by the name of Keith Winton is eagerly awaiting viewing the first rocket landing on the moon. Something goes terribly wrong and there is an explosion. Winton is catapulted into another universe. Suddenly, he finds himself in a world of space-ships and interplanetary wars. A violent hurtling world he was never meant to see - and one he longed to escape.

Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author who wrote many classic short stories and several novels during the "Golden Age" of science fiction in the USA. In this story, a soldier of the future, wounded badly in battle during World War III, loses consciousness. When he opens his eyes again he findsthat he is back in his boyhood past but with all the memories of his adult life intact!

In this story, an alien race known as the "Throgs" attacks a Terran survey camp without warning. "Eye-searing lances of energy lashed back and forth across the base with methodical accuracy, and a single cowering witness, flattened on a ledge in the heights above, knew that when the last of those yellow-red bolts fell, nothing human would be left alive down there."

One day Arthur Friedland piles his three sons into the car and drives them to see the Great Lindemann, Master of Hypnosis. Protesting that he doesn't believe in magic even as he is led onto the stage, Arthur nevertheless experiences something. Later that night, while his family sleeps, he takes his passport, empties all the money from his bank account, and vanishes. In time, still absent from his family, he begins to publish novels and becomes an internationally renowned author.

W. H. Hudson was born in 1841 in Buenos Aires and seems to have been a sort of permanently displaced person. He moved to London in 1869 and wrote a series of remarkable books, most with a wilderness setting. In 1904, when he was 63, he focused on an Indian legend for Green Mansions, a memorable romance of the jungle for which he is now chiefly remembered. His epitaph reads, "He Loved Birds and Green Places and the Wind on the Heath, and Saw Brightness of the Skirts of God."

Robert E. Howard, best known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, also wrote stories in a diverse range of genres. He was particularly masterful with horror stories. This 1938 spell-binding story is one of his best. In 1983, Stephen King, wrote that he considered Pigeons from Hell to be "one of the finest horror stories of our century".

A fascinating account by an eyewitness of the formation and heroic deeds of the first black regiment in the civil war.

Years before J.J. Abrams' new Science Fiction TV series Revolution, or Newt Gingrich's prediction of a doomsday power outage, Raymond Jones wrote a spell-binding sci-fi novel with a similar theme. The world suddenly finds that, due to an unknown cause, all machines have stopped working. That means no electricity, no cars, no computers, none of the things the modern world has come to rely on. The story follows the population of a small college town as events unfold. Will scientists, using only primitive equipment be able to find the cause...and a solution? Will people band together and find a way to survive or will chaos ensue?

This ninth volume of Favorite Science Fiction Stories is a little unusual, in that it includes a few stories that are not really that short, bordering on novellas. Titles include: "The Concrete Mixer" by Ray Bradbury, "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, "Bedside Manner" by William Morrison, "The Inferiors" by Mari Wolf, "The Aggravation of Elmer" by Robert Arthur, "Conquest over Time" by Michael Shara, "The Virgin of Valkarion" by Poul Anderson, "No Charge for Alterations" by H. L. Gold.

Eight of Shakespeare's most celebrated plays have been specifically adapted to introduce young listeners to his works. Based on the work of E. Nesbit, these classic retellings capture the drama and flavor of each original play, while simplifying plot and detail.