Showing results by author "Murray Leinster" in All Categories

When machines can answer any question, are there some questions that shouldn't be asked? Based on a story by Murray Leinster, this episode of X Minus One originally aired on December 28, 1955.

You who have read The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, will welcome the sequel to that story. The world, in a far distant future, is peopled with huge insects and titanic fungus growths. Life has been greatly altered, and tiny Man is now in the process of becoming acclimated to the change. We again meet our hero Burl, but this time a far greater danger menaces the human race. The huge insects are still in evidence, but the terror they inspire is as nothing compared to the deadly Red Dust.

A physics professor at the American College in Istanbul, Dave Coglan, is visited by Lieutenant Ghalil of the Istanbul Police and M. Duval, a French scholar. After much deliberation, they query if, by any chance, he has been visiting the 13th Century. At first, Coglan does not take them seriously. Along with Ghalil and Duval, however, is a 700-year-old book with notations in English that includes his name and address. Further, the book has Coghlan's fingerprints and refers to an address and a reference to killing someone.

In this story humans have expanded to worlds throughout the universe. However, to be self sustaining, they reproduce the total ecology of their home world - the good, the bad and the ugly. When this system is not properly supervised, strange things happen and the hoped-for habitable world is anything but. The passengers and crew of the space yacht Nadine fear they may not survive this world where the environment has gone mad.

Calhoun was assigned the sector because the previous Med Ship inspector had dropped the ball, and the whole sector had gone to rack and ruin. When he starts his first inspection he becomes embroiled in a pandemic driven war between worlds. What can a simple Med Ship pilot in a 50 ton flitter do to bring peace and health back to two worlds on the brink?

A classic sci-fi tale by the master Murray Leinster of the last catastrophic stages of our planet and its inhabitants. The true villain of this fascinating piece is excess carbon dioxide! The results on the earth, plant life, animals and humans are vividly imagined and described: giant insects, weird fungi, poisonous air and gases, fighting and conflict amongst humanity... How, or rather, how badly will all of this end?

Big Jake Connors is taking over his town through violence, intimidation and bribery but Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald can only grind his teeth in frustration. The gangsters seem to have everything going their way until the day that a little dry cleaning establishment declines their offer of 'protection' and strange things start to happen. Murray Leinster gives us another wonderful product of 'what if' from his limitless imagination to enjoy in this gem of a story. Listen and smile.

The diminutive Kandarian Air Fleet would fight courageously until its last ship was blown into infinity. At worst, it would be completely pulverized... To our hero, the young Captain Bors, either course was unbearable. The ruthless Dictator of Mekin had already control over twenty-two planets. Now he had his eyes set on Kandar... Enjoy this thrilling tale of sci-fi by master craftsman Murray Leinster! Published in 1962.

Murray Leinster's science fiction stories typically dealt with themes of frustration with human frailty and its limitations, cynicism vs. idealistic ethics and romance. When a mysterious alien spacecraft lands in a lake in Colorado and the invaders begin using a parylyzing ray that no one can understand or stop, it takes an ingenious man like Lockley to save the girl and solve the mystery of the aliens.

"The Runaway Skyscraper" is a science fiction story about Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer who works in a midtown Manhattan office building called the Metropolitan Tower. When the sun suddenly begins moving backwards in the sky, setting rapidly in the east, he is the only one to realize what is actually happening: a flaw in the rock beneath the building has caused it to subside, but instead of moving in space, the building is falling backwards into the past.

Canna III is a water planet with a single large island. The island is bordered by a high cliff. Civilians irrigating the land has caused issues where soil and bedrock meet. The land has been turned into a saltwater swamp, turned upside down. The swamp is sliding into the ocean, taking inhabitable land with it. Compounding the problem is a fuel leak from underground tanks threatening to detonate. Two Colonial Survey troubleshooters have been called to the planet to try and rectify the situation.

Critical Difference is the story of a Colonial Survey Officer named Massey assigned to a barren, frozen planet to check and approve colony installations. He discovers that this world's temperature is gradually getting colder. Eventually, the declining temperature will make the colony uninhabitable. The colony receives a coded message that the same thing is happening to their home world. The colonists rely on Massey to find a solution.

A sci-fi novel by Murray Leinster, published in 1962. An unidentified space ship lands in a Colorado lake. The creatures subsequently begin taking human prisoners with paralyzing laser weapons. A land surveyor and a journalist are the only remaining hope for humankind now, as the army is powerless.

X Minus One premiered in April 1955 on NBC and ran until January 1958. Like its predecessor series, Dimension X, X Minus One featured stories by the greatest names in modern science fiction: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Robert Bloch, and many more.

With a shriek heard around the world, an alien spacecraft appears out of nowhere and crash lands on Antarctica. Its crew consists of just four apparent teenage humans, possessing technology unheard of on Earth. Is this the beginning of an alien invasion set to conquer Earth, or something else? One scientist and a newspaper reporter must solve the puzzle. Classic tale from sci-fi master Murray Leinster.

"Orejas de ellos" ("the things that listen") whispered the superstitious fishermen when the strange occurrences began off the Philippine coast. How else explain the sudden disappearance of a vessel beneath a mysterious curtain of foam? The writhings of thousands of maddened fish trapped in a coffin-like area of ocean? What monsters gorged at the bottom of the Luzon Deep and what were their plans? Radar expert Terry Holt and the crew of the Esperance had to devise a weapon against the horrifying creatures.

An intriguing novella by author Murray Leinster, published in 1949, about machines which have the capacity to retain emotions for the missions they accomplish, and weird signals from the future, which annihilate less advanced mechanisms! A classic piece of sci-fi pulp by the masterful Leinster.

How many dimensions are there? In The Other Now, Murray Leinster takes us to a place where more than one Now may exist. At least that is what Jimmy and Jane believe. Haynes, Jimmy's lawyer friend, believes Jimmy suffers from post-traumatic shock after a tragic auto accident. That is, before a revelation.

Murray Leinster, whose real name was William Fitzgerald Jenkins, was an award-winning American writer of Science Fiction. Among other things, he is credited with the invention of "parallel universe" stories and in 1956 he won prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Leinster wrote over 1,500 short stories in his career and two of the best, "First Contact" and "The Aliens", deal with humanities first encounter with an alien race.

"The Pirates of Ersatz" is a science fiction novel by Murray Leinster. It tells the story of Bran Hodder, a one-time engineer who sets out on a career of interstellar piracy ostensibly to further more legitimate goals. Excerpt from the book: "My grandfather," said Hoddan defiantly. "What are you going to do about it? I'm outlawed! I've defied the planetary government! I'm disreputable by descent, and worst of all I've tried to use my brains!" "Deplorable!" said the ambassador mildly. "I don't mean outlawry is deplorable, you understand, or defiance of the government, or being disreputable.