SPOZZ Books
916 books
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On the dying world of Ghakk, Malan and Vanna are hunted as monsters. Joined by Rhee, a fugitive who can change shape, they cross a hostile landscape in search of safety. Their journey brings them closer to the wreck of an ancient starship and raises questions about the origins of the people who reject them.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Set in the fashionable winter city of Floralia, the novel opens on a place of former grandeur now altered by wealth, idleness, and modern “improvements.” Lady Hilda Vorarlberg, a beautiful, fastidious aristocrat, has come there only recently and already dislikes its society and appearance, while the narrative also notes her marriage at sixteen and her ties to the impoverished but distinguished Clairvaux family.
E-Book · Free to read · English
A father and his seventeen-year-old daughter travel quietly up the Hudson by steamer toward a river town in autumn. The girl, who has lived away from America, questions why they have returned and recalls fragments of an early childhood home, including a stone house, orchard, and a woman who looked much like herself. Her memories prompt her father into anxious, guarded answers, suggesting a hidden family history tied to her past.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Anthropologist Sam Sarno and his pregnant wife Sally spend six months on Altair 3 studying its inhabitants. The aliens paint elaborate pictures but seem to ignore every human attempt at contact. As supplies become a problem and frustration grows, Sam must reconsider what he understands about their behavior.
E-Book · Free to read · English
A fisherman tests his homemade fish-spotting device on the Rogue River and hooks a steelhead that speaks through his earphones. The catch argues with him, criticizes his technique and proposes a bargain. What began as an ordinary fishing trip becomes a contest of persuasion between a stubborn angler and his equally stubborn prey.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Tom Jones, a newly graduated Harvard engineer, is resting on his yacht in Canadian waters with a small crew when another vessel bumps the Miami and armed men seize the boat. The leader, Scarface, reveals that the hijackers are gun-runners bound for Costa Rica, and Tom is left captive with his crew while the intruders take control of the yacht. The presence of Captain Ferreira’s disguised teenage daughter and the gang’s radio equipment also shape the situation aboard the captured ship.
E-Book · Free to read · English
On a passenger liner bound for a Mars scientific meeting, the wealthy businessman Ezra Markham insists on special treatment, commandeers a suite, and quickly clashes with the ship’s crew over smoking and other rules. The story is set against a wider mystery involving strange disappearances, kidnappings, and a colony of experimenters on an inhabited asteroid.
E-Book · Free to read · English
James Huneker brings together essays on music, painting and literature, discussing figures including Chopin, Wagner, Flaubert and Cézanne. His portraits and criticism move between individual works and arguments about artistic tradition, new movements and public taste. The collection also considers the relationship between art and social ideas.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Summer camp follows Peggy Matthews, an eighteen-year-old counselor at a girls’ camp, as she meets Lilian Parker and the husky, athletic Karen Michaels, called Mike. The book frames Peggy’s summer as one marked by emotional instability and growing same-sex desire, set against the camp’s busy waterfront and the presence of counselors, a nurse, directors, and young campers. The tone of the opening passages also suggests mounting unease at the camp, where tensions among the adults and concern for the children begin to surface.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Communications specialist Roy Auckland joins an expedition studying the Vaec on Carolus. Their advanced abilities and playful customs are difficult for the human visitors to understand. Suspicions of poisoning and a death among the expedition turn the visit into an investigation involving the crew and the planet’s past.
E-Book · Free to read · English
This short story follows three American adventurers serving with General Juan Banzilla’s rebel army in a Central American civil war. As the rebels near victory, a Federal airplane appears and threatens to upset their advantage, forcing Ace Faulkner and his companions to consider how to counter the new danger. The story centers on the rebels’ camp, their rough camaraderie, and the practical problem of protecting their cause and pay.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Karl Detzer’s novel follows Paddy Maguire, a Chicago firefighter shaped by memories of the Great Fire of 1871 and a long career in the department. As horse-drawn apparatus gives way to steam, gasoline, and then motor pumps, Paddy resists the changing machinery and clings to horses as the heart of firehouse life. By 1920, he is ordered to prepare for a new thousand-gallon motor pumper, threatening the world he has served for decades.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Gloria Gordon is on the eve of marriage and is looking over the wedding dress that belonged to her mother and grandmother. She contrasts the hard domestic lives of the older women with her own determination to avoid housework, children, and dependence on a husband. Expecting Dick Gregory to provide comfort and ease, she imagines marriage as a life of leisure and admiration rather than sacrifice. The opening also shows the bride and groom exchanging words late at night on the wedding day.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Jimmie Grant of the Secret Service and Arizona Ranger Jimmie Earpe join forces against dope smugglers and Chinese tong men. The story opens on the Arizona border, where a fast car, gunfire, and a desert pursuit lead to a scene of dead Chinese and white men. The pursuers turn out to be Arizona Rangers, and the men in the car are arrested after being caught armed on the trail.
E-Book · Free to read · English
Sylvia Townsend Warner’s novel follows Reverend Timothy Fortune, a humble Anglican missionary who has spent years on the Pacific island of Fanua with only one convert. After earlier clerical work and a practical life in a bank, he feels called to leave St. Fabien and settle on Fanua, despite warnings that the island will offer little success. The opening traces his character, his literal faith, and the preparations he makes for an isolated new mission.
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