Showing results by narrator "John W. Michaels" in All Categories

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic short story of a man born in his 70s who ages backward as those around him age in the normal direction. Both humorous and heartbreaking at times, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was the basis for the David Fincher movie of the same name, though the movie differs in several key ways from Fitzgerald's original story.

In struggles for supremacy, from a spat in the kitchen to the war of the worlds, the woman is never unarmed.

The excitement, if you know what I mean, had gone from Alice Darnell's 20-year marriage, and she thought she had found the solution when she paid a Hindu fakir to teach her the secret to the Indian rope trick.

The Ghost Patrol portrays the dilemma men face when they are put out to pasture. Don Dorgan was such a man. He was a cop, and he loved his beat. When he returns to his old beat, he becomes the Ghost Patrol.

One of H. P. Lovecraft’s earliest works, published in 1917, as we get a picture of his later science fiction. Dagon the fish God inspires the creature that drives the protagonist to madness.

"His eyes followed her around the room." We know what is meant by that statement - or do we? Imagine the eyes literally following her around the room like a puppy. Our protagonist believes he has found an alien species that has invaded Earth. A rather humorous short story by Philip K. Dick.

Was it a brave new world, or was it the long way home for these men?

He sought the answer to a witch's curse among the very fiends of Hell! First, a dancing girl tried to stab him. Then, a snake sprang at him out of thin air. Finally, a phantom woman appeared in the darkness of his sleeping chamber - wicked, lustful, and seeking his death! It was then that Pyrrhas, the barbarian, knew that a curse was on him - a curse made with a witch-queen that could not be broken until he had followed her to the very nethermost pits of the hell that had spawned her.

Do vampires visit the dentist? Fangs, after all, are one of the vampire's tools of the trade. "Hello Doc. Got a little job for you." So fascinated was Dr. King at the fangs protruding from the horrible mouth, that he failed to hear the stranger's words.

The influence of the First World War was strong on H. P. Lovecraft, for in his youth he was an ardent Anglophile and remained almost fanatically so long after the end of that conflict. Thus the portrayal of the "Prussian beast" created by propagandists was accepted by him at face value and utilized in this story of a U-boat that ran afoul of an unearthly foe.

H. P. Lovecraft's tale of horror first appeared in Fantasy magazine in 1935. Alien beings invade the minds of the inhabitants of a planet, ours in this case, exchanging bodies. Imagine falling asleep in your room in your own body, and awakening on a strange planet in the body of a gray worm.

The possibility that robots, in common with certain humanoids, might in time share certain emotions with their creators, has been frequently considered.

From Boston to Liverpool in a little over four hours? Jules Verne tells us how it might be done.

This tale by Alfred Bester has a strong thread of plausibility running through it. Just enough conviction, if in fact, to wake up in the middle of the night with a feeling that someone stole the blankets.

Robert Graves' account of a man affected with an unfortunate capacity for thoughtless kleptomania, and with another minor fault which led to a somewhat unusual sort of punishment.

Travelers from another solar system are drawn to a planet because of a nuclear blast on the planet. The only survivor of the blast appears to be an intelligent gun protecting a treasure. Philip K. Dick leaves us asking the question could this planet be ours?

Imagine if you will, Hitler or a person as evil as Hitler, who instead of crawling into his bunker and dying, goes into his bunker and into suspended animation to return thousands of years later, to meet an exiled human. The being is from a society that is so far advanced, it has done away with war and evil. Imagine also that this other exile can enter the minds of others and is appalled at what he finds in this evil creature. So appalled in fact that he must perform an act totally unknown in the peaceful society he came from.

A 1950s supercomputer’s purpose is to help fight battles, but what happens when the pompous general in charge of the project chooses to berate the rather meek and mild "Nerd" Dr. Milquetoast, whose job it is to program the massive machine, is a classic case of getting even.

What happens when a swindler meets a science fiction fan? If you are not a science fiction enthusiast yourself you may take for granted that what appeared to happen to George Mercer would be the answer, but is that so certain? Fritz Lieber, very much a part of the history of science fiction, and fantasy raises an interesting possibility in this story of a science fiction con man.

A Hitch in Space. Hitch as in hitch hike by Fritz Leiber or hitch as in hiccough - neither is advisable in space.