Mike C

When Mark Twain was growing up, all he wanted to be was a steamboat man. And so Twain ran away in pursuit of his dream. Life on the mighty river for Twain consisted of paddleboats and history, poker games and gamblers, larger-than-life characters and outlandish festivals like Mardi Gras. Twain recorded it all with his keen eye for detail and biting wit.

It doesn't seem likely for twins to have the same middle name. Even so, it's clear that Castor and Pollux Stone both have "Trouble" written in that spot on their birth certificates. Of course, anyone who's met their grandmother Hazel would know that they came by it honestly.

For teenager Bill Lerner, who lives with his widower father in the City of Southern California, overpopulation has so constricted the food supplies that they must follow a strict caloric ration, and the crowded and starving civilization has become embattled. Sound familiar? Bill's solution is to emigrate to the colony Ganymede, on Jupiter's third moon. There, a motley crew of pioneers tries, with varying success, to forge a life-sustaining environment.

In The Menace from Earth, Robert A. Heinlein, a master of science fiction, presents startling stories of time and space. On the day past tomorrow, time has ended and man has begun his endless journey out into the universe. For those on the Pluto colony, Earth Satellite Base holds the only possible reprieve from a terrifying death sentence. Meanwhile on Earth, alien intelligence prowls the skies, kidnapping people for its own inhuman amusement.

A journey of 167,000 lights years begins with...a bar of soap? Fasten your zero gravity restraints for Robert Heinlein's novel of intergalactic adventure, a story that carries teenager Clifford "Kip" Russell from his job as soda jerk to space-suit winner to alien abductee! Along the way Kip is joined by a pint-sized genius named Peewee and an empathetic alien creature known as "the Mother Thing."

Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping. Larry Niven's novel, Ringworld, is the winner of the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.

A comet speeds toward earth, a deadly, glowing orb that soon fills the sky and promises doom. But mankind is too consumed with greed and violence to care. The Earth slips past the comet by the narrowest of margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail. When mankind wakes up, everyone is completely and profoundly different.