This is one of Harry Harrison's marvelous early stories that were published in Galaxy Magazine. The Repairman (1958) is well written and a fun SF story of a man getting a job done when the situation seems stacked against him. As his boss tells him when he tries to wriggle out of working on this latest assignment “According to this document, you can’t quit. Ever. Therefore I have a little job I know you’ll enjoy. Repair job. The Centauri beacon has shut down. It’s a Mark III beacon.…”

The Apology is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he defended himself in 399 BC against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel" . "Apology" here has its earlier meaning of speaking in defense of a cause or of one's beliefs or actions. The general term apology, in context to literature, defends a world from attack (opposite of satire-which attacks the world).the text is w...

The women of Athens are sick of the Peloponnesian war that has dragged on for year after year after year, causing great hardship to everyone. They decide to deny the men sex until they agree to make peace, using the one thing that perhaps men enjoy more than killing each other. Does it work? Listen and find out. This comedy by Aristophanes was first performed in 411 BC

This is a recording of a booklet given to new naturalized American citizens, it contains an explanation of fundamental documents, symbols and anthems of the United States. "Today you are a citizen of the United States of America— becoming “a peer of kings” as President Calvin Coolidge once said. This occasion is a defining moment that should not soon be forgotten, for it marks the beginning of a new era in your lifetime as a U.S. citizen. Naturalized citizens are an important p...

Remember the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper? the Fox and the Sour Grapes? The Boy who Cried Wolf? These wonderful tales and hundreds more have been passed down to us over the centuries. The man credited with writing them, Aesop, was an Ancient Greek slave born about 620 B.C. Aesop is known as a fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables shining glaringly true light on our human foibles now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although no writings by him survive, numer...

The Polity of the Lacedaemonians talks about the laws and institutions created by Lycurgus, which train and develop Spartan citizens from birth to old age. It only because of Xenophon that we have most of our knowledge about the Spartans. Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens which may explain why he is so negative and sarcastic when describing the Athenian democracy. Sparta gave him land and property in...

Poul Anderson delves into the realm of human potential in this exciting story and asks some penetrating questions for us to think about. What if psychology finally enabled people to even partially control all those automatic reactions of our minds and bodies? What if we were not slaves to anger, fear, emotions, hormones, blood pressure and the thousand other things that our bodies 'take care of' from instant to instant? What if those things could be brought under the control even partially...

This is the story that inspired and kicked off the Stainless Steel Rat series of stories and novels by Harry Harrison. A slippery con man and thief, frustrating every police force on every planet for years, he finally meets a worthy adversary in the Special Corps. Slippery Jim deGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat himself, goes on to have many adventures but this is the first...and the last in a way. After this, his cunning and crooked mind is put to the bigger task of saving the universe from i...

hey were a traveling group of Shakespearean players; perfectly harmless, right? wrong. For one thing, why did they have spacemen costumes in their wardrobes, right next to caveman ones? Why was the girl in charge of backstage suffering from amnesia and agoraphobia? No Great Magic is needed to perform the plays they put on, but sometimes great science. No matter where, or when.

As I write this, I have before me on my desk, propped up against the telephone, an old rag doll. Dear old Raggedy Ann! The same Raggedy Ann with which my mother played when a child. There she sits, a trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes reflect the electric light. Evidently Raggedy has been to a "tea party" today, for her face is covered with chocolate. She smiles happily and continuously. ...

The irrepressible Science Fiction author Randall Garrett wrote a wide array of short stories for the SF magazines of his day poking fun at many of the then current cherished beliefs, but he had a habit of writing under many different names. These three stories were all published in the 1960's and no matter what the by-line may look like, be assured they were all written by him in his quirky, imaginative and very entertaining style. The three here for your enjoyment are: With No Strings Att...

A tiny spore that looked like nothing more than a speck of rock dust drifted through space for untold thousands of millennia and by chance passed close enough to earth to be caught in it's gravitation field and gently pulled down to land somewhere in New York State, USA. When discovered, people called it the Leech because it fed on radiation, soil, rocks, and anything that came into contact with it's grey surface. It fed and it grew. And grew. Every attempt to blow it up or burn it away si...