The Ironclads are 100-foot-long (30 m) machines with remote controlled guns and accommodation for 42 soldiers, including 7 officers.The story is one of those responsible for Wells' reputation as a "prophet of the future", as the eponymous machines seem to anticipate the tanks of World War I. His rather sketchy battle between countrymen and townsmen also carries echoes of the Boer War and his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, which also features a struggle between technologically uneven protagonists.***The story opens with a war correspondent and a young lieutenant surveying the calm of the battlefield and reflecting upon the war. The two opposing sides are dug into trenches, each waiting for the other to attack, and the men on the war correspondent's side are confident in their coming victory. They believe that they will win because they are all strong outdoor-types - men who know how to use a rifle and fight - while their enemies are towns people ... "a crowd of devitalized townsmen ... They're clerks, they're factory hands, they're students, they're civilized men. They can write, they can talk, they can make and do all sorts of things, but they're poor amateurs at war." The men agree that their "open air life" produces men better suited to war than their opponents' "decent civilization".In the end, however, it is shown that the "decent civilization", with its men of science and engineers, triumphs over the "better soldiers" who, instead of developing land ironclads of their own, had been practicing shooting their rifles from horseback, a tactic which became obsolete the second the land ironclads appeared on the battlefield. The story ends with the entire army captured by a dozen or so of the land ironclads, and the last scene is of the correspondent comparing his countrymen's "sturdy proportions with those of their lightly built captors", and thinking of the story he is going to write about the experience, noting both that the captured officers are thinking of ways they will defeat what they call the enemy's "ironmongery" with their already-existing weaponry, rather than developing their own land ironclads to counter the new threat, and also noting that the "half-dozen comparatively slender young men in blue pajamas who were standing about their victorious land ironclad, drinking coffee and eating biscuits, had also in their eyes and carriage something not altogether degraded below the level of a man."

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

     If you loved The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then you should get your hands on this book now! Phil is private investigator; he's got a computer and a comfy chair, and he knows how to use them. He doesn't get all sweaty chasing the bad guys; not when his fingers can do the work as he sips his coffee and looks forward to a nice cool pint. He doesn't wrestle them to the ground, with a quick quip and a steely gaze; not when he can sit in his comfy chair and dream about the girl behind the bar; the one with the breasts. Then he meets the ex-wife of a missing crime lord, and everything changes. Suddenly he's squirting to distant planets, finding dead bodies, dancing with aliens, saving a world from the clutches of the cutest of aliens and, for one brief moment, he becomes the richest man in the universe. In a tale of treachery, danger, poor customer service and bad jokes, Phil is forced to put aside his relaxed 'let someone else do the work' attitude, and take up arms against the might of an alien empire (well, it's a crow bar actually, and the alien is a little girl; a very tough little girl) and somehow find a way to save the day, and Earth's most valuable commodity, and maybe even his dignity. But where does this story really start? Of course, for Phil, it’s when he first meets the ex-wife of the missing crime lord; it’s typical of him to think it all started with him. For Ben, it would be the misplaced bullet; for Millie, it was, of course, the Joke, and for Sam; well your guess is as good as mine. In reality, it started much earlier; nine years earlier, with the robbery... A laugh a minute science fiction comedy thriller, destined to be one of the decade’s Science Fiction Bestsellers, and it’s also a unique First Contact Novel. If you like your SF books with alien worlds, strangely named AI’s, really bad jokes and a Narrative Facilitator who would really rather be doing something else, then maybe you should add this to your Science Fiction and Fantasy library of Kindle books. Revised September 2015 for greater clarity and added silliness You can find other Comedy Novels & Comedy Thrillers by searching the following categories: Science Fiction Comedy First Contact Comedy thriller Comedy Mystery Books for Kindle Science Fiction Books for Adults Science Fiction and Fantasy Series Comedy Novels

    Chapters: Harrison Bergeron, Epicac, 2br02b, Welcome to the Monkey House, Miss Temptation, Report on the Barnhouse Effect, All the King's Horses, Who Am I This Time?, Deer in the Works. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: "Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical, dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut and first published in October 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was re-published in the author's collection, Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968. In the story, social equality has been achieved by handicapping the more intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society. For example, strength is handicapped by the requirement to carry weight, beauty by the requirement to wear a mask and so on. This is due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the United States Constitution. This process is central to the society, designed so that no one will feel inferior to anyone else. Handicapping is overseen by the United States Handicapper General, Diana Moon-Glampers. Harrison Bergeron, the protagonist of the story, has exceptional intelligence, strength, and beauty, and thus has to bear enormous handicaps. These include headphones that play distracting noises, three hundred pounds of weight strapped to his body, eyeglasses designed to give him headaches, a rubber ball on his nose, black caps on his teeth, and shaven eyebrows. Despite these societal handicaps, he is able to invade a TV station, declare himself Emperor, strip himself of his handicaps, then dance with a ballerina whose handicaps he has also discarded. Both are shot dead by the brutal and relentless Handicapper General. The story is framed by an additional perspective from Bergeron's parents, who are w...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=18941

    Merchant ships operating in neutral space near the Terran Coalition and the League of Sol are disappearing without a trace. The latest report has something the others didn’t. A survivor. When news reaches the planet Lusitania during a cargo offload, Captain Henry and the Shadow Wolf’s crew are hired to extract the surviving operative before she’s silenced and the information she has is lost.But too many opposing forces are at work within the faction-torn republic – and they all want a piece of the prize.With directives from multiple government contacts, Captain Henry concedes to protect his ragtag crew. Years ago, he surrendered to dishonor and dismissal from the Coalition Defense Force in order to protect his fellow officers. This time he knows how to play the game.To save his band of brothers and sisters, Jim must walk a fine line between the operative’s survival and the threats against his crew from the League of Sol. Before the time to negotiate runs out.

    Now, a few months on, the Martian invaders are dead, slain by the earthly bacteria against which they had no defence.Then, as England begins to rebuild, terrorist outrages begin to rock society. A new adventure begins, as a daring plan is put into place to discover the source of these disruptions.

    Surmounting that peril, he faces another: Embedded in the Antarctic ice is an ancient vessel, filled with what seem to be frozen, contorted corpses. But the ship is a pirate ship, and the corpses aren't dead. When one of them revives, Rodney must fend off (and cooperate with, if he hopes to survive) one of the most bloodthirsty and black-hearted scoundrels ever to sail the seven seas!William Clark Russell was a writer of nautical novels, born in New York. He spent eight years at sea as a sailor, gaining the experience he would use in his fiction. After his years at sea, he turned to journalism, and was on the staff of New York's Daily Chronicle before he took to writing novels.

    I highly recommend it to Sci-Fi fans." - Pikasho Deka...Readers' Favorites.When NASA computer scientist Tess Carrillo watches Ryan Quinn die in a spaceship seventy million miles away, her life becomes a blurry web of misery and vodka.But when a mysterious visionary recruits her to lead a team of eccentric experts in a top-secret effort to create the mind of the first sentient artificial intelligence, her life starts to change in unfathomable ways.And now the machine is waking…But there’s a problem.It’s networking… With another dimension.As the AI evolves, dimensional lines start to blend and fray, opening a door to another world… One with him. Only in this reality, Ryan is in a rock band, and Tess is an artist, both on the cusp of fame.As Tess finds herself moving back and forth between separate realities, she starts to question if either is real. And if so…which one?The answer lies in secrets more terrifying than anything she could imagine.Equipped only with clues scattered throughout her consciousness, time, and space, she struggles to make sense of the separate realities that seem to be colliding.As the puzzle pieces fall into place, a terrible threat is revealed, and she’s forced to face a shocking truth before both worlds end.If you love face-paced page-turners with unforgettable characters and real science, Impermanent Universe will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time.Join the adventure.“Outstanding Science Fiction....one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. And I read a lot." - Amazon Reviewer"Both Impermanent Universe and The Navigator are exquisitely crafted novels that will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time. Creative beyond belief, they give one a sense of truth regarding the immortality of Being through multifaceted forever-regenerative Consciousness." - Amazon Reviewer"This book is a treasure for those who love in-depth philosophical science fiction material" - Amazon Reviewer

    But someone else also needs her help—the untamed blue-skinned alien who’s saved her twice. Rescued from vicious fight rings he’s fought in since he was a child, Vek is prone to losing control in aggressive fits of rage…and Mia discovers that she is the only who can calm himRogue: Rogue contains two action-packed novellas in the Galactic Gladiators series. In Information Rogue, arrogant information merchant Zhim doesn’t know what hits him when he collides with feisty human hacker Ryan. In Desert Rogue, prickly, independent human Neve doesn’t want or need any help…but a certain cocky desert rogue -- Corsair of the Corsair Desert Caravan -- isn’t taking no for an answer.Guardian: Former cop Dayna Caplan wakes to discover she’s host to a powerful alien symbiont, and the only man who can help her is the mysterious and dangerous casino owner, Rillian. Now that she’s no longer a captive at the desert arena of Zaabha, she desperately wants to help find the last of the other human women who were abducted by the Thraxians. But she has to deal with the intense hunger and powerful new abilities the alien living inside grants her…and the person forcing her to confront her new reality is the cool, enigmatic, and far-too-attractive Rillian.

    When all hell breaks loose, they find themselves stranded, betrayed, and fighting for their lives… and the life of the man next to them. Galactic Outlaws An adventurous tale of bots, blasters, and bounty hunters. At the edge of the galaxy, a former Victory Company operator vies with a notorious bounty hunter to track down an enigmatic killer set on galactic conquest. Kill Team The curtain is pulled back to reveal the shadowy dealings of the Legion’s Dark Ops special forces and the Republic’s Nether Ops spy agency. Ruthless players weave their way through a seedy world of terrorism, rebellion, and murder. For audiobooks, see the Galaxy’s Edge series page: audible.com/series?asin=B079YXK1GL

    EXPERIENCE ADVENTURE IN FARAWAY LANDS On worlds where humans never evolved, one organization exists for the sole purpose of exploration – the Corps of Discovery. Using technology to open gateways to parallel Earths, the Corps sends teams out to explore alternate timelines for settlement by Earth’s burgeoning population. Not everyone wants to see new worlds explored, though. The Gaia Liberation Front, a shadowy terrorist organization is bent on stopping humans from expanding into “unsullied worlds.” Bill Clark joins the Corps for adventure, independence from Earth’s ever-growing security state, and to explore new planets. He soon finds himself exploring new worlds with Meri Lewis, daughter of the Corps’ Commandant. Unaware of the GLF’s plans to shut down the gates, Bill and Meri soon learn that adventure means someone else in danger in a faraway land, and they’re definitely on an adventure.