Astounding Stories #14

When Tom Robbins discovers a revolutionary energy source and shares it with his longtime rival Henry Varga, the ruthless businessman seizes the chance to prove himself "the biggest thing in the world" by launching a rocket to the distant planet Cordova—with Robbins reluctantly aboard. As they approach this uncharted world, Tom and Varga must contend with prehistoric creatures and treacherous terrain that test not only their survival skills but the very power that brought them here.

Adam Jones, field investigator for the Institute for Psychic Research, is called to a Carstown, Pennsylvania mansion plagued by unexplained singing, mysterious lights, and the phantom of a woman—hauntings that have sent every tenant fleeing and caught the attention of a suspicious real estate agent. When Jones stakes out the house to separate fraud from genuine mystery, he uncovers a dark history buried in 1875 newspapers: the disappearance of a young bride named Alice Wells, her husband's arrest and death, and a town's lingering suspicion of foul play. Now Jones must piece together what truly happened in that house and what—or who—keeps calling from the darkness.

When a retired couple's peaceful Nevada home is disrupted by impossible phenomena—mountains that move, jungles that materialize from nowhere—they discover the source is Dr. Ikobewati, an eccentric inventor from another dimension whose "Scrambler" device is scrambling their reality. As John Delson and his wife contend with the chaos of the malfunctioning machine, they're caught between the inventor's scientific ambitions and the very real danger of being pulled into his alien world.

A seaside holiday takes an unexpected turn when a young beachgoer discovers something impossible tucked inside an ordinary shell—a discovery that a mysterious wave seems determined to keep hidden. In "Inside the Shell," the boundary between the real and the miraculous blurs in just a few breathless moments, leaving our protagonist to wonder if the sea itself guards its deepest secrets.

A time traveler from the year 4675 arrives in ancient New York for what should be a brief sightseeing tour—but when his ship departs without him, Dag Mithok finds himself stranded in the 20th century with no way home. As he navigates this strange world of primitive technology and genuine human warmth, he discovers something his future civilization lost long ago, forcing him to reconsider everything he thought he wanted. "Journey into Antiquity" explores what happens when a man from tomorrow realizes the past might offer more than nostalgia.

Professor Harvey Shane's weekend duck hunt takes an extraordinary turn when his dog retrieves not a duck, but a carrier pigeon bearing an ancient Greek message signed by a historical general—and carbon dating reveals the parchment is over 2,300 years old. As Shane investigates the impossible artifact, he's forced to confront a mystery that defies rational explanation, sparking fierce debate about whether this is an elaborate hoax or something far stranger. What really happened to that pigeon, and how did it arrive in the present day?

Two young friends, Tommie Burns and Al Foster, enjoy a carefree camping trip in the woods—their first real vacation away from home together. But when they return to civilization, soaked and unshaven from the trip, they find themselves caught in an impossible, nightmarish loop that repeats itself with terrifying precision. This haunting tale plays with fate and coincidence in ways you won't see coming, leaving you to puzzle out what's really happening long after you've finished reading.

Mr. Hobbs, a mild-mannered office worker known for spinning tall tales about his vacations, takes a wrong turn on his way to his usual quiet farm retreat—only to be struck by an invisible spacecraft from the planet Xerces, operated by a galaxy touring service that's been conducting hidden tours of Earth for two thousand years. Now marooned on an alien world and facing judgment from an extraterrestrial council, Hobbs must navigate a situation where his harmless fibbing could cost him everything, with only one sympathetic voice advocating for his survival.

In the thick of a fog-choked night, a doctor is ferried from a remote island to the mainland by a boat captain, summoned to perform urgent surgery. What begins as a routine emergency takes a strange turn when the doctor arrives at the hospital—only to realize the patient is the very man who brought him there. Joe Cardwell and George Bethel find themselves caught in a mystery where the line between healer and helped blurs beneath the mist.

Three young engineers on a uranium-hunting expedition stumble upon an oasis in the Nevada desert—and discover something far more valuable buried beneath it. But when Joe eats mysterious mushrooms that send him into vivid, prophetic hallucinations, the real danger emerges not from the wilderness, but from the greed simmering among the three lifelong friends. As Joe wrestles with visions of betrayal and a threat he can't quite remember, the weight of sudden wealth begins to poison the bonds that brought them together.

Norbert Frapp and Horace Plutt, a pair of prankster pals who love nothing more than a good practical joke, devise an elaborate hoax at Broad Beach: fake monster tracks and eerie electronic bellows designed to terrorize the sleepy seaside town. But when their scheme accidentally summons something genuinely monstrous from the ocean depths—something that responds to their artificial calls—the jokesters find themselves in a nightmare of their own making, desperately trying to convince a panicked town and an armed mob that the horror is real.

When explorer Robert Perry and his party plunge into the Amazon during a raging storm, a lightning strike that fells a tree overhead becomes their unlikely salvation from a deadly waterfall. "Good or Bad?" presents three true tales from across a century—including prospector Charlie Boone's chance encounter with a fortune-making avalanche and a country doctor swept away by tornado only to arrive at a patient's bedside in the nick of time—showing how nature's most violent forces sometimes deliver unexpected blessings.