Zeckler was a con-man, a human con-man. But he had no idea what he was up against when he decided to try to outwit the Altairians, an alien race that believes telling the truth is a weakness. Really he never had a chance.
On the Earth of the future, cities are overcrowded and the elite have nothing to do but buy fame from people who really do the work. A faster than light drive is invented and Jed Cochrane, a television producer, seizes the chance to change the course of history and free the people who are willing to work for themselves and not be faceless proles.
Having been fired out of the giant Columbiad space gun, the Baltimore Gun Club's bullet-shaped projectile, along with its three passengers, Barbicane, Nicholl and Michael Ardan, begins the five-day trip to the moon. A few minutes into the journey, a small, bright asteroid passes within a few hundred yards of them, but does not collide with the projectile. The asteroid had been captured by the Earth's gravity and had become a second moon.
In the title tale, narrator James 14 returns home with Mama to 1898 village when his father Les, time-traveller Ambassador to aliens, vanishes from 1975 jet-pack city. When the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world, those left behind are angry. "0wnz0red" asks - what happens when hackers hack the human body?
Tom's extraordinary machine glowed--and the years were banished from Old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime.
A great civilization's fate lay in Dick Barrow's hands as he led his courageous fellow engineers into a strange and unknown land. None of them knew what lay ahead--what dangers awaited them--or what rewards. But they did not hesitate because the first question asked them had been: "Are you a brave man?"
Snow in summer is of course impossible. Any weather expert will tell you so. Weather Bureau Chief Botts was certain no such absurdity could occur. And he would have been right except for one thing. It snowed that summer.