It's seldom that the fate of a shipful of men literally hangs by a thread--but it's also seldom that a device, every part of which has been thoroughly tested, won't work....
There are lots of things that are considered perfectly acceptable. provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows they really don't, which is why they're acceptable....
Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space. or miraculously create a flourishing paradise-colony?
A story in the Damsels In Distress Universe
A new Hero is recruited to work on Chaos, and is taken as a Hero Companion on an orientation visit. Al, being the person he is, can't help but look to change how things are done, and change them for the better. Plenty of action, and no sex. The first of many stories about this Hero.
A story in the Gabatrix Series (TheUniverseofCMed) Universe
Set in 2349. Gabatrix: The First Peace continues one month after Gabatrix: Minerva. Humanity is losing a war with the Itreans but one of the clans reaches out in a desire for peace. An old UHN warship is prepped for the meeting and an ambassador must be prepared for whatever is out there. The story contains Swearing, Love, Sex, Male Human/Female Alien, War, Intercourse, Space, Science Fiction, Future, Sci-Fi, Anthro Scalie/Reptilian, Violence, M/F
Astro has managed to talk Tom and Roger into coming to Venus for summer vacation. He's got perfect summer work for the three of them: he's got a little business hunting down tyrannosauri and selling the carcasses to restaurants. But stranger stuff than dinos is on the horizon: before they even leave the station for Venus, they're caught in a bombing, and it'll lead them into the thick of the Venetian resistance... !
Alan Green was not exactly a hero. In fact he liked peace just as well as the next man. Not that he was really afraid of that crazy, hot-blooded hound-dog Alzo, or even of the hound's gorgeous owner, the Duchess Zuni--who was also hot-blooded (to say nothing of the Duke). After all, these things were understood on this backward, violent planet, and a man could manage, provided he was alert twenty-four hours a day.
Not long after the colonists landed on the uninhabited planet, every human-made artifact -- ship, communicators, tools -- disappeared! Even their clothes!
On the day that the theft of the solar system's light begins, Burl Denning is with an archaeological expedition in the Andes. Within hours the U.S. Air Force has ordered the expedition to investigate the strange phenomenon that is causing a dimness and a drop in temperature throughout the world. This is the start of a fantastic adventure that takes Burl on the first circumnavigation of the solar system on the Magellan. Each planet-fall brings unexpected hazards, as the ship draws closer.
When a super-robot discovers how to build his own superbombs, it becomes obvious that Earth is by no means the safest place for him to be. Dr. Fitzhugh, his designer, and Leda Crannon, a child psychologist acting as Snookums' nursemaid, agree to set up Operation Brainchild, a plan to transport the robot to a far distant planet. Mike the Angel Gabriel, Power Design has devised the power plant that is to propel the space ship Branchell to its secret destination, complete with its unusual cargo.