Classic Science Fiction Collections

Bram Stoker’s classic Gothic horror novel about a vampire’s search for new blood… Perhaps the most famous vampire story of all time, Dracula is an awesome tale of a thrillingly bloodthirsty vampire whose nocturnal atrocities embody the dark underside of an outwardly moralistic age. As he searches for new prey, desirous to spread the undead curse, Dracula looks toward England. There he is met with resistance from a small band of men and women, led by the intrepid Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Will the people be able to keep the fearsome Dracula from terrorizing their community? This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle delves into the question of what is best for mankind and humans as individuals. His conclusion is that happiness is the best possible human condition, though he is not referencing the emotion of happiness. Instead, Aristotle concludes that true happiness comes as a way of life in which the individual contributes to the good of his community, as well as his mind.

Imagine a future in which traditional gender roles are reversed and men have quite literally become enslaved to the capricious whims of their female masters. Irving E. Cox created a masterpiece, a futuristic story where men, and not women, are marketable products in a matriarchal, and not patriarchal, society. The role reversal as propounded in this story sounds unthinkable in our times, but it sounds plausible at some point in the distant future. This story shows how love always is a major part of life...and how it can either aid or break someone.

Originally published as part of a contest between Mary Shelley, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, Frankenstein has since captured countless imaginations. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein learns the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter, he is eager to test his theories. The bones he collects to construct his human subject become a gruesome, frightening creature, endowed with supernatural size and strength. Lonely and miserable, the created comes to hate his creator. When the monster murders Frankenstein’s brother and his bride, the doctor embarks on a heated pursuit, only to put his own life in grave danger.

A boy is murdered and made into a stew by his evil stepmother, who buries his bones beneath a juniper tree outside their house. The boy is reincarnated as a bird who flies forth from the tree and enlists the townspeople to help him exact revenge.

Five classic novelisations of exciting TV adventures set on distant planets! In The Sensorites, the First Doctor is forced into an uneasy alliance with a race of telepathic creatures from the Sense-Sphere. In Doctor Who and the Space War, the Third Doctor finds that a full-scale war between Earth and the planet Draconia seems inevitable. In Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks, the Third Doctor and Jo discover a vast army of Daleks waiting to mobilise and conquer on the planet Spiridon.

Warrior-prince Rama is about to be crowned Young King, when he hears the devastating news that his father, king of Ayodhya, has been tricked into banishing him to the forest. His devoted wife, Sita, insists on accompanying him in exile, but the evil 10-headed Lord Ravana has fallen deeply in love with the beautiful princess and steals her away. Aided by Hanuman, mighty captain of the monkeys, Rama sets out across the world to find her and destroy Ravana in a deadly battle.

"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "Aladdin", "Sinbad the Sailor": These are just some of the strange and amazing stories that clever Scheherazade tells to captivate her husband, King Shahryar…and to save her own life. Each one is more fantastic than the last, filled with demons and dervishes, caliphs and genies, men transformed into dogs and monsters with eyes that glow. Like the king, children will find themselves enchanted by every tale.

Patrick Hunt's Myths for All Time presents twelve of the most timeless Greek myths retold in an affable, succinct fashion. These twelve myths, which have survived through the millennia, are made applicable today through Hunt's emphasis on the overriding message of each story. With foundations in ancient Greek scholarship, society, and philosophy, these stories have grown and taken new forms and thus remain relevant.

Rog Phillips' Rat in the Skull and Other SF Classics is a giant helping of classic Golden Age science fiction. The main ingredient is Phillips' science fiction masterpiece Rat in the Skull (unavailable for nearly 50 years). What the magazine editors said then about this controversial Hugo nominee novelette remains true today: "Some people will be shocked by this story. Others will be deeply moved. Everyone who reads it will be talking about it. Read the first four pages: then put it down if you can."

Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era.

Politics is the second half of a single treatise by Aristotle (384 B.C.E - 322 B.C.E.), Ethics being the first. Both deal with one and the same subject: what Aristotle calls the philosophy of human affairs. He also refers to it as political science and social science. Aristotle collected and studied the constitutions of over 150 city states before writing his Politics.

The Apology of Socrates, by Plato, is the dialogue that presents the speech of legal self-defense, which Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption, in 399 BC. Specifically, The Apology of Socrates is a defense against the charges of “corrupting the youth” and “not believing in the same gods as the city, but in other gods which are novel” to Athens.

Edward Plunkett, the Baron Dunsany, was just gaining his stride as the world's first modern fantasy author, and wrote this book of tales to help show that dreams still came, dark and fantastical as they may be.

Edith Nesbit's trilogy about a group of children who encounter a sand fairy and, through his intercession, embark on a wild round of adventures has been a staple of juvenile literature since the first volume was published in 1902. The three books are Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and The Story of the Amulet (1906).

Of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, The Odyssey serves to some extent as a sequel to The Iliad. The poem describes the journey home of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. In the Greek sources, the Trojan War lasted 10 years, and Odysseus spent 10 more years on the return journey due to the hostility of Poseidon, the god of earth and sea. Odysseus' fantastical adventures include a period of captivity on Calypso’s island, a visit to the lethargic lotus eaters, an encounter with a one-eyed Cyclops, and more.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's collection of fairytales called Kinder- und Hausmärchen ( Children's and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Filled with moral lessons that are not wrapped up in the now-expected "Disney-esque" feel, these stories may shock or scare you, but they have been the inspiration for some of the most beloved modern fairytales we know and love. Sixty-two fairytales are included in this collection.

Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, which his stories set trends for that continue to this day. In this collection you’ll find sixteen stories from the first and greatest master of the fantasy genre.

The Odyssey is an epic poem, written by the ancient Greek philosopher Homer, and considered to be the second oldest piece of western literature still in existence. Scholars believe it was written at the end of the eighth century BC. Still heavily used in schools because of its unique literary makeup and historical value, the poems follow Greek hero Odysseus, as he journeys home after the 10-year long Trojan War. His journey home takes another 10 years, and Odysseus encounters many obstacles.

The Odyssey by Homer is an ancient Greek poem which tells the story of the hero Ulysses and his arduous journey home to Ithaca after the long and bloody Trojan war. After the ten-year battle and the fall of Troy, Ulysses intends to make his way back to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. The Gods are against him and he faces many obstacles in his path which delay his return for many years. With her husband gone for so long Penelope assumes that he is dead and never to return.