srijeda, 28. veljače 2024.

SHAMAR'S WAR BY KRIS NEVILLE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51072/pg51072-images.html

 The year was 2346, and Earth, at the time, was a political democracy.

Spend only a measly twenty per cent of the Gross World Product on Defense, and expect to keep strong! Good God, Tom, give me a drink!" Apparently heresy had shocked him sober.

Old Tom explained, "The General is a patriot. We all respect him for it."


utorak, 27. veljače 2024.

The Last Space Ship MURRAY LEINSTER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/69916/pg69916-images.html

 "We've struck at the foundation of government," Kim said savagely. "On Alphin Three there's a pretense that all men are free, and we know it's a lie. But on the other planets they don't even pretend. On Loré Four they have a king. On Markab Two the citizens wear collars of metal—slave-collars—and members of the aristocracy have the right to murder social inferiors at pleasure. On Andrometa Nine the Disciplinary Circuit, and so the government, is in the hands of a blood-thirsty lunatic. The Circuit backs all governments alike, the supposedly free and the frankly despotic governments impartially. 


utorak, 20. veljače 2024.

FANTASTIC FABLES By AMBROSE BIERCE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/374/pg374-images.html

 An Itinerant Preacher who had wrought hard in the moral vineyard for several hours whispered to a Holy Deacon of the local church:

“Brother, these people know you, and your active support will bear fruit abundantly.  Please pass the plate for me, and you shall have one fourth.”

The Holy Deacon did so, and putting the money into his pocket waited till the congregation was dismissed and said goodnight.

“But the money, brother, the money that you collected!” said the Itinerant Preacher.

“Nothing is coming to you,” was the reply; “the Adversary has hardened their hearts, and one fourth is all they gave.”

The Huddlers By William Campbell Gault - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32904/pg32904-images.html

 In Italy, it was the kids, the beggars and procurers and thieves and even murderers who were kids. In Spain we found much of the same. In France it was all the heat and no light, charges and counter-charges, lies and counter-lies, confusion and corruption.

In Berlin, it was Russia. The cloud that darkens the world looms darkest in Berlin. The apathy that grips the world is epitomized in Berlin. A people with no sense of guilt and no reason for hope, nor stirring to the promise of a re-armed Germany. A bled and devastated people, shorn of their chief strength, their national pride.


četvrtak, 15. veljače 2024.

THE HANGING STRANGER BY PHILIP K. DICK - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/41562/pg41562-images.html

 From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.

Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn't a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.

It was a body. A human body.


utorak, 13. veljače 2024.

What Shall It Profit? BY POUL ANDERSON - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59498/pg59498-images.html

 Tomorrow I will be among the great leisure class—to hell with euphemisms—the unemployed. Nothing I can do that some goddam machine can't do quicker and better. So a benevolent state will feed me and clothe me and house me and give me a little spending money to have fun on. This is known as citizen's credit. They used to call it a dole.


petak, 2. veljače 2024.

THE EARTH QUARTER BY DAMON KNIGHT - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/58912/pg58912-images.html

 The Niori permitted refugees from Earth to

live in their cramped little ghetto conditionally:
that they do so peacefully. But there will always
be patriotic fanatics, like Harkway and Rack,
who must disturb the peace....
The Quarter: sixteen square blocks, about the size of those of an Earth city, two thousand three hundred human beings of three races, four religions, eighteen nationalities; the only remnant of the human race nearer than Capella.