Books in Folio Science Fiction series

"At last only the dead tips of the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of some acid upon my fingers. I was almost invisible..." In this horrific tale of man's toying with science and nature, an obscure scientist invents a formula that renders his flesh invisible. Now he can go anywhere, and do anything-except that can no longer render himself visible again-and he has gone murderously insane. When he enters the village pub on a wintery day, wrapped from head to foot, the invisible man at first presents a comic image. But as the villagers discover the truth, they turn on him in horror, as his malice and invisibilty prove a lethal combination. Only in death can he become visible-and harmless-once again. First published by in 1897, H. G. Wells's imaginative insights into human psychology enabled him to evoke in this novel perhaps the ultimate alienation that can befall a human being.

Little Fuzzy By H. Beam Piper Little Fuzzy is the name of a 1962 science fiction novel by H. Beam Piper. It was nominated for the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The story revolves around determining whether a small furry species discovered on the planet Zarathustra is sapient, and features a mild libertarianism that emphasizes sincerity and honesty. During a book signing at Strand Book Store, Piper alleged that the Little Fuzzy series was inspired by an acquaintance named Kevin "Fuzzy" Sheffield, whom Piper first met in a literary club in central Oregon. When asked about Sheffield, Piper described him as "a bizarre character, capable of writing little more than a couple of vaguely-legible remarks in each letter. While I'm sure he's full of insight and great ideas, it seems impossible to effectively communicate with him on a conventional human level...terribly nice fellow however." The book was followed by a sequel, Fuzzy Sapiens (original title The Other Human Race) published in 1964, the same year that Piper committed suicide in November. In the wake of Piper's suicide, rumor spread of a lost "second sequel"; at the behest of Ace Books William Tuning produced the critically acclaimed Fuzzy Bones. Later, Piper's lost manuscript was discovered, and published as Fuzzies and Other People. Ace also hired Ardath Mayhar to write Golden Dreams: A Fuzzy Odyssey, which tells the events of Little Fuzzy from the viewpoint of the Fuzzies (or Gashta, as they call themselves). A new volume in the series, Fuzzy Ergo Sum by Wolfgang Diehr, was published by Pequod Press and made available on Amazon.com in April 2011. A second book, Caveat Fuzzy was released in August 2012. In 2011, John Scalzi published Fuzzy Nation, which he described as a "reboot" of Piper's original.

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne Classic Science Fiction From the Earth to the Moon (French: De la terre a la lune) is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil War society of weapons aficionados, and their attempts to build an enormous sky-facing Columbiad space gun and launch three people — the Gun Club's president, his Philadelphian armor-making rival, and a French poet — in a projectile with the goal of a moon landing. The story is also notable in that Verne attempted to do some rough calculations as to the requirements for the cannon and, considering the comparative lack of any data on the subject at the time, some of his figures are surprisingly close to reality. However, his scenario turned out to be impractical for safe manned space travel since a much longer muzzle would have been required to reach escape velocity while limiting acceleration to survivable limits for the passengers. The character of Michel Ardan, the French poet in the novel, was inspired by the real-life photographer Félix Nadar. It has been some time since the end of the American Civil War. The Gun Club, a society based in Baltimore and dedicated to the design of weapons of all kinds (especially cannons), meets when Impey Barbicane, its president, calls them to support his idea: according to his calculations, a cannon can shoot a projectile so that it reaches the moon. After receiving the whole support of his companions, a few of them meet to decide the place from where the projectile will be shot, the dimensions and makings of both the cannon and the projectile, and which kind of powder are they to use. An old enemy of Barbicane, a Captain Nicholl of Philadelphia, designer of plate armor, declares that the enterprise is absurd and makes a series of bets with Barbicane, each of them of increasing amount over the impossibility of such feat.

Two geologists investigated the chances of eruption of Cumbre Vieja, a volcano, on La Palma Island, at the western end of the Spanish island chain at the turn of the century. They discovered a crack in the volcano. What the scientists' research revealed was an unimaginable event in the foreseeable future. They could only explain that it could happen at any time.The crack proved that it was moving towards the Atlantic Ocean. As the event has slowly shown itself over the years revealed that a pressure caused by rising magma heating water that was trapped within the island's structure.The scientists developed a hypothesis that the western flank of the Cumbre Viej may slide into the ocean during a future volcanic eruption.They reported that a mega wave could generate a rapidly moving mass that is approximately 1.5x1015 kilogram. They estimated that the wave could reach heights of 650 m (2,133 ft)-900 m (2,953 ft) in the area of the islands and beyond.They postulated that the tidal waves would radiate outward across the Atlantic Ocean. The wave would do that with overwhelming power clear to the eastern coast of North America in an estimated 7 hours. That process would occur at many of the islands in the Caribbean and northern coasts of South America in six to eight hours.They suspected that the mega waves well beyond the eruption region would be smaller possibly 50 m (164 ft) or higher. Their power would still cause massive devastation all along those coastlines and could move 25 km (16 mi) inland. Such mega waves would move faster than a jet aircraft and could devastate the eastern part of America and much of southern Britain from the effects of a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands.They reported that a massive slab of rock of such a great volume as a volcano would break away from the island of La Palma. The mass would smash into the Atlantic Ocean causing a huge tidal wave. Such a wave could be larger than any wave on record.Holmes’ phone rang, and the ringing woke him up screaming. He had been asleep shacking in his desk chair when it happened. More and more horror flashed in front of him in his nightmare. He jumped and yelled to no one. “The mega waves are hitting! The huge volume of water moved in a deluge in all radial directions from its origin. The horror of a mega waves is blasting through the northeast Atlantic!”“Buster, what is it?” Sara yelled as she entered the home through the front door.“The mega waves are hitting!” He sat down, shaking his head some more. Britain's long history has been completely wiped away as if it never existed. Western Europe has many people suffering from various degrees of radiation poisoning from the fallout of the destroyed nuclear power plants.“People with the radiation poisoning will die from it in a matter of days, weeks or years. These walking dead people have short remaining life spans depending on the amount of airborne gamma rays that they inhaled or ingested. If a human ingested gamma rays the life span could be only hours.”“Buster, it’s another bloody nightmare you’re having over all those tests you ran. The nightmares are bloody recurring ones and none of it happened. You should talk to the doctor about them.”He sat down, shaking his head in his hands, and realized that no such eruption happened at all. It was a part his series of delirious nightmares because no one believed him. It was about his fear that his research findings would occur. He thought that they did not believe him because there was so little that anyone could do about it. He was someone that predicted that such a world disaster could clearly be on the way. Once again, it happened only in his dreams.He shook his head in disbelief as he realized that he dreamed about what he warned the British government. He thought about it another moment. ‘Another nightmare over this, and now they are bloody recurring ones.’

Solar sails use the suns energy to fly spacecraft, or flight by light. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. In fact, it is, first being mentioned in Jules Vernes From Earth to the Moon in 1865. It's been used as a way for characters to travel through space in many other books and movies, including Tron in 1985. Today, solar sails are a reality, and readers learn how their technology works as well as how successful trials with solar sail apparatuses have been. Could light energy be the best way to move through space in the future? Readers find out for themselves.