Showing results by narrator "Edward Miller" in All Categories

"The Lost Princess of Oz" begins with the disappearance of Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz and covers Dorothy and the Wizard's efforts to find her. The introduction to the book states that its inspiration was a letter a little girl had written to Baum: "I suppose if Ozma ever got hurt or losted, everybody would be sorry..." Well, everyone is indeed sorry; and doing their utmost to find Ozma... find out if they do in this ravishing piece of entertainment!

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed in 1895 in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humor.

"If you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one!And if you don't like dogs I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle, crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular brand of brain and ink can conjure up on a single keyboard!"

"The Vortex Blaster" is a collection of three science fiction short stories by author E. E. Smith, published in 1960. The stories included are "The Vortex Blaster", "Storm Cloud on Deka" und "The Vortex Blaster Makes War", and they all bear the stamp of unmistakable quality to be expected from the old sci-fi specialist Smith! The hero of the collection is Neal "Storm" Cloud, a nuclear engineer with an amazingly mathematical mind.

"A Spaceship Named McGuire" is a sci-fi short story by Randall Garrett, published in 1961. This tale is kind of a mix between detective, sci-fi and thriller; as detective Daniel Oak investigates the possibly sabotaged "brain" of a spaceship (!) amongst spaceship big shots, criminals and ladies... Fun and exciting.

"Tedric" is a sci-fi & fantasy novel by E. E. Smith, published in 1953. Tedric, our hero, is a smith (both blacksmith and whitesmith) residing in a small town near a castle in a situation approximately equivalent to England of the 1200s. He received instruction in advanced metallurgy from a time-traveler that wanted to change the situation in his own time by modifying certain events of the past. From this instruction he was able to build better suits of armor and help defeat the villains of the piece.

"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is a Sherlock Holmes story. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed this was his best Holmes story. Plot: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rise unusually early one morning to meet a young woman named Helen Stoner. Helen fears that her life is being threatened. Helen's twin sister had died almost two years earlier, shortly before she was also to be married. Helen had heard her sister's dying words, "The speckled band!" but was unable to decode their meaning.

First published in 1890, this work is a short story collection by Amy Walton. It is both touching, droll and delightful, with the bond between children and animals as a special theme between the three stories "The Kitchen Cat", "Sarah's Sunday Out" and "The Toad in the Hole". "The whole house in London was dull and gloomy, its lofty rooms and staircases were filled with a sort of misty twilight all day, and the sun very seldom looked in at its windows.

"The Call of the Wild" is a short adventure novel by Jack London published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush when strong sled dogs were in high demand.

The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively feral in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive.

"The Magic of Oz" relates the terrible attempt of the Munchkin boy Kiki Aru and former Nome King Ruggedo to conquer Oz... The terribly long, complete title of the book says it all, but not really... as always with L. Frank Baum, the magic is in the wonderful, eccentric and never-ending details!

"Raiders of the Universes" is a sci-fi novel by Donald Wandrei, published 1932 in the magazine Astounding Stories. In the 34th century, so called Raiders are wreaking havoc on entire planets around Sol; and Earth is no exception! The Raiders find out about intelligent life on Earth and "kindly" decide not to eat it up like so many others... but what in turn might be worse?

"The Judas Valley" is a co-authored sci-fi story by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett, published in magazine form in 1956. Our two heroes, Peter and Sherri, have to solve - and do it quickly! - the mystery behind the deaths of seasoned space personnel on a strangely peaceful planet; or else they are next in turn.

"Hunter Patrol" is a 1959 sci-fi story co-authored by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire. A soldier travels into the future to kill a dictator. After completing the mission and returning home to his present time, he doesn't remember what he has done. With him he has an envelope with the formula for a fizzy drink that would make him able to conquer the whole world... possibly.

"The Just So Stories" are a collection written by the world famous British author Rudyard Kipling, published in 1902. Highly fantasized origin stories, especially for differences among animals, they are among Kipling's best known works. "The Just So Stories" began as bedtime stories told to 'Effie' [Josephine, Kipling's child]; when the first three were published in a children's magazine, a year before her death, Kipling explained:... in the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep.

"No Great Magic" fits into author Fritz Leiber's dizzying view of history as a battlefield in constant change. He explores the idea in his "Change War" novel, "The Big Time", and this work is part of the action. It works by itself as the tale of poor Greta, a girl taken in "like a pet" by a company of Shakespearean actors. She lives in the dressing room of their little theater in New York's Central Park. Leiber - an actor's son - brings an insider's eye to life behind the curtain. But Greta begins to doubt the curtain is real.

"Personality Plus" is an early novel by American author Edna Ferber. Originally published in 1914, it chronicles the travels and events in the life of Emma McChesney. Ferber achieved her first successes with a series of stories centering on this character, a stylish and intelligent divorced mother who rises rapidly in business.

A 1960 sci-fi tale but also a pulp fiction and amusing fantasy story (the tale itself fluctuates between these styles) by master Murray Leinster. A gangster is controlling a town through violence and menace... until a dry cleaning establishment chips in for the good guys, resulting in very peculiar events to say the least!

"Salvage in Space" is a science fiction tale by Jack Williamson, published in 1933. An isolated and poor asteroid miner who collects bits of metallic ore in the asteroid belt on his very own planet of debris, sees and manages to capture a derelict space ship with a destructive and evil monster aboard and a beautiful dead girl(!)... exactly how will all of this unfold?

Raggedy Ann is a character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose. Johnny Gruelle received US Patent D47789 for his Raggedy Ann doll on September 7, 1915. The character was created in 1915 as a doll, and was introduced to the public in the 1918 book "Raggedy Ann Stories".

"Fables for the Frivolous" is one of the earliest works by the American parodist Guy Wetmore Carryl. These fables are adapted from Jean de la Fontaine's original writings. The Aesop-style fables are written in verse, and are light-hearted retellings of fables from two centuries before, each ending with a moral and a pun. Among the more celebrated of the fables are "The Persevering Tortoise" and the "Pretentious Hare", "The Arrogant Frog" and the "Superior Bull", and "The Sycophantic Fox" and "The Gullible Raven".