Hey, Steve . . .
What about the classics, like E. R. Burroughs, H. G. Wells and J. Verne? You could even dig a few thousand years deeper and hit them with mythology, in the heroic tale of Homer's "Historia Argonauticus" with Iason's quest, or perhaps "Iliad" and "Odyssey," "The 12 Labors of Herakles," stories of King Perseus, the first king of Mycenæ, even Egypt's last pharaoh, Kleopatra, and Rome's first emperor, Julius Cæsar.
All a bit of a think-tank, sure, and "Historia Argonauticus," "Odyssey," "Iliad" and "Kleopatra & Cæsar" are admittedly sorta long stories, but the others are grouped as short stories, all great for bedtime and evoking heroic dreams.