Search Worlds Without End

An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events.

This novelette first appeared in the August, 1936 Issue of Astounding Stories magazine, the story is available free from Project Gutenberg.

It meant little to young Robert Fairlie, a serious and dedicated philologist, that in this year 1966 the United States and Soviet Russia were contentious about the Moon. He had little interest in the first two rocket landings on the moon, and the bases that the two nations had built there. He knew nothing at all of the shattering discovery that the Americans had made there.

For what had been found was of such explosive potentialities that it had to be kept top-secret--the discovery that space had already been conquered long ago by races who had once spanned the stars. So that men who had expected to spend decades in reaching the nearest planet, found suddenly in their hands the way to the wider universe.

Fairlie, drawn unexpectedly because of his special knowledge into this greatest of secrets, finds that a guarded New Mexico rocket-base is only the first step of the way. That way leads out amid the unexplored stars to the lost heartworld of those space-conquerors of long ago. And it leads Fairlie and others into the appalling reality of stellar space still haunted by the past cosmic struggle whose scale in space and time dwarfs the rivalries of tiny Earth's quarreling nations.

WHEN we stop to think of it, it is not so very surprising that people of even a few centuries back should have looked askance upon prophecies and even have burned the "prophet" at the stake as witch or sorcerer. We cannot conceive of anything beyond the experiences of generations preceding and including our own. Since the experiences of past generations were vastly limited in com parison to those of our present decades, it is perfectly natural that those things which were hazily foretold (and which have since been realized) should have been looked on in former days as supernatural and as visions conjured up by the devil.

Today, when we see so many machines which former ages would have looked on as impossible, we still look somewhat. contemptuously at anyone who dares intimate the possibility of something that is outside our immediate knowledge. There is nothing impossible in Hamilton's story, which, we might add, is of exceeding scientific interest, to say nothing of its value as entertainment.

This story first appeared October 1930 edition of Amazing Stories, it is available free from Project Gutenberg.

This short story is included in the collections:

Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The Wonder Years 1926-1935 (1987), edited by Martin H. Greenberg

The Collected Edmond Hamilton: Volume Three: The Universe Wreckers, Haffner Prress(2011) by Edmond Hamilton.

Helpless, doomed, into the graveyard of space floats the wrecked freighter Pallas.

This short story first appeared in the September, 1931 Issue of Astounding Stories magazine, it is available free from Project Gutenberg.

Earth-men war on frog-vampires for the emancipation of the human cows of Earth's second satellite.

It first appeared in the August 1930 edition of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, available free from Project Gutenberg.

It is also contained in the collection The Collected Edmond Hamilton: Volume Three: The Universe Wreckers, Haffner Press(2011) by Edmond Hamilton.

There was terrible danger among the moons circling this world, but even greater menace on its surface.

This novel first appeared in the December, 1942 Issue of Amazing Stories magazine.

A free copy of The World with a Thousand Moons is available from The Project Gutenberg.

A Yank at Valhalla

Only a mortal could escape the Twilight of the Gods!

The Sun Destroyers

Collection containing:

• Into the Darkness (1940)
• Daughter of Darkness (1941)
• Abyss of Darkness (1942)
• Rebel of the Darkness (1951)

Fugitive of the Stars

Doom cruise of the starship Vega Queen.

Wanted: One outlawed space pilot!
Horne, the spaceship's pilot , had been warned."Don't forget the meteor swarm." And Horne's directional calculations for the Vega Queen's course took that advice into account; the spaceship would go fifteen thousand miles out of its way to avoid those deadly celestial rocks

But when Horne went off duty, he felt himself numbed by a curious druglike leadenness. And the next thing he knew, he was in a lifeboat, speeding away from the floating wreckage of the Vega Queen.

Eighteen survivors out of one hundred and fifty-three passengers. And each one in the tiny space shell believed Horne responsible... deliberate negligence, calculated destruction...

Someone had drugged Horne, he knew; someone had tampered with the ship to alter its course. But who? And for what cosmic purpose?

Land Beyond the Map

Take this route to... Oblivion.

Expressway to an uncharted sphere.
"They're about!" the woman whispered, and Crane abruptly saw a strange light shining through the heavy black curtains that shrouded the house. He crossed to the window and before anyone could stop him he drew the curtain back.

At first he did not understand what he saw: a round gleaming, color-running orb stared unwinkingly back into his face. It was... an eye. An immense sad eye staring at him through the chink of the curtains, an eye surrounded by a living whorl of flame that he had last seen engulfing poor Barney in the parking lot.

At least three others had disappeared into the strange world from which those aliens had come, and a girl had been driven insane by them. And before Crane's quest to unravel the secret of the Map Country was complete, the fate of two worlds would hang in the balance.

Starhaven

Johnny Mantell, beachcomber and broke bum, is blamed for the accidental death of a tourist. Seeing no better alternative, he steals a Star Patrol ship and flies to Starhaven, an artificial planet made to protect pirates, murderers, and villains of all kinds: an anarchic planet free of social mores and constraints.

The Sun Smasher

"It can't be true! It must be some kind of hoax!"

These are the words that go spinning through Neil Banning's mind when the Greenville authorities tell him that the house he had grown up in, the aunt and uncle who had raised him, never existed. Soon Banning finds himself in jail, charged with disturbing the peace, and maybe insanity. But when a stranger from outer space visits his cell at midnight and hails him as the Valkar of Katuun. Banning decides that maybe the authorities are right and he is crazy. Because his only alternative is to believe the impossible: that he really is the Valkar of Katuun, exiled emperor of a star empire, and the personality of Neil Banning nothing more than an elaborate fraud.

It doesn't really matter, though, who is right. For Banning finds himself starnapped, on his way to Katuun, whether he likes it or not. And as Banning, or the Valkar, he has to save that star-world from the terror of the Sun Smasher or perish with the loyal subjects he might never even have known!

Here is a collection of some of the finest short fiction penned by one of "fathers" of modern science fiction. *** These stories were selected (and edited) by his wife Leigh Brackett, an author and a screenwriter. Her screen-writing credits include works on such films as The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, The Long Goodbye and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I*** This collection spans nearly half a century of Edmond Hamilton's work and was selected from a repository of hundreds of stories that he had written over that period.

Table of Contents:

• Fifty Years of Wonder - (1977) - essay by Leigh Brackett
• The Monster-God of Mamurth - (1926) - shortstory
• The Man Who Evolved - (1931) - shortstory
• A Conquest of Two Worlds - (1932) - novelette
• The Island of Unreason - (1933) - shortstory
• Thundering Worlds - (1934) - novelette
• The Man Who Returned - (1934) - shortstory
• The Accursed Galaxy - (1935) - shortstory
• In the World's Dusk - (1936) - shortstory
• Child of the Winds - (1936) - shortstory
• The Seeds from Outside - (1937) - shortstory
• Fessenden's Worlds - (1937) - shortstory
• Easy Money - (1938) - shortstory
• He That Hath Wings - (1938) - novelette
• Exile - (1943) - shortstory
• Day of Judgment - (1946) - shortstory
• Alien Earth - (1949) - novelette
• What's It Like Out There? - (1952) - novelette
• Requiem - (1962) - shortstory
• After a Judgement Day - (1963) - shortstory
• The Pro - (1964) - shortstory
• Castaway - (1969) - shortstory
• Afterword - (1977) - essay by Edmond Hamilton

When genius scientist Roger Newton, his wife Elaine, and his fellow scientist Simon Wright leave planet Earth to do research in an isolated laboratory on the moon, and to escape the predations of Victor Corvo (originally: Victor Kaslan), a criminal politician who wished to use Newton's inventions for his own gain. Simon's body is old and diseased and Roger enables him to continue doing research by transplanting his healthy brain into an artificial case (originally immobile--carried around by Grag--later equipped with lifter units). Working together, the two scientists create an intelligent robot called Grag, and an android with shape-shifting abilities called Otho. One day, Corvo arrives on the moon and murders the Newtons; but before he can reap the fruits of his atrocity, Corvo and his killers are in turn slain by Grag and Otho.

The deaths of the Newtons leave their son, Curtis, to be raised by the unlikely trio of Otho, Grag, and Simon Wright. Under their tutelage, Curtis grows up to be a brilliant scientist and as strong and fast as any champion athlete. He also grows up with a strong sense of responsibility and hopes to use his scientific skills to help people. With that goal in his mind, he calls himself Captain Future; Simon, Otho and Grag are referred to as the Futuremen in subsequent stories. Other recurring characters in the series are the old space marshal Ezra Gurney, the beautiful Planet Patrol agent Joan Randall (who provides a love interest for Curtis), and James Carthew, President of the Solar System whose office is in New York City and who calls upon Future in extreme need.

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

Curtis Newton, the Wizard of Science, and His Trio of Futuremen Blaze a Trail Across the Stars to Forestall the Coup of Dr. Zarro-Leader of a Legion of Peril!

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

Striking terror on four worlds, a mysterious raider throttles interplanetary commerce--and Earth summons Curtis Newton, the Wizard of Science, and his trio of Futuremen to combat this sinister menace....

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

In the fantastic city of eternal youth, captain future is trapped by the master of evil.

ELIXIR OF EVIL

They Called him the Life-Lord and the deadly milk-white elixir that his syndicate pushed was called Lifewater.

As promised, Lifewater brought youth to the old. Women who were losing their once cherished beauty, en who were losing their strength gave their life's savings for a vial of the magic substance. What they did not know was that the powerful brew could cause sudden and violent death.

As the fatal youth epidemic spreads throughout the Solar System, Captain Future battles with time and danger to save his fellow beings from doom - only to find himself trapped in a master fiend's plot to conquer the solar system.

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume One".

Curt Newton, Spacefarer, and the Futuremen Take Off on the Most Thrilling Treasure-Hunt of All Time in Quest of the Solar System's Greatest Prize!

This short story is included in the collection, The Collected Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Volume Two (2010), Edmond Hamilton

It first appeared in the Winter, 1941 issue of Captain Future magazine, available free on Internet Archives.

Follow Curt Newton and the Futuremen Along a Multi Million Miles of Stellar Speedway as They Streak Around the System in Their Greatest Race for Justice!

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume Two".

This novel was originally published in Spring 1941 edition of Captain Future Magazine.

Renegades of Nine Worlds Crush Out from Inter planetary Prison in a Weird Quest for Phantom Treasure! Follow the Futuremen as the Greatest Feud of All Time Catapults Them into the Fifth Dimension,

This short story is included in the collection, The Collected Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Volume Two (2010), Edmond Hamilton

It first appeared in the summer, 1941 Issue of Captain Future magazine, available free on Internet Archives.

The Futuremen Race into the Past to Answer a Cry for Help that Has Traveled Across a Hundred Mil lion Years! Follow Captain Future as the Greatest Enigma of All Time Transports Him into the Forgotten Ages...

This novel was originally published in Fall 1941 editionCaptain Future Magazine.

It is also contained in the collection The Collected Captain Future: Volume Two.

Ride with Curt Newton, The World's Greatest Space Farer, and the Futuremen as They Leave the Known Star Trails to Penetrate the Source of Cosmic Rays, the Very Core of the Universe!...

This novel was originally published in Fall 1941 edition of Captain Future Magazine.

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume Three"

Curt Newton Leads the Valiant Futuremen in the Thrilling Fight to Preserve a Priceless Lunar Heritage! Follow the World's Greatest Space-Farer, Captain Future, as He Embarks on the Most Perilous Exploits of His Career....

This novel is included in the collection, The Collected Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Volume Three (2010).

It first appeared in the spring, 1942 Issue of Captain Future magazine.

Trapped in the Depths of Halley's Comet, the Futuremen Battle Fourth-Dimensional Monsters in a Titanic Struggle to Save the System's Solar Energy!....

This novel is included in the collection, The Collected Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Volume Three (2010).

It first appeared in the summer, 1942 Issue of Captain Future magazine.

Through an Unguessable Abyss Fraught with Peril, Curt Newton and the Futuremen Set Out to Save the Remnants of a Great Civilization from Destruction!

This novel is included in the collection, The Collected Captain Future: Man of Tomorrow, Volume Three (2010).

It first appeared in the fall, 1942 Issue of Captain Future magazine.

Carried Far Outside the Solar System, and Wrecked on a Volcanic Planetoid in Company with a Shipload of Condemned Criminals, Captain Future Faces the Supreme Test of His Courage!....

It first appeared in the winter, 1943 Issue of Captain Future magazine.

To download a free copy of this magazine;

• Go to Luminist Perodical Archives
• Scroll down to or search for Captain Future
• Click on the blue highlight of the above issue, and you follow the intructions for downloading a PDF copy.

One million years back in the swirling, shrouded past, evil ultra-beings ruled the Planet Roo. Suddenly, unbelievably, they are alive again, threatening the universe with total destruction. Only one man dares challenge the Evil Ones. He is Captain Future, inter-galactic agent of justice, whose identity is top secret, whose strength is ultimate. He sets out alone to stop the deathless menace creeping ever closer...

On the trail of malevolent space pirates, Curt Newton and the Futuremen combat the evil machinations of the Uranian Ru Ghur, who plans the total destruction of the Universe!...

It first appeared in the Winter, 1945/46 Issue of Starting Stories magazine.

Curtis Newton, the Man of Tomorrow, and his inseparable comrades clash in fierce combat against Mankind's deadliest enemy-the Linid!

This novel first appeared in the January, 1950 Issue of Startling Stories magazine.

To download a free copy of this magazine;

• Go to Luminist Perodical Archives and scroll down or search for the Startling Stories title and click on it.
• Scroll down to or search for for the above issue.
• Click on the blue highlight of the above issue, and you follow the intructions for downloading a PDF copy.

Here is a letter, attributed to Standard Magazines editor Leo Margulies, sent to science fiction fanzine editors in 1939. This text is from Bob Tucker's classic fanzine Le Zombie (vol. 2, No. 4, Oct 28, 1939)

"Dear Mr. Tucker,

Can there be anything new in scientifiction? We say yes -- and offer CAPTAIN FUTURE. Fellows, CAPTAIN FUTURE is tops in scientifantasy! A brand new book-length magazine novel devoted exclusively to a star-studded quartet of the most glamorous characters in the Universe. And the most colorful planeteer in the Solar System to lead them -- CAPTAIN FUTURE. You'll find Captain Future the man of Tomorrow! His adventures will appear in each & every issue of the magazine that bears his name.

He ought to be good. We spent months planning the character, breathing the fire of life into him. For we feel that the man who controls the destinies of nine planets has to be good. But don't take our word for it -- get your first copy of CAPTAIN FUTURE the day it hits the newstands and marvel at the wizard of science as he does his stuff on every thrilling page.

You'll find Captain Future the most dynamic space-farer the cosmos has ever seen. A super-man who uses the forces of super-science so that you will believe in them. You'll see Captain Future's space craft, the Comet spurting thru the ether with such hurricane fury you'll think Edmond Hamilton, the author, has hurled you on a comet's tail.

And you'll agree that Captain Future's inhuman cavalcade -- the Futuremen -- supplement the world's seven wonders. There's Grag, the metal robot; Otho, the synthetic android; and Simon Wright, the living brain. A galaxy of the ultimate immortal forces!

So come on....give the most scintillating magazine ever to appear on the scientifiction horizon the once over. You'll be telling us, as we tell you now, that CAPTAIN FUTURE represents fantasy at it's unbeatable best.

CAPTAIN FUTURE will appear at all newsstands in a few weeks. Price, 15 cents. First issue features Edmond Hamilton's novel, CAPTAIN FUTURE AND THE SPACE EMPEROR. Cover by Rozen. Illustrations by Wesso. Short stories by Eric Frank Russell and O. Sarri. Brand new departments -- THE WORLDS OF TOMORROW, THE FUTUREMEN, UNDER OBSERVATION, and THE MARCH OF SCIENCE.

That's all.

--Leo Margulies"

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff
• Original Magazine Editorial
• "Captain Future and the Space Emperor" (Captain Future, Winter 1940) - novel
• "Calling Captain Future" (Captain Future, Spring 1940) - novel
• "Captain Future's Challenge" (Captain Future, Summer 1940) - novel
• "The Triumph of Captain Future" (Captain Future, Fall 1940) - novel
• The Future of Captain Future (Captain Future, Fall 1942) essay by Oscar J. Friend
• Artwork Gallery

Table of Contets:

• Introduction by Bertil Falk
• "Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones" (Captain Future, Winter 1941) - novel
• "Star Trail to Glory" (Captain Future, Spring 1941) - novel
• "Magician of Mars" (Captain Future, Summer 1941) - novel
• "The Lost World of Time" (Captain Future, Fall 1941) - novel
• The Future of Captain Future (Captain Future, Fall 1942) essay by Oscar J. Friend
• Artwork Gallery

This is a mega-collection of four complete novels of the Man of Tomorrow, the Wizard of Science, the protector of the Solar System, and a menace to evil-doers throughout the universe: CAPTAIN FUTURE!

Contents:

• Long Live Captain Future - essay by Chuck Juzek
• The Quest Beyond the Stars (1969) - novel
• Outlaws of the Moon (1969) - novel
• The Comet Kings (1969) - novel
• Planets in Peril (1969) - novel
• The Future of Captain Future (Captain Future, Fall 1942) essay by Oscar J. Friend

Also includes many letters, essays and illustrations.

The Metal Giants and Others launches in style the multi-volume program to collect all the prose work of a neglected, but fondly remembered master, Edmond Hamilton.

Culled from the highly collectible (and highly priced!) early issues of pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly, these tales seethe and foam with the vigor of unrestrained imagination. Hamilton had yet to earn his (sometimes undeserved) reputation as "World Wrecker" or "World Saver" when these stories were published, but as these tales show -- he was well on his way. In this volume, the Earth is threatened countless times, but one lone hero (usually a genius-scientist) stands between triumph or total annihilation. The influence of A. Merritt and M.P. Shiel is felt in several tales of lost, exotic lands, and Hamilton himself begins to exert his own small influence on the genre with several stories of temporal dislocation and cosmic menace.

Author, editor, bookdealer, art collector (and co-owner of Weird Tales, Ltd.) Robert Weinberg delivers an introduction with details on the history of early American science fiction, the context of these stories in relation to their contemporaries, and his own personal memories of knowing -- and publishing -- Edmond Hamilton.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Weinberg
• "The Monster-God of Mamurth" (Weird Tales, Aug '26)
• "Across Space" (Weird Tales, Sep, Oct, Nov '26)
• "The Metal Giants" (Weird Tales, Dec '26)
• "The Atomic Conquerors" (Weird Tales, Feb '27)
• "Evolution Island" (Weird Tales, Mar '27)
• "The Moon Menace" (Weird Tales, Sep '27)
• "The Time-Raider" (Weird Tales, Oct, Nov, Dec '27, Jan '28)
• "The Comet Doom" (Amazing Stories, Jan '28)
• "The Dimension Terror" (Weird Tales, Jun '28)
• "The Polar Doom" (Weird Tales, Nov '28)
• "The Sea Horror" (Weird Tales, Mar '29)
• "Locked Worlds" (Amazing Stories Quarterly Spr '29)
• "The Abysmal Invaders" (Weird Tales, Jun '29)

Nearly a century before the racks of mass-market books were flooded with media tie-ins for franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. (and ten years before E.E. "Doc" Smith created the Lensmen), Edmond Hamilton pioneered and popularized the concept of a galactic peacekeeping force.

Hamilton's first crack at the concept in "Crashing Suns" has his band of heroes confined to the solar system as the "Interplanetary Patrol." With "The Star Stealers," Hamilton takes his notion of a stellar police force to the distant cosmic shores as the "Interstellar Patrol."

Many of these stories were reprinted in the 1960s from Ace Books as two beautiful paperbacks: Crashing Suns and Outside the Universe. This volume collects ALL of the stories of the Patrol... plus continues the program to collect all the prose work of Edmond Hamilton with two unreprinted novels, "The Other Side of the Moon" and "Cities in the Air."

The American master of modern Space Opera, Walter Jon Williams (author of Implied Spaces, and the three volume saga, Dread Empire's Fall) provides the introduction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Walter Jon Williams
• "Crashing Suns" (Weird Tales, Aug, Sep '28)
• "The Star-Stealers" (Weird Tales, Feb '29)
• "Within the Nebula" (Weird Tales, May '29)
• "Outside the Universe" (Weird Tales, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct '29)
• "The Comet-Drivers" (Weird Tales, Feb '30)
• "The Sun People" (Weird Tales. May '30)
• "The Cosmic Cloud" (Weird Tales, Nov '30)
• "Corsairs of the Cosmos" (Weird Tales, Apr '34)
• "The Hidden World" (Science Wonder Quarterly, Fll '29)
• "The Other Side of the Moon" (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fll '29)

Less than a year after the release of first two volumes of THE COLLECTED EDMOND HAMILTON (Vol. One: The Metal Giants and Others and Vol. Two: The Star Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Patrol) Haffner Press lets no grass grow under our feet as we announce the next volume of collected stories from one of the godfathers of Space Opera.

This volume sees Hamilton established not only as a regular contributor to Weird Tales, but also to Amazing Stories, Hugo Gernback's new magazine Air Wonder Stories, and the young upstart publication, Astounding Stories. Eight of these stories are reprinted for the first time, including two novels: "Cities in the Air" and "The Universe Wreckers."

Hamilton's as-yet-unrecognized talent for the short horror story gets a work-out with "The Plant Revol," "Pigmy Island," and "The Life-Masters."

As with previous volumes in this series, an appendix showcasing the original pulp magazine illustrations also bulks large with obscura including reader's letters from the vintage magazines commenting on these stories, along with editorial correspondence between Hamilton and his editors.

University of Pittsburgh professor Dr. Eric Leif Davin (and author of Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction and Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965) provides a lengthy introduction placing these Hamilton stories in historical context and shares a wealth of information on the editorial policies of the commissioning editors. His website is: http://ericleifdavin.vpweb.com/

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Eric Leif Davin
• "Cities in the Air" (Air Wonder Stories Nov, Dec '29)
• "The Life-Masters" (Weird Tales, Jan '30)
• "The Space Visitors" (Air Wonder Stories, Mar '30)
• "Evans of the Earth Guard" (Air Wonder Stories, Apr '30)
• "The Plant Revolt" (Weird Tales, Apr '30)
• "The Universe Wreckers" (Amazing Stories May, Jun, Jul '30)
• "The Death Lord" (Weird Tales, Jul '30)
• "Pigmy Island" (Weird Tales, Aug '30)
• "Second Satellite" (Astounding Stories, Aug '30)
• "World Atavism" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)
• "The Man Who Saw the Future" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)

Appendix

• Original Pulp Illustrations
• Readers' Letters from Original Magazines
• Correspondence between Hamilton and the SF Luminaries of the Day

In one split second they were hurled across time into a world one million years away. A surprise nuclear war may cause the End of the World, but not the way anyone could have imagined. A classic science fiction tale originally published in Galaxy Magazine. The pleasant little American city of Middletown is the first target in an atomic war - but instead of blowing Middletown to smithereens, the super-hydrogen bomb blows it right off the map - to somewhere else! First there is the new thin coldness of the air, the blazing corona and dullness of the sun, the visibility of the stars in high daylight. Then comes the inhabitant's terrifying discovery that Middletown is a twentieth-century oasis of paved streets and houses in a desolate brown world without trees, without water, apparently without life, in the unimaginably far-distant future.

(Amazon.com)

Contents:

• The Accursed Galaxy - (1935) - shortstory
• The Earth-Brain - (1932) - novelette
• The Horror on the Asteroid - (1933) - shortstory
• The Man Who Evolved - (1931) - shortstory
• The Man Who Saw Everything - (1933) - shortstory
• The Monster-God of Mamurth - (1926) - shortstory
• Introduction (The Horror on the Asteroid) - (1975) - essay by Gerry de la Ree

It's certainly glamorous to be called a "king of the stars," but when you get right down to it, it's the hardest title to maintain in the universe!

This novel first appeared in the September, 1947 Issue of Amazing Stories magazine.

Morgan Chane was a Starwolf - a member of the most infamous band of interstellar pirates in the galaxy. He had flown with the raiding packs, rockets screaming, to plunder the rich and slaughter the helpless.

But Morgan Chane was also a Terran, adopted as a child into the Starwolf clan. And when a quarrel erupted, Chane discovered that the Starwolves weighed his alien birth more heavily than all the years of comradeship. Now he is cast out of the clan, and running for his life.

But where, in all the galaxy, can a Starwolf expect to find refuge?

Contents:

• The Weapon from Beyond [Starwolf # 1] (1967) - novel
• The Closed Worlds [Starwolf # 2] (1968) - novel
• World of the Starwolves [Starwolf # 3] (1968) - novel

The stars whispered: Die, Starwolf! Die!

Morgan Chane was an Earthman by parentage, but he had been born on the pirate-world Varna, whose heavy gravity had developed strength and incredibly quick reflexes in him. When he was old enough, he joined the raider-ships that looted the starworlds, and fought side by side with the dreaded Starwolves of Varna.

But then there was a fight among them. Chane killed their leader, and the other Starwolves turned on him. He barely got away alive – wounded near death, his Starwolf pursuers following him across the galaxy.

And there was nowhere he could seek refuge, for no world lift a hand to save one of the hated Starwolves.

This novel is contained in the Omnibus Starwolf

When Morgan Chane and his comrades of John Dilullo's interstellar mercenaries invaded the Close World of Arkuu in search of a lost Terran expedition, they found a planet of strange menace. Incredibly powerful monsters prowled though Arkuu's dense jungles, and the ghosts of the planet's past haunted its ancient deserted cities. The Arkuuns themselves fought grimly to drive the Terrans away. But at last Chane discovered the Free-Faring, the terrible alien secret of Arkuu... and suddenly he knew why no Terran had ever left the Closed Worlds alive.

This novel is contained in the Omnibus Starwolf

Morgan Chane was an Earthman by parentage, but he had been born on the pirate-world Varna, whose heavy gravity had developed strength and incredibly quick reflexes in him. When he was old enough, he joined the raider-ships that looted the starworlds, and fought side by side with the dreaded Starwolves of Varna.

But then there was a fight among them. Chane killed their leader, and the other Starwolves turned on him. He barely got away alive - wounded near death, his Starwolf pursuers following him across the galaxy.

And there was nowhere he could seek refuge, for no world lift a hand to save one of the hated Starwolves.

This novel is contained in the Omnibus Starwolf

The Nemesis From Terra:

Rick Urquahrt was going to conquer the turmoil-ridden planet of Mars. He was penniless and unknown, but there could be no doubt that he would rule the Red Planet - the ancient Martian mystic had made the prophecy, there was no way fate could cheat him of his prize.

But there were powerful interests on both Earth and Mars who didn't believe in prophecies - and they were going to undo Rick's future before it had a chance to begin.

Battle for the Stars:

A husband and wife find themselves at odds with each other when they become the center of a whirlpool of galactic intrigue.