Empire - The Original Classic Edition

The famous scientific trio of Arcot, Wade and Morey, challenged by the most ruthless aliens in all the universes, blasted off on an intergalactic search for defenses against the invaders of Earth and all her allies.
World after world was visited, secret after secret unleashed, and turned to mighty weapons of intense force--and still the Thessian enemy seemed to grow in power and ferocity.
Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in the galactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earth team hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy--until it appeared that the universe itself might end in one final flare of furious torrential power....

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention....First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets....The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System....These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a classic of science-fiction which first brought the name of their author, John W. Campbell, into prominence as a master of the inventive imagination.

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition.

This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you.

Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside:

Even at such fantastic velocities as the Lexman Spacedrive allowed, it took nine years for a ship to reach even the nearest of stars, stop, and return; a distant star such as Bellatrix required a journey lasting two hundred fifteen years each way.

...Time aboard the great starships that lanced through the void was contracted;[9] the nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri and back seemed to last only six weeks to the men on the ship, thanks to the strange mathematical effects of interstellar travel at high-but not infinite-speeds.

...For transporting perishable goods-such as the dinosaur meat brought back from the colony on Alpha C IV to satisfy the heavy demand for that odd-tasting delicacy on Earth-the Valhalla used the most efficient freezing system of all: a compartment which opened out into the vacuum of space.

...In a way he was glad he had drawn the assignment he had: it was difficult, gruelingly heavy labor, carried out under nasty circumstances-it was never fun to spend any length of time doing manual labor inside a spacesuit, because the sweat-swabbers and the air-conditioners in the suit were generally always one step behind on the job-but at least the work came to a definite end.

We start with exiles from a warring Earth founding a colony on Astra a habitual planet somewhere in outer space. The exiles find scattered throughout their immediate area of settlement-abandoned cities, remnants of a prior civilization apparently destroyed in an atomic war. A deep distrust of technology and fear of weapons caused to exiles to avoid visiting the cities of Those Others as the natives are called. In addition to developing city destroying weapons Those Others bred a race of mermen - folk who can live both on land and under water. The mermen revolted against Those Others and eventually formed an alliance with the exiles. What starts out as an exploratory expedition by a pair of merman-exile youths turns into a quite entertain and exciting novel when Those Other team up with a new expedition from Earth to reclaim some of there ancient technology.

Dekker, back from space, found great physical changes in the people of Earth; changes that would have horrified him five years before. But now, he wanted to be like the rest--even if he had to lose an eye and both ears to do it.

 Brion has just won the Twenties, a global competition to test achievements in 20 categories of human activities -- but before he can enjoy his victory he's forced to leave his homeworld to help salvage Dis, the most hellish planet in the galaxy.

(linked ToC)

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition.

This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you.

Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside:

Admittedly the new phonetic orthography was more efficient than the old, if less esthetic; but since little of the earlier literature was being re-issued in modern spelling not too many books had actually been condemned as subversive-only a few works on history, politics, philosophy, and the like, together with some scientific texts restricted for security reasons; but one by one, the great old writings were sent to forgetfulness.

...Anyway, we have reason to believe in the existence of a large, well financed, well organized underground, with trained fighting men, big secret weapons dumps, and saboteurs ready for the word go-to say nothing of a restless population and any number of covert sympathizers whod follow if the initial uprising had good results.

...Conversation was, at first, somewhat restrained in Lancasters presence, and most of the humor had so little reference to things he knew that he couldnt follow it, but he became aware that they talked with more animation and intelligence than his friends on Earth.

...If you could store large amounts of electricity in an accumulator of small volume, without appreciable leakage loss, you could build generators designed to handle average rather than peak load-with resultant savings in cost; you could build electric motors, containing their own energy supply and hence portable-which meant electric automobiles and possibly aircraft; you could use inconveniently located power sources, such as remote waterfalls, or dilute sources like sunlight, to augment-maybe eventually replace-the waning reserves of fuel and fissionable minerals; you could....

Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.
- wikipedia

The star Mira was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing, brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary system. And in his astronomical searching, he found Sol.
With hundreds of ships, each larger than whole Terrestrial spaceports, and traveling faster than the speed of light, the Mirans set out to move in to Solar regions and take over.
And on Earth there was nothing which would be capable of beating off this incredible armada--until Buck Kendall stumbled upon THE ULTIMATE WEAPON.

Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.
- wikipedia