Edmond Hamilton – författare

Flung across space and time by the sorcery of super-science, John Gordon exchanges bodies with Zarth Arn, Prince of the Mid-Galactic Empire 2000 centuries in the future! Suddenly John is trust into a last-ditch battle between the democratic Empire World and the tyranny of the Black Cloud regime. Only one weapon - the terrifying Disruptor - can win the struggle for the Empire Forces. But it is so powerful that unless John uses it correctly it could destroy not only the enemy but the cosmos. Could his 20th Century mind cope with the technology of 200,000 years from now?

One moment Kenniston was strolling down the quiet street, lost in pleasant reverie. The next moment the sky split open!It split wide open, and above them was a burn and a blaze of light - so swift, so violent, that the air itself seemed to have burst into flame. Then there was silence - awful, suffocating silence. Kenniston felt the chill of premonition - a shapeless terror that grew into a thing too evil to be borne alone.

Kirk Hammond was a man alone. He had been chosen to ride in the first manned satellite to go out around the Moon and back to Earth. But when the satellite failed to orbit properly, it went on past the Moon into the vastness of outer space, and a whole world watched helplessly as he was borne toward an unthinkably lonely death. Yet destiny decreed that Kirk Hammond should suffer, not death but a pseudo-death. And he awoke from it to find that a hundred centuries had passed and that the space age which had begun in the 20th Century had now grown into a vast galactic civilization that had carried the sons of Earth to countless stars and worlds. But, unexpectedly, the conquest of space had changed Man himself, and the human race had become not one but several species. Hammond was plunged into the climactic struggle between the new races. And in his quest with a desperate band for the mysterious Star of Life that was the key to the struggle, in his relations with the strange and beautiful Thayn Marden who was not a human woman, in his odyssey through the mighty suns and earthly worlds of the galaxy, a man of the 20th Century found himself facing the dangers of the great space age which he himself helped pioneer.

"It can''t be true! It must be some kind of hoax!" These were the words that went spinning through Neil Banning''s mind when the Greenville authorities told him that the house he had grown up in, the aunt and uncle who had raised him, had never existed.So Banning found himself in jail, charged with disturbing the peace - and maybe insanity. But when a stranger from outer space came to his cell at midnight and hailed him as the Valkar of Katuun, then Banning decided that maybe the authorities were right, maybe he was crazy. Because the only alternative was to believe the impossible explanation of the Outworlder - that he really was the exiled ruler of a remote star-world, and the personality of Neil Banning was an elaborate fraud.It didn''t really matter, though, who was right. Banning was on his way to Katuun whether he liked it or not. And as Banning - or the Valkar - he would have to save that star-world from the terror of THE SUN SMASHER...or perish with the loyal subjects he might never have known!

It meant little to Robert Fairlie, a serious and dedicated young philologist, that the United States and Soviet Russia were at odds about the Moon. He had little interest in the first rocket landings or the bases that the two nations had established there. And he neither knew nor cared why the Americans would not agree to mutual inspections of these bases.Yet the Americans had reason enough: and quite unexpectedly, because of his specialised knowledge of languages, he found himself sharing the burden of an incredible secret. For what the American base had yielded was astounding evidence that space had already been conquered many centuries before by a people who had once spanned the stars. There had been machines and destructive weapons beyond the comprehension of present-day scientists which, if knowledge of them fell into the wrong hands, could plunge the world into unutterable chaos.Fairlie''s trip to the closely-guarded rocket base in New Mexico turned out to be only the first step on a fantastic journey amid the unexplored stars to the home-world of the space-conquerors of long ago.It was a journey into the appalling reality of stellar space still haunted by the past cosmic struggle whose scale in space and time dwarfed the rivalries of tiny Earth''s quarreling nations.

It was no place for man to be. Men were tissue, blood, bone, nerve. This place was not made for them. It was made for force and radiation. Go home, men.But I can''t, thought Jay Birrel. Not yet...I have to go on into this place where a human being looks as pathetic as an insect in a furnace.

In that hidden valley, land of strangely forbidding beauty, Eric Nelson, soldier of fortune, faced a battle weirder and more savage than any he had ever fought. He was hired to fight for humanity, against beings that seemed to be both more and less than human.The weapons of the enemy included centuries-old powers of magic and superstition . . . but Nelson fought grimly, even when his mind was helplessly trapped in the body of a wolf. Then came the climactic test of his allegiance, the knowledge that more than just humanity was at stake . . . and the final mind-shattering discovery of an alien secret that lay buried in the Cavern of Creation!

''Spaceships in their thousands, and they''re attacking us! They''ve come from somewhere toward our galaxy - have come out of intergalactic space itself to attack our universe!'' The Interstellar Patrol, that fabulous fleet manned by all the assorted races of our galaxy, faced its greatest struggle when that alarm came through. For this was an attack from OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE, a vast migration from another galaxy, and it had to be stopped if a thousand worlds were to survive! This terrific classic space novel on the grandest scale involves three giant galaxies in an all-out conflict.

From mighty Canopus, capital of the Federated Stars, to the outer fringes of our great galaxy, the Interstellar Patrol was on the watch. Rogue suns, marauding alien intelligences, man-made comets driven by their makers for the conquest of unsuspecting worlds, diabolical conspiracies hatched in the depths of unmapped nebulae - it was the business of the Patrol''s mighty spaceships to guard against such cosmic dangers.Crashing Suns is the epic account of this future space legion, where volunteers from a thousand worlds man the mighty starcraft of a hundred thousand years to come.

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?

The sun shone brightly on this fateful morning, bringing to its planets warmth and life-giving rays. The brightness increased sharply as the morning grew older. The glare was blinding; the radiation not life-giving, but deadly. By mid-afternoon the brilliant, intense sun shone on barren space. It had blasted each of its four planets out of existence. Someone had found a way to poison a star. And someone had to be found who could prevent the takeover - or destruction - of the entire universe. Who? Johnny Kettrick, as improbable a hero there never was. Johnny Kettrick who was banned from the Cluster World for his not-too-honest dealings was sent back there with his three equally unholy partners to search out the Doomstar...to find the Doomstar before it burned out another world.

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 close...

President Carthew was in his office when the monster appeared - a giant, hunched creature, bizarrely hideous...The President gaped as a guard appeared in the doorway and pointed his weapon at the fanged being."Don''t shoot!" Carthew cried, but too late. The beast lay dead on the floor.Carthew sighed deeply as he confirmed his fears. The corpse on the floor was Sperling, his best secret agent, transformed into this hairy brute by the dread peril that threatened to destroy them all.Only one man left alive might be able to ward of off total doom. The President flashed an emergency call for Captain Future...

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, men 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.

DREAD PERIL FROM BEYOND DEEP SPACEWhere are they from and what is their ultimate evil purpose?A band of dread invaders, led by a ruthless genius, is overcoming the system, sapping it of radium - its most vital element - killing all who stand in the way. Captain Future must find their base - their Outlaw World - and crush their deadly plot. He is the last hope in a crumbling solar system.

They were the first arrivals from the other side of the cosmos.With the help of the Martian scientist Thrin, they had crossed the whirling black abyss of the fourth dimension - a dimension that had never been reached before!Now a man with skin of pure marble-white and a woman of unearthly beauty stood before the disbelieving eyes of Captain Future and the Futuremen. The strange couple stared back in awe and amazement - particularly at Captain Future."Here is the one," the man said finally in his alien tongue. "He is the only one who can save us!"

Mercury is slowly dying. Each year its air grows thinner. Each month thousands of broken Mercurians are ordered to leave their planet. They have only one hope. Captain Future, the Solar System''s most daring agent, has promised to restore their world - a next to impossible task.The solution lies beyond the stars...at the very core of the universe where no man has ventured before. There, in the shadow of doom, Captain Future meets the mightiest of all evil beings - creatures he may not live to describe...

One by one the Solar System''s ships were disappearing in mid-space - as if a mighty colossus had grabbed them up and swallowed them whole.Top agents Joan Randall and Ezra Gurney were sent to investigate. Like the others, somewhere beyond Jupiter, they disappeared. Captain Future heard the news with shocked horror. Whatever the danger, he had to stop this menacing evil force. Whatever the risk, he had to find the lovely Joan Randall - the woman he loved...

His real name is Ul Quorn, but he is known throughout the Solar System as the Magician of Mars. With sheer scientific mastery and cunning he once terrorised the entire population of all nine planets - until Captain Future put an end to his evil deeds.Now Ul Quorn has broken loose from the escape-proof Interplanetary Prison - a feat that was believed impossible. His plan to obtain wealth and power is more ingenious than ever before and more deadly to the System.Soon he will be master of the Universe. But first he must settle a score with Captain Future...

CAPTAIN FUTURE FACES FIERY SOLAR DEATHIt was ten o''clock, solar time, when disaster struck. At exactly the same moment, gravium mines on Mercury, Mars and Saturn were totally destroyed by an unidentified army. Without gravium - the life-blood of interplanetary civilization - the system would perish.Meanwhile, Captain Future struggled on the floor of a moving space craft, his arms and legs bound by steel ropes. He did not know why he''d been captured - only that the system was in grave danger - that he was needed...As Captain Future was plunged through space, towards a deadly orb of flaming gases - the raging inferno of the sun - he planned his daring escape. It was to be the most dangerous gamble of his life.

The sorrowful cry spread throughout the Solar System. Captain Future and his Futuremen had been missed for months. There was little hope that they''d ever be seen again...A scheming scientist headed for the moon. Now was his chance to find the Futuremen''s hideaway and steal their highly guarded secrets, secrets that could control the Universe. No one could stop him - not even the sinister lunar creatures - now that Captain Future was dead!

Captain Future meets Captain Future...The two men stood facing each other.One man was tall and impressive. His red hair, his self-assured manner, the global ring he wore on his finger, left no question in the minds of viewers that he was the man he said he was - the man known the Solar System over as Captain Future.The other man was tall too, but fierce looking, with a wild black beard and a scarred face. They called him Blackbeard and believed he was a space pirate, although the main claimed he didn''t remember who he was. Not even he suspected that he might be the real Captain Future...