Synopsis

From the Wonder Stories Quarterly Introduction: “IN THIS story, the joint product of two imaginative minds, we get a very unusual picture of some of the possibilities of interplanetary exploration. We know that as soon as interplanetary travel is possible, expeditions from the earth will be ranging the length and breadth of the solar system searching out the thousands of wonders that are to be discovered. It is quite possible that some of the explorers, whether through accident or desire, may colonize the other planets and develop under new and unusual conditions a new branch of the human race. It is doubtlessly true that if each of the solar planets were to be colonized, at the end of several hundred centuries there would be nine races of human beings who might differ radically from each other and in fact might not recognize each other as members of the same human stock. In this story we do not see nine races but we do see four of them and Mr. Starzl has united the four in a gripping narrative of the great spaces.”

History

First publication: Wonder Stories Quarterly Winter 1932

Written by R. F. Starzl and Everett C. Smith. Smith won fourth prize in an Interplanetary Plot writing contest for Wonder Stories Quarterly with the plot for this story.

Review

One of Starzl’s better stories, though how much was due to Everett Smith? I can’t know. The idea of the story was ordinary for the time, slaves rising against their masters. The situation was pretty imaginative and interesting. This is really a story with a great deal of potential never realized in the end. I enjoyed reading it, but can’t recommend it.