Synopsis
In the 26th Century, Earth is invaded by alien Others. Men are helpless to defeat the Others, but their machines can beat them.
History
First publication: Amazing Stories August 1932
Review
An early story by Campbell, but he was already a very popular author. The story is your typical way-out space opera with lots of mysterious but destructive rays and huge space fleets fighting. Campbell wrote these better than most others at this time. The characterization is non-existant, with even the humans seeing machine-like. Maybe this is what Campbell wanted since the story is set in the future and machines have become self-aware. Maybe Campbell wanted the future of man to seem more like machines? But this tends to make the writing kind of cold. The story follows a series of progressions for the machines as man dies out and they fight the Others. Ultimately this is an evolutionary fantasy, looking to the far future and following imagination into a rather surreal course. I love this type of story and I would love to call this story great, but unfortunately it just doesn’t read well. The intense imagination is there, if only Campbell would have crafted the story better. So this isn’t for everyone. You have to be a diehard classic SF fan to appreciate this. But it is an interesting look at the style of way-out gonzo technology that was the science fiction of the 1930s. -Gregory Kerkman
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Best of John W. Campbell, hardcover, Nelson Doubleday / SFBC, 1976-05-00
Amazing Stories August 1932, edited by T. O’Conor Sloane, magazine, Teck Publications, Inc., 1932-08-00
The Best of John W. Campbell, paperback, Ballantine Books, 1976-06-00
