Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having the
giant spaceship _Planetara_ stop off at the moon to pick up
Grantline's special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal--invaluable
in keeping Earth's technology running--was the target of many greedy
eyes.
But nevertheless he hadn't figured on the special twist the clever
Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself
suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which
he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret--that would be by
turning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON back
in their own interplanetary coin.
* * * * *
Here is a science-fiction classic, as exciting and ingenious as only a
master of super-science could write.
* * * * *
When RAY CUMMINGS took leave of this planet early in 1957, the world
of modern science-fiction lost one of its genuine founding fathers.
For the imagination of this talented writer supplied a great many of
the most basic themes upon which the present superstructure of
science-fiction is based. Following the lead of Jules Verne and H. G.
Wells, Cummings successfully bridged the gap between the early dawning
of science-fiction in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century and
the full flowering of the field in these middle decades of the
Twentieth.
Born in 1887, Cummings acquired insight into the vast possibilities of
future science by a personal association with Thomas Alva Edison.
During the 1920's and 1930's, he thrilled millions of readers with his
vivid tales of space and time. The infinite and the infinitesimal were
all parts of his canvas, and past, present, and future, the
interplanetary and the extra-dimensional, all made their initial
impact on the reading public through his many stories and novels.
* * * * *
Previously published in an ACE edition is his novel,
_The Man Who Mastered Time_ (D-173).
* * * * *