Novel-Classic Stories

Jim Ronson came to the Red Planet on the strangest mission of all.he only knew he wanted to see Les Ro, but he didn't know exactly why. It was because he knew that Les Ro had the answer to something that had never been answered before, if indeed, it had ever been asked! For Les Ro traded new lamps for old--and they were the lamps of life itself!

Computers are increasingly important, and public companies are often taking over roles reserved for government agencies in the 50's. Even the comments about not really understanding how hard it is to produce really random data is all spot on. What was missed of course was the fact computer prices would drop as fast as they grew more powerful, union/mob style gangsters would go out of fashion and ESP wouldn't pan out at all.

Commander John Hanson of the Special Patrol Service records another of his thrilling interplanetary assignments.

The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except--

Sometimes getting a job is harder than the job after you get it--and sometimes getting out of a job is harder than either!

A daring adventure with huge dollops of geographical, technological, and scientific information, touches of humor, and a slow build-up followed by one exciting incident after another.

How could this man awaken with no past--no childhood--no recollection except of a vague world of terror from which his mother cried out for vengeance and the slaughter of his own people stood as a monument of infamy?

If this story has a moral, it is: "Leave well enough alone." Just look what happened to Kenzie "mad-about-ants" MacKenzie, who didn't....

A room in San Francisco where strange things happened -- or a doorway into another cosmos, a different world, or perhaps the key to the past or future?

After all--they only borrowed it a little while, just to fix it--