THREE AGAINST THE STARS A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention . . . First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets . . . The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System . . . These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a classic of science-fiction which first brought the name of their author, John W. Campbell, into prominence as a master of the inventive imagination. * One of the greatest names in science fiction is that of John W. Campbell. Famed as the editor of Astounding Science Fiction -- now Analog -- John. W. Campbell was earlier known for his exciting, imaginative novels of super-science, which placed his name alongside such greats as Edward E. Smith and Edmund Hamilton.
"Arcot, Wade, Morey, and their computer, Fuller, put together a ship which will travel faster than light . . . they give us what may have been the first space-warp drive. The concept was simple; to make it plausible wasn't -- unless you were John Campbell. "With this out-of-space drive they hightail it among the stars. They locate the fugitive planets of the Black Star . . . find a frozen cemetery-world of a lost race . . . then head out for another galaxy . . . and wind up in a knock-down-drag-out interplanetary war in the other galaxy." -- P. Schuyler Miller, Astounding Science Fiction * John W. Campbell first started writing in 1930 when his first short story, When the Atoms Failed, was accepted by a science-fiction magazine. At that time he was twenty years old and still a student at college. As the title of the story indicates, he was even at that time occupied with the significance of atomic energy and nuclear physics. For the next seven years, Campbell, bolstered by a scientific background that ran from childhood experiments, to study at Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote and sold science-fiction, achieving for himself an enviable reputation in the field. In 1937 he became the editor of Astounding Stories magazine and applied himself at once to the task of bettering the magazine and the field of s-f writing in general. His influence on science-fiction since then has been great. Today he still remains as the editor of that magazine's evolved and redesigned successor, Analog.
GALAXIES IN THE BALANCE The famous scientific trio of Arcot, Wade and Morey, challenged by the most ruthless aliens in all the universes, blasted off on an intergalactic search for defenses against the invaders of Earth and all her allies. World after world was visited, secret after secret unleashed, and turned to mighty weapons of intense force--and still the Thessian enemy seemed to grow in power and ferocity. Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in the galactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earth team hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy--until it appeared that the universe itself might end in one final flare of furious torrential power. . . .