Return to the Stars by Edmond Hamilton

For those readers who thrilled to the exploits of 20th century Earthman John Gordon in the futuristic galaxy of 202,115, in Edmond Hamilton’s first novel, The Star Kings (1949), the wait to find out just what might happen next would prove to be a long one. Ultimately, though, their patience was rewarded with Hamilton’s much-belated sequel, Return to the Stars (1969). Unlike the original novel, which was released all at once and comprised the entire 9/47 issue of Amazing Stories magazine, the sequel was what is known as a fix-up novel, having as its provenance four separate stories that Hamilton skillfully cobbled together into one cohesive whole; indeed, one would never suspect that the ... Read More

The Humanoid Touch by Jack Williamson

In Jack Williamson's classic short story "With Folded Hands" (1947), the inventor of the Humanoids — sleek black robots whose credo is "To Serve And Obey, And Guard Men From Harm," even if that means stifling mankind's freedoms — makes an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the computer plexus on planet Wing IV that is keeping the many millions of units functioning. In the author's classic sequel, the novel The Humanoids (1949), another unsuccessful stab is made, 90 years later, by a "rhodomagnetics" engineer and a small group of ESP-wielding misfits, to stop the Humanoids (which now number in the billions) and their campaign of relentless and smothering benevolence. And in Williamson's much belated follow-up, 1980's The Humanoid Touch, we flash forward a good 1,000 years or so, to fi... Read More