Raymond Z Gallun's "Comet's Burial" (short story, free): Terraforming moon!

This is old fashioned science fiction adventure; drop any pretense of realism, & go have fun. We also see some ancient Martian relics on moon, ride through Sol aboard a Martian ship, & eat long-preserved Martian canned meat that's probably of earth's dinosaurs!

Jess Brinker is convinced real underground cities can be built on moon if only some way were found to cut through its 200 km thick crust to reach the resources inside. So he & his apprentice Arne Copeland will move Brulow's Comet to smash into far side of moon - without informing anyone else on moon or earth!

Of course, there will be happy ending.

Fact sheet.

First published: Science Fiction Stories, #1 (1953).
Download full text from Project Gutenberg.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Raymond Z Gallun.

"Wonder Stories Quarterly", Vol 3 No 4 (Summer 1932) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

It's one of the Hugo Gernsback's magazines, & scans in CBZ format are online at Crosseyed Cyclops. Looks like mostly planetary adventures.

Table of contents.

1. John Scott Campbell's "Beyond Pluto": "As exiles from earth they went into the great unknown, to meet mysteries of other world ..."
2. Frank A Kelly's "Exiles of Mars": "Lone protectors of a planet, they forced the thirst-maddened desert hoards ..."
3. John Bertin & Edward Morris' "Rebellion on Venus".
4. Laurence Manning's "The Voyage of the Asteroid": "As discoverers they ventured into space, to bow to the elements on an unknown world ..."
5. Raymond Gallun & John Michel's "The Menace from Mercury".
6. Al H Martin's "The Jovian Horde": "Bestial hordes from Jupiter, they came seeking blood & power ..."

See also.

1. Fiction from Wonder Stories.
2. Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.
3. Fiction from 1930s.

Raymond Z Gallun's "Stamped Caution" (novelette, first contact, free): Humans-Martians successfully make peaceful first contact

A pioneering Martian spaceship has crashed on earth, killing its 3 occupants. But a little baby, born apparently on the way, survived. Baby will be raised by wary humans & given a basic education.

Eventually, humans make a return trip to Mars, carrying the now grown Martian with them. Some drama there, & we see the beginning of a kind of wary trust between the two sides.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1953.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Raymond Z Gallun.

New at Project Gutenberg (13 June 2010)

Links on author, publisher, or year fetch more matching fiction.

1. J J Allerton's "Once Upon A Planet"; download; Amazing Stories, December 1948: "The mighty King Miotis came down to Earth to recapture his lost desire for war. But what he saw on this planet, caused him to feel differently."
2. Raymond Z Gallun's "Asteroid of Fear"; download; Planet Stories, March 1951: "All space was electrified as that harsh challenge rang out ... but John Endlich hesitated. For he saw beyond his own murder--saw the horror and destruction his death would unleash--and knew he dared not fight back!"
3. Richard Sharpe Shaver's "The Dark Goddess"; download; Imagination, February 1953: "Deep within her caverns the great mer-woman longed for death to end her loneliness. But then came a voyager from space--a man--also lonely..."

Related: Fiction from old "pulp" magazines.

Raymond Z Gallun's "Big Pill" (novelette, free): Terraforming Titan

It's view of Titan is very outdated, & technique of terraforming very magical, but it's a good old-fashioned happy-go-lucky fun adventure.

Story summary.

Bill Lauren is an evil well-connected industrial monopolist who controls space colonization supplies. One of his substandard equipment has just killed several human colonists on Titan.

Doc Kramer has invented a daring method to terraform Titan, but Bill has managed to keep him away (Doc will eventually get murdered). Now this accident has made a hero out of Bert Kraskow, one of the colonists, who will go ahead with Doc's terrafroming plan with his wife & a friend - with police (goaded by Bill) on his chase.

Plan involves:

1. Dropping a big hydrogen bomb ("Big Pill") with carefully calculated yield on the side of Titan opposite the colonists camp, setting in motion a transformation of local elements that will create earth like atmosphere in double quick time - only a few days!
2. And giving Titan a new sun to keep it warm - by burning a big fission pile in a stable orbit above the surface.

Of course the plan is wildly successful, after much adventure.

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, September 1952.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Raymond Z Gallun; Terraforming fiction; Fiction from 1950s.

Raymond Z Gallun's "Seeds of the Dusk" (novelette, biological warfare): How Martians exterminated the descendants of humanity

While I could pick many holes in the story, they're irrelevant. I'll any day put this story among the very best science fiction has on offer.

Story summary.

A single seed of sentient Martian plant has reached earth - of the millions thrown from there. But that is enough.

Story is set billions of years in future, when earth is near the dusk of its habitability. But that's the time Martians find the world in its prime.

Ensuing conflict of alien with human-descended & barbaric Itorloo will end with extermination of Itorloo. Aliens' technique: trap a single Itarloo specimen, study his body chemistry, manufacture a fatal-only-to-Itorloo highly contagious germ with a long gestation period, & release the specimen back in the wilds to infect everyone else.

Collected in.

1. Raymond J Healy & J Francis McComas (Eds)' "Adventures in Time and Space".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1938.
Rating: A.
Listed among the stories from John Campbell's Astounding/Analog.