Books in Winston Science Fiction series

Young Danny Cross couldn't understand the telegram from the Security Commission ordering him home from college. He wondered whether it had to do with the reported "death" of one of America's leading atomic scientists in a rocket explosion over White Sands. He was surprised to find that it was only another thorough security check and a change of security card - the vital "open sesame" to anyone living in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, of 1981. But Danny noticed a change in the atmosphere at the proving grounds and in the communities where its scientists and technicians lived. As more and more atomic specialists disappeared in "rocket explosions" miles above Earth - explosions that failed to scatter debris under the sites of the accidents - the former camaraderie was replaced by an air of suspicion and foreboding. The disappearance of Danny's cousin, "Jet", an ace rocket pilot, put the worried teen-ager onto a line of reasoning concerning the continuing "explosions" too close to the truth to be ignored: that a highly skilled scientific group had planned, constructed and was operating a space station that circled the Earth IN SECRET! He suspected that even his mother and father planned to desert Earth's laboratories for an extra-terrestrial life. The questions of "where did they go?" and "how did they get there?" as answered here make this a story of mounting suspense and tangled intrigue that few science fiction yarns can match.

En route to the Center of the Galaxy for the Interstellar Olympic Games, the HELLAS, carrying Earth's team, intercepts a mysterious space ship, apparently derelict. Steve Frazer, champion spacesuit racer, volunteers to investigate. Once aboard, he discovers astonishing evidence of an intelligent nonhuman race that can speak by telepathy and disappear at will - a race superior in some ways to human beings. Stunned, Steve returns to the HELLAS to find that no one believes his startling story. His attempts to prove that he is telling the truth plunge Steve quickly into the midst of interstellar conflict and intrigue. Disqualified from the Games on a trumped-up charge, Steve soon realizes that someone very powerful thinks he knows too much. Tightly written and intensely dramatic, the story sweeps to the outermost reaches of the galaxy. Its picture of the Games with their brilliant color and keen competition is entirely new to the pages of science fiction.

From the man who gave us This Island Earth, Raymond F. Jones, The Year When Stardust Fell is an engaging sci-fi thriller about an Earth in peril. Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill. And then one day the modified engine on Ken Maddox's car began overheating mysteriously. By morning it didn't run at all. Art's Garage, local headquarters for hot-rodders, was soon so full of cars that wouldn't run, that Ken's science club began working in the garage after school. It didn't take long for the club to discover that all the moving parts on these stalled cars had fused together. Soon all machinery had stopped in Mayfield. There was no longer any light or power anywhere. This mysterious creeping paralysis was spreading. The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt. Airplanes, trains, generators and heavy machinery were immobilized. Finally man was left with only a few primitive tools and communication became possible only by means of amateur radio. In the resulting chaos parts of Mayfield were burned and looted by hunger-crazed mobs that stole and killed as they advanced. Here is science fiction at its thrilling best. A startling and thought-provoking book that shows how human nature might react to catastrophe.

When the moonship "Tycho III" comes into the landing pit at the New Mexico Spaceport, Andy Marlow has his first look in more than a year at the planet Earth. Instead of proud launching gantries and gleaming ships, he sees empty firing pits and the broken hulks of a few old spacetubs. Earth's brief two hundred years in space is now past history; man has been exiled for a violation of inter-galactic law. A short time after landing, Andy and his best friend despondently accept a mysterious job offer that takes them to a secret spaceport deep in the jungles of Central America. Here a ruthless ex-space captain, Reed Ballinger, plans to blast his way back into the galaxy. Andy, torn between loyalty to his friend and a growing awareness that Ballinger's way means war, finally flees the spaceport. He joins Project Nobel, a brilliant and dangerous scheme to thwart Ballinger and to convince the Star Brain, the machine that rules the galaxy, that Earth deserves to regain its place in space. Milton Lesser skillfully evokes the world of tomorrow in a dramatic story certain to appeal to all science fiction enthusiasts.

Jim Stanley, who had helped to build the first space station, was thrilled to return to it as a member of the crew selected to erect the ships which would fulfill Man's age-long dream to reach the Moon. A total effort was being made to surpass the progress achieved in outer space by an enemy Combine. It was believed that if this foreign group scored the initial landing and gained control of the cold planet, the world would be threatened. The desperate effort to forge ahead of the Combine suddenly turns into a race against death when a young, space-happy boy takes off alone for the Moon in an inadequate ship. Although hampered by accidents, false rumors, and conflicts on Earth below, the crew works with frantic haste and grim determination to get the ships underway and to the boy in time. Jim Stanley, as mechanic and pilot, contributes a major share in the task of construction and on the tense rescue journey. Here is a gripping account of pioneers in space by one of science fictions best known and most skillful writers. Jim Stanley's adventures on the first flight to the Moon make a lusty and exciting tale for all who love to envision man's ultimate conquest of space.

Chuck Svenson was a citizen of the Moon — and proud of it! To him, Earth, with its heavy atmosphere, even though it was the "mother" planet, was not the best place in the universe to live. As he rocketed back home from a blast off at a point high in the Andes, he anxiously looked forward to the reception he'd receive at Moon City. For he was the only citizen from Earth's satellite to be selected by the United Nations’ interplanetary commission as a crew member for the first ship to attempt a flight from the Moon to Mars. How Chuck learned that his orders had been changed, that he was to be replaced by an earthling, started a chain of dramatic and thrilling events that ended in the weird and torturous catacombs of Mars. For the spunky teen-ager would not be cheated of the universe's greatest adventure! When the Mars-bound ship rose, on a pillar of flame above the desolate lunar landscape, it carried a stowaway in its hold. What Chuck's extra weight meant to the carefully figured fuel supply, the ship's crash landing on a "lifeless" planet, the disappearance of vitally needed tools from the vicinity of the stricken ship—fill these pages with suspense and mystery. A story of bizarre adventure, MAROONED ON MARS is also the tense personal drama of a young man who shoulders the responsibility for stranding his shipmates. In a breath-taking climax, near the ruins of a long-lost civilization that suddenly comes alive with rodent-like Martians, Chuck proves the courage and bravery of one young “citizen of the Moon!"

“Only a decade away!" Yes, according to the well-known author of STEP TO THE STARS, this remarkable age that has produced rocket ships, guided missiles and hydrogen bombs will have a space station circling the Earth within the next ten years. World domination will be in the hands of the country that constructs it, and man will know, once and for all, whether he is free or slave. Such thoughts were far from Jim Stanley's mind when he was investigated by the FBI and later subjected to strange and rigorous tests. It wasn't until he satisfied the stiff requirements that he learned the United States was in the space station race for keeps and that he could count himself among the handful of men destined to breach the barriers of space in operation "Big Shush." Fascinating details of the construction and operation of the station are part and parcel of this tense and dramatic story. Treacherous sabotage by a dangerous foreign spy; Jim's almost fatal fall into the "empty, hungry depths of space"; and a savage fire which threatened the existence of the station add to the rising tide of excitement. Tying these explosive events together is a narrative that skillfully portrays the reaction of men to new and staggering experiences. Unequaled in its impact, STEP TO THE STARS is an adventure too probable to ignore. Whether you read it as a tale of the future or a forceful case for world co-operation, you can't help but feel that here indeed is the "prelude to space."

"This person is not even human. It's impossible for me to diagnose the injury or illness of such a structure as his!" With these words and a worried frown, Doc Smithers sums up the case of the strange creature that lay on Ron Barron's bed. For the boy, Clonar, is like nothing earth's medical books have ever cataloged. And the day Ron Barron found him, staggering away from the wrecked metal disk that lay hidden near Longview, is one that put earth's existence in jeopardy!In SON OF THE STARS, Raymond Jones has written of a forthright friendship between a young castaway from space and his earthly counterpart. How a cold and suspicious military, recognizing Clonar only as an alien from an astonishingly advanced civilization, turns friendship into treachery that threatens earth's existence, makes this an electrifying story with a thought-provoking theme. In scenes uncomfortably vivid, you'll meet soldiers and citizens of a typical American city; people like calculating General Gillispie and frightened Mrs. Barron, whose reactions to an "interplanetary" situation bring the world to the brink of destruction.Clonar's words, "They're coming to destroy your world!" refer to a planet whose wars and strife might shortly spread to other worlds. Climaxed with a scene of power and drama unmatched in science fiction, SON OF THE STARS is a breath-taking book you won't put down until the very last page - and won't be able to forget until men reach the stars and learn for themselves!

When man tackles the first really long journey - across twenty-six trillion miles of uncharted space - to the nearest star, it will take him two hundred years to complete the flight. Not until the sixth generation nears maturity will the starship reach its destination. Around this fascinating theme, Milton Lesser has woven a tale of the first starship's final days of flight. He pictures the ship as a hollowed-out asteroid composed of four concentric circles - a world in which civilization has deteriorated and superstition risen to a high pitch, making those within unaware of the fact that they are traveling through space or that their journey is destined to end. All Mikal knew when he embarked on the "Journey of the Four Circles" was that every eighteen-year-old from Astrosphere, the outermost circle, must visit each of the other circles if he hoped to become an Enginer. But before he completed his trip, he unearthed startling truths that threw the four circles into a state of chaos. Gradually Mikal discovered that unless the people of the four circles took immediate action the ship was doomed to crash. Mikal's desperate efforts to unite the four circles in order to save their world is a story of rising tension and clashing interests. Not only is this a tale of man's triumph over the barriers of space, but a fabulously exciting epic of civilization's victory over superstition and complacency. With subtle satire the author has written one of the most realistic and unforgettable stories ever to appear in the science fiction field.

When sun storms periodically swept Mercury with waves of solar fire, radiation and electricity, it was usual for the authorities to order evacuation of the small mining communities on the side of the planet that faced the Sun. But as time for the most violent solar eruption known to earthlings approached, no rescue rocket ship appeared outside the Sigma dome that housed Dick Rogers and his family. Around one of the universe's most awesome events — sun spots — Lester del Rey has written a tale of rugged courage and heroism in the face of impending doom. Young Dick Rogers wasn't too well liked by the townspeople. He insisted on keeping an erratic "wispy" — the strange form of Mercury life that took the shape of an electrically charged ball of flame — as a friend. And though Dick's favorite "wispy," Johnny Quicksilver, could usually be trusted, the mining engineers were never sure whether it was he who periodically blew out fuses and upset delicate electrical circuits. Against this background, the story of Dick Rogers' odyssey through Mercury's bleak and blazing landscape takes on desperate urgency. How he, an ancient robot and the Mercury veteran "Hotside Charlie" withstand Mercury's 800 degree temperatures, escape rivers of molten lead, and fight the planet's horrifying silicone beasts, is in the best science fiction tradition.

It might not have been so hard to sell Jon West on the Deeps — if he hadn't had his heart set on the stars. Bitter disappointment over washing out of space school prompted his rash decision to join the Deepsmen who struggled to conquer Earth's last frontier and the threats it held for the North American continent. Based on the theory that man may someday inhabit the vast ocean floors, this tale is a speculative journey into that fantastic realm. Scenes in fabulous undersea cities, tense battles between men and colossal sea monsters, a running feud between Jon and a belligerent civilian youth — all combine to make this an exciting drama in the best science fiction tradition. Not until rumors begin about the Mindanao Trench and the mysterious Project called "X" — a project to save a continent —does Jon snap out of his reluctant attitude toward the Deeps and realize the full magnitude of a mission more dangerous than any on Earth or in space. Tidal waves, the descent to perpetual blackness seven miles under the sea, disasters that struck with lightning speed breed action that drives Jon and his fellow Deepsmen toward a powerful climax. Bryce Walton has written in Sons of the Ocean Deeps a chilling tale of the terrors and mysteries of the seas that will make readers long to live to see the day when man may invade Earth's most beautiful and most dangerous realm — the indomitable sea.

"We'll thunder off to Io, Out in the Jovian Moons. We'll feast our eyes and seek the skies And plunder Martian ruins!" The "Spaceman's Chant" turned from a spirited to a heartbreaking refrain when Cadet Peter Hodges learned that he would never be allowed to "thunder off to Io." Bitter disappointment, to a youth whose father had been one of the first space captains, motivates this gripping tale of the future. Studded with detail of the spaceports, ships and men that handle interplanetary flight, Earthbound is the very human drama of a disillusioned cadet forced by circumstances to help plunder the very space liners he was trained to protect. How Pete Hodges became involved with interplanetary racketeers, his dramatic escape, his flight to the asteroids on a mission the authorities knew could not succed, is a finely wrought drama that only an author of Milton Lesser's stature could write. Fired with suspense and action, this story of one young man's determination to face the speckled blackness of outer space is science fiction at its best!