Sunday, July 26, 2009

“Invasion,” a 1930s novelette by Murray Leinster

Thanks to a post by Tinkoo of the blog Variety SF, I had an opportunity to read my first piece of science fiction written by award-winning author Murray Leinster: “Invasion.” Originally published in the March 1933 issue of Astounding Stories magazine and downloadable for free from either ManyBooks.net or Project Gutenberg, "Invasion” is a pre-Cold War story about Thorn Hard, a high-level flier for the Pacific Watch, and Martians that land in Colorado. Here are the opening lines of the story:

It was August 19, 2037. The United Nations was just fifty years old. Televisors were still monochromatic. The Nidics had just won the World Series in Prague. Com-Pub observatories were publishing elaborate figures on moving specks in space which they considered
to be Martian spaceships on their way to Earth, but which United Nations astronomers could not discover at all. Women were using
gilt lipsticks that year. Heat-induction motors were still considered efficient prime movers. ...


If you’re not afraid of spoilers, read Tinkoo’s summary of “Invasion.” He rates the story a “B". Also, as Tinkoo suggests, writer Murray Leinster failed to accurately predict the future of newspapers.

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