Lancelot Biggs is the last man Captain Hanson expects to trust when a routine Earth-Mars cargo run is abruptly diverted to Uranus. Brilliant, absentminded, and maddeningly unpredictable, Biggs has a habit of turning every voyage aboard the aging Saturn into a comic near-disaster—until his latest invention, a velocity intensifier, promises to make interplanetary travel faster than anyone thought possible. What follows is a wild blend of hard-edged space adventure and eccentric humor, as the crew pushes deeper into the unknown and space itself becomes a blur of color, mathematics, and danger. But speed has a price. A miscalculation sends the Saturn hurtling toward Jupiter, and when Biggs vanishes at the critical moment, Hanson believes his first mate has finally fled the challenge. Instead, Biggs' desperate instructions lead the ship beyond ordinary space and into a strange gray void, where he reveals the terrible truth: only by taking the burden upon himself could he save the Saturn from destruction. In the end, this playful, suspenseful tale becomes a moving story of courage, sacrifice, friendship, and the haunting mystery of what lies beyond the stars. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Bond, Nelson S.

Nelson S. Bond was an American writer whose career helped shape the popular imagination of twentieth-century genre fiction, especially in the realms of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and humor. Born in Virginia and active for decades as a prolific magazine author, he built a reputation for versatility, wit, and a gift for telling vivid, accessible stories that could be playful one moment and unsettling the next. His most important achievements lie in the sheer range and consistency of his work: he wrote across multiple genres, reached wide audiences through pulp and magazine publication, and became known for stories that could entertain while also slipping in sharp observations about human nature. At the heart of his fiction are themes that still feel fresh today, including the oddness of everyday life, the tension between ordinary people and extraordinary circumstances, the dangers of pride and assumption, and the comic as well as tragic ways humans respond to the unknown. Bond’s work remains relevant because it captures both the charm of classic midcentury storytelling and the timeless appeal of imaginative fiction that questions reality without losing its sense of fun. His legacy endures in the way he bridged popular entertainment and thoughtful speculation, proving that genre writing can be clever, humane, and memorable all at once. Readers who enjoy classic science fiction, lightly eerie tales, witty storytelling, and authors who balance imagination with warmth will find Nelson S. Bond especially rewarding.