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Islands of Space

John Wood Campbell

237 ratings
Islands of Space | John Wood Campbell

Islands of Space

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As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power.
when they decided they would be safe in using the space strain drive and throwing the ship into hyperspace.

Morey was in the hyperspace control room, watching the instruments there. They were ready!

"Hold on!" called Arcot. "Here we go—if at all!" He reached out to the control panel before him and touched the green switch that controlled the molecular motion machines. The big power tubes cut off, and their acceleration ceased. His fingers pushed a brilliant red switch—there was a dull, muffled thud as a huge relay snapped shut.

Suddenly, a strange tingling feeling of power ran through them—space around them was suddenly black. The lights dimmed for an instant as the titanic current that flowed through the gigantic conductors set up a terrific magnetic field, reacting with the absorption plates. The power seemed to climb rapidly to a maximum—then, quite suddenly, it was gone.

The ship was quiet. No one spoke. The meters, which had flashed over to their limits, had dropped back to zero once more, except those which indicated the power stored in the giant coil. The stars that had shone brilliantly around them in a myriad of colors were gone. The space around them glowed strangely, and there was a vast cloud of strange, violet or pale green stars before them. Directly ahead was one green star that glowed big and brilliant, then it faded rapidly and shrank to a tiny dot—a distant star. There was a strange tenseness about the men; they seemed held in an odd, compelled silence.

Arcot reached forward again. "Cutting off power, Morey!" The red tumbler snapped back. Again space seemed to be charged with a vast surplus of energy that rushed in from all around, coursing through their bodies, producing a tingling feeling. Then space rocked in a gray cloud about them; the stars leaped out at them in blazing glory again.

"Well,

Lord English SSBM 10/26/2023
It's rather fitting that this book, written by the man whose work as an editor would go on to codify western science fiction (for better and worse), is an amusingly juvenile mishmash of concepts and ideas that reads like a boys' club book with too much technobabble. Even Campbell's peers recognized
Richard 04/14/2023
Not very readable these days.
Very dated and cardboard characters.
One of the problems is that Campbell tried to use current science and extrapolate from that. However, our understanding of electricity, physics ( including Quantum )moved on. So his extrapolation are no longer even semi plausible.
Captain 10/20/2022
I love reading old science fiction because the authors usually have no idea about the advances in computers and electronics, so you end up with intergalactic spaceships with vacuum tubes and mechanical relays. But Campbell did come up with some interesting ideas that were used in modern sci-fi, like
Randy 02/17/2022
Older science heavy first third of book. Good to read for seeing story from the golden age of science fiction
Jared 12/25/2018
I took a chance on this one, even though I absolutely hated The Black Star Passes . I wouldn't go so far as to call this book good, but it's imminently more readable than the first book in the series. The heroes, rich as hell from their inventions, whip up a faster-than-light ship and decide to g
Aricia 08/04/2018
The book itself is a piece of history, always a favorite of my childhood, when I fell in love with the idea of a starship being developed by independent scientists working for an industrial company, who tok off across the galaxy for wild adventures without involving the government or the military. S
Ray 02/10/2017
Not a bad little story this, another one that lent itself to good visuals whilst reading and would also make a good movie or tv show.

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