Brigands of the Moon
(The Book of Gregg Haljan)
BEGINNING A FOUR-PART NOVEL
By Ray Cummings
I stood on the turret-balcony of the Planetara with Dr. Frank, watching the arriving passengers.
Foreword by Ray Cummings
I have been thinking that if, during one of those long winter evenings at Valley Forge, someone had placed in George Washington’s hands one of our present day best sellers, the illustrious Father of our Country would have read it with considerable emotion. I do not mean what we call a story of science, or fantasy––just a novel of action, adventure and romance. The sort of thing you and I like to read, 307 but do not find amazing in any way at all.
Black mutiny and brigandage stalk the Space-ship Planetara as she speeds to the Moon to pick up a fabulously rich cache of radium-ore.
But I fancy that George Washington would have found it amazing. Don’t you? It might picture, for instance, a factory girl at a sewing machine. George Washington would be amazed at a sewing machine. And the girl, journeying in the subway to and from her work! Stealing an opportunity to telephone her lover at the noon hour; going to the movies in the evening, or listening to a radio. And there might be a climax, perhaps, with the girl and the villain in a transcontinental railway Pullman, and the hero sending frantic telegrams, or telephoning the train, and then chasing it in his airplane.