Cyril M. Kornbluth

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Dr. Michael Novak quits his job at the Atomic Energy Commission, where he worked with the group of scientists on a secret project, to apply for the job with the American Society for Space Flight. Working on a new project Novak becomes suspicious when the chief engineer is murdered. Now he is forced to finish the project he is suspicious about as well as to try to figure out who killed the chief engineer.

This meticulously edited Cyril M. Kornbluth's short story collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Rocket of 1955 What Sorghum Says The City in the Sofa Dead Center The Perfect Invasion Masquerade The Little Black Bag Iteration The Marching Morons With These Hands The Altar at Midnight The Adventurer The Luckiest Man in Denv Time Bum Ms. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie Theory of Rocketry Crisis The Reversible Revolutions

Halsey's Planet is in decline, and when a generation ship arrives, having failed to contact six other planets, Ross is sent to discover the state of the interstellar colonies. He is given a ship which can make the trip from colony to colony almost instantaneously. The technology used in the ship has been kept secret because it could give rise to interstellar war if one colony decided to conquer others. However, the isolated populations are also affected by genetic drift resulting in a decline in their societies.

The ad man sets his sights on the gravy train that is Venus: unconquered and waiting to be populated by Earth's capitalist-driven consumers.