Description:
Devil's Asteroid is a fast-moving vintage science fiction adventure from Manly Wade Wellman, sending readers to a small world wrapped in atmosphere, danger, and a mystery that may change the fate of more than one planet. When a space-patrol vessel circles the asteroid, its crew finds more than rock and orbit. Mist, water, vegetation, hidden life, and strange evolutionary forces suggest that this little world may be far more dangerous than it first appears.
First published in the July 1941 issue of Comet, the story carries the compact energy of magazine-era science fiction: alien landscapes, planetary peril, sudden discovery, and scientific speculation pushed into adventure. Wellman gives the asteroid the feel of a lost world in miniature, a place where exploration becomes survival and the natural order may not obey ordinary expectations.
Fans of classic science fiction, pulp adventure, lost-world stories, early planetary fiction, and vintage magazine SF will find Devil's Asteroid a brisk and entertaining example of the field's golden-age energy. This Positronic edition preserves a sharp, readable work from an author better known for fantasy, horror, and regional supernatural fiction, showing his lively command of space-age adventure as well. Explore other exciting Positronic Books devoted to classic science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.
Brief description: Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and regional supernatural fiction. Born in 1903, he became one of the distinctive voices of twentieth-century popular fiction, publishing across pulp magazines, books, and anthologies for decades. While later readers often associate him with his Southern Appalachian fantasy and horror stories, including the Silver John tales, Wellman also wrote energetic science fiction and adventure stories for the magazine market.His work is known for its storytelling drive, vivid atmosphere, folklore, mystery, and willingness to move between genres without losing pace or personality. Devil's Asteroid, first published in Comet in 1941, shows Wellman working in classic pulp science fiction mode: compact, adventurous, speculative, and built around the wonder and danger of an unknown world. Readers interested in vintage science fiction, pulp magazines, weird fiction, and the crosscurrents between SF, fantasy, and horror will find Wellman an important and rewarding figure.