Armchair Fiction presents extra-large editions of classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations. The first novel is “The Sun-Smiths” by the very controversial science fiction author, Richard S. Shaver. “The Sun-Smiths” was published in Other Worlds Science Stories in 1952. Here’s the original blurb as written by editor Ray Palmer: “The famed author of the Shaver Mystery stories returns to science fiction with a tremendous new novel. When something goes wrong with a sun, it is the duty of the Spayderines to set it aright. Earth’s sun had gone wrong ages ago and its human birthright stolen from it by degenerates.” This tale was supposed to be Shaver’s big comeback novel. It’s about an age-old race known as the Valudin who have been using Sun-tampering as a way to gain universal power by causing planets to become poisonous, which then allows them to come in and take over. Palmer obviously loved this story, but since its initial publication in 1952, it has sat collecting dust, essentially forgotten. It is, however, a marked improvement over Shaver’s earlier tales and was a vehicle Shaver hoped to use to make his way into the world of “legitimate” science fiction. The second novel is a great outer space tale, “The Opposite Factor” by Chester S. Geier. It was an incredible mystery—deep inside the asteroid belt. Scott Clay was a very desperate man. His deep space salvage operation was on the verge of bankruptcy and the girl of his dreams was fighting on the wrong side of a Martian revolution. To make matters worse, his old pal Asteroid Blaine was nowhere to be found. Clay had spent his last credit sending Blaine out into the Asteroid Belt to find the location of a lost spacecraft, a spacecraft supposedly filled with a fortune in Jovium. If true, it could mean a complete reversal of Clay’s financial fortunes. However, when Blaine did finally show up, it was not to greet Clay with tales of treasure, but with news of a discovery so utterly fantastic that the fate of Mars, Earth, and the rest of the Solar System hung in the balance. The only question was who would retrieve this new discovery? More importantly, would they use it for good…or evil?
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