The Second Satellite

by Edmond Hamilton

Earth-men war on frog-vampires for the emancipation of the human cows of Earth's second satellite.
Science Fiction - Extraterrestrial life
First published in Astounding Stories of Super-Science,
Free download from Gutenburg.org

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction

Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1930

About the author

Edmond Moore Hamilton was a popular author of science fiction stories and novels throughout the mid-twentieth century. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated high school and started college (Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania) at the age of 14--but washed out at 17. He was the Golden Age writer who worked on Batman, the Legion of Super-Heroes, and many sci-fi books.

Reviews

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

🖍️ Earth-men War on Frog-vampires for the Emancipation of the Human Cows of Earth's Second Satellite. (A Novelet.) A very strange story; weird, and gruesome:

Norman, sick with horror, clutched his companion. "Hackett—these frog-men are sucking his blood from him!" "Good God! And look—they're doing it with another!" "All of these men—kept prisoners to furnish them with blood. It must be the damned creatures' food! And we here with the others—"

Yes, it was weird.

📕 Published in Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930.

જ⁀➴🟢The e-book version can be found on the Project Gutenberg website.
✴︎🚀✴︎💫✴︎🚀✴︎

[Phil Giunta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two pilots fly an experimental plane into space to find a fabled second moon of Earth. Another pilot attempted this prior and never returned. Not only do they find this second moon, but it is dominated by frogmen who feed on the blood of their victims. Will our heroes overcome these nefarious amphibians, find their comrade, and escape this second satellite? Standard pulp SF of the time.

[Travis Tait · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun story where the expected observable science did not end up being true when we finally got sent folks to space. That all being said, in true EH fashion, this was a fun adventure story and well worth the short read that it is.

[Forked Radish · Rating 3 out of 5]

“By the time the five mile height was reached the Earth’s surface had changed definitely from the concave to the convex.” Hallelujah! Someone who understood Einstein’s mollusk!

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scifi, short story by a master with great narraration.

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story, with tension and action.
The story is told in a conversational style.
The narrator is well spoken, his voice is clear and easy to listen to.
The recording is clean with out any background noises. There plenty of volume.The editing is seamless.

[Nigel Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://nigelbaker.name/?p=1184

[Jim Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

While much of Hamilton's early work is pretty good I don't think this rose above the basic pulp standard of the time.