The Peacemaker

by Alfred Coppel

Legends, I think, are our strength. If one day a man stands on the rim of the Galaxy and looks out across the gulfs toward the settee suns of Andromeda, it will be legends that drove him there. They are odd things, these legends, peopled with unreal creatures, magnificent heroes and despicable villains. We stand for no nonsense where our mythology is concerned. A man becoming part of our folklore becomes a fey, one-dimensional, shadow-image of reality. Jaq Merril -- the Jaq Merril of the history books -- is such an image. History, folklore's jade, has daubed Merril with the rouge of myth, and it does not become him.

Genres: Short Stories

24 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2010

About the author

Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel was an American author. He served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his discharge, he started his career as a writer. He became one of the most prolific pulp authors of the 1950s and 1960s, adopting the pseudonyms Robert Cham Gilman and A.C. Marin and writing for a variety of pulp magazines and later "slick" publishers. Though writing in a variety of genres, including action thrillers, he is known for his science fiction stories which comprise both short stories and novels.

Reviews

[Jane Roxanne Beamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The true story of the System's great Peacemaker is nothing like the history books...

[Forked Radish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing breaks up an argument quicker than a bear attack. Ergo, bears are great peacemakers. Blessed are the 🐻s.

[Ania · Rating 2 out of 5]

A buccaneering adventure in space, it examines how Legends are made and how they only represent a 2-dimensional hero, one who inspires us, but who's 3rd dimension, the dark side if you will, is kept hidden.

Written during the cold war it explores the idea of a long standing conspiracy theory of a well-known, and once secret, project called "Project blue beam". ((Google this for more info.)) Supposedly this project, in a nutshell, worked on the idea that to unite the future mankind only an invader from space could accomplish this by providing a common enemy. Although in this story there is no alien invader, there are certainly "social outsiders" who accomplish just that.