Dead World

by Jack Douglas

Yuan Saltario started it. He was serving in my Company and he was one of them. A Menelaus XII-5 "unstable," and don't ever call that damned little planet by its number if you meet one of them. They call it Nova-Maurania. But you won't meet one of them. Or maybe you will, maybe they did make it. I like to think they did. There were a lot of them in the Companies in 3078. Restless men. The Companies were the logical place for them. We're still classified anti-social-B-6, too. Every year it's harder to get recruits, but we still have to be careful who we take in. We took Yuan Saltario. There was something about him from the very start.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

40 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1961

About the author

Jack Douglas (born Douglas Linley Crickard , July 17, 1908 - January 31, 1989) was an American comedy writer who wrote for radio and television while additionally writing a series of humor books.

On radio, he was a writer for Red Skelton, Bob Hope and the situation comedy, Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou (1938–46), in which Riggs switched back and forth from his natural baritone to the voice of a seven-year-old girl.

Continuing to write for Skelton and Hope as he moved into television, Douglas also wrote for Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet , The Jack Paar Show , The George Gobel Show, and Laugh-In .

The producer of Laugh-In , George Schlatter, said, "He saw the world from a different angle than the rest of us. He was not only funny, he was nice." Douglas won an Emmy Award in 1954 for best-written comedy material.

He was best known for his frequent guest appearances on Jack Paar's shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s. On one such appearance, when Douglas was well established as a Paar guest, he was chastised by Paar for holding a stack of file cards with his jokes while talking with Paar.

When Paar returned to television in 1973 and was confronted by unexpected low ratings, he engaged Douglas to contribute monologue material by mail. One week, there was no mail from Douglas; but his next package contained a "Sorry I didn't send anything last week. I forgot you were on."

Douglas and his third wife Reiko, a Japanese-born singer and comedian, were regular guests on shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson.

Reviews

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining Sci-Fi listening 🎶🔰

This was free on Amazon.

They are struggling on a car off planet 🌎 against an enemy they know very little about. Then it is over. I would recommend this novella and author to 👍 readers looking for something different to read. 2023 😀😯😕😁

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Troy Bond does a good job of reading this tale of exiled warriors fighting for a cause of other exiles against overwhelming odds.

Duration: 00:31:09
File sizes: [mp3@64kbps - 14.9MB]- [mp3@128kbps - 29.9MB]

[Akrabar · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://librivox.org/short-science-fi...

[SpookySoto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: I liked it a lot
Format: Ebook
Random pick project August 2023

I selected this random sci-fi short story not expecting much, but it turned out to be very interesting and thought provoking. I recommend it.

”A few lost souls who would rather die trying to live the way they wanted to live than go on living in a world they did not want.”

In the future there is the Galaxy council the regulates peace an order in the galaxy. There are various mercenary organizations that operate within the council’s rules.
A planet named Mauritania miscalculated the date when it’s star would die and the whole planet would freeze, only a very few had the chance to leave the planet an survive, the rest perish on their frozen planet.
These people lived adrift, without dreams or purpose until they figured a way to use some kind of nuclear bombs to move their frozen planet towards another star system to therefore “revive” their planet.
For the members of Red company, the mercenaries we are following, this sounds crazy, a suicide mission, but the commander understand these people have no dreams, no meaning, no purpose, this is their only dream. So he convinces the Council to let them try, even if is crazy and hopeless.
At the end the planet disappeared, we will never know if they succeeded.

[Tony Calder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable short story. Galaxies are ruled by a galactic council, and there are no military forces - except the Companies. These are mercenary groups that fight under contract, fighting alongside a different Company in one conflict, and against them in another.

This story focuses on one of the Companies, and what happens when they are faced with a difficult ethical choice. This reminded me of the Dorsai series - although I know that was written about a decade later.

[Jacqui Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

quick read but not particularly interesting.

[MGB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trying to help a frozen world find a new place in the galaxy. An interesting story, but not a lot of character development. It was short, so not much room to do that.