The Arsenal of Miracles

by Gardner Francis Fox

OUTCASTS OF THE STARS

When Earth's stellar empire was attacked by the Lyanir, a powerful race from the uncharted stars, it was Bran Magannon, High Admiral of Space, who met their battle-challenge. He saved the Empire, but he also fell in love with the beautiful young Lyanirn queen Peganna, and to the people of Empire his name became that of traitor. Now he was a lone, brooding outcast among Empire's outpost worlds, called Bran the Wanderer.

Then Peganna of the Silver Hair returned and told him of a fabled cache of deadly weapons left eons ago by the long-dead race of the Crenn Lir. She wanted those weapons for her people, to use against Empire if need be.

Bran the Wanderer laughed, and showed her how to find them.

Genres: Science Fiction

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic book historians estimate that he wrote more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"

Pseudonyms: Gardner F. Fox, Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, Lynna Cooper, Rod Gray, Larry Dean, Robert Starr, Don Blake, Ed Blake, Warner Blake, Michael Blake, Tex Blane, Willis Blane, Ed Carlisle, Edgar Weston, Tex Slade, Eddie Duane, Simon Majors, James Kendricks, Troy Conway, Kevin Matthews, Glen Chase

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a enjoyable space adventure. Bran Magannon is a protagonist similar to John Carter. Every situation has an amiable solution, every capture has an escape.

Bran has been betrayed by his empire. Feeling salty, he chooses to explore the fringe of the empire in deep space. Bran stumbles across the tools that will forge an alliance between his empire and the Lyanirn. On the run, he must determine how the pieces fit together explaining the disappearance of the Creen Lir, a far more advanced race.

Fox does what he always does, presents a good premise, then writes to a certain point and wraps everything up in just a handful of pages.

Recommended!

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ace Double Novel F299
grade B-

[Tim Stroup · Rating 5 out of 5]

First chapter read like I was reading Brackett with the evocative descriptions. Didn't last the whole book though.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It was Bran, the Wonderer, who found death. Literally, death; the reason men must die."

The opening line to The Arsenal of Miracles lays the foundation for what should be a dark sci-fi adventure featuring a lone wolf protagonist with knowledge unparalleled; the power to understand what creates and what ends mankind. The interpreted promise is just that, a reader's assumption based on minimal print which inevitably leads to disappointment.

Published in 1964, packaged with Endless Shadow by John Brunner, this one-half of the Ace Double feature provides a teaser of space adventure; a story one-step down from sci-fi. The plot reads routine, only dabbling in mystery as an afterthought.

The action-hero mantle protagonist Bran is presented from the opening pages gives credence to the plight and fight for his peoples and that of other-world dwellers - kinfolk of sorts to humanoid earthlings, as he rights the wrongs done to him and others at the hands of space-conquering connivers. Peganna, the female side kick of silver hair and customary sleek figure - arm candy in stella princess form, adds to the typecast tale.

The 'arsenal', the miracle cache of weapons, holds true to the title. From the outset, there's no doubt said arsenal exists and will be found by the teleporting space travelling duo in due course. The only uncertainty is what evil awaits to thwart our hero and heroine's sojourn and use of weaponry once obtained. The thwarting, unfortunately, is a dull ride aboard a slow moving spacecraft.

On a positive note, Author Gardner F. Fox smartly infuses the ageing process into the narrative which triggers a deeper thinking of evolution and enhancements modern medicine has made in real-life to prolong lifespan; a highlight of the novel, which, reading 60-plus years post publication (and later I'm sure) gives a dosage of reality appreciated by the reader.

The Arsenal of Miracles is a take-it or leave-it story for me; quick to consume, easy to digest, and enjoyable enough to keep chewing after that first bite.

This review first appeared on my site: https://justaguywholikestoread.blogsp...

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a woman, with such a sword, he would fight until he died.

Bran the Wanderer is a hero for booklovers, especially fantasy booklovers. Faced with the well of miracles, where you can request anything—the “arsenal of miracles” of the title—he asked for a map.

While there is a tendency toward technobabble among the things of this book, such as ultranibeam, or fantasy babble, such as kleth-induced dreams, the writing makes up for it. This is science fantasy with a strong emphasis on fantasy.

A girl sobbed softly in those same shadows, caught up in kleth-induced dreams that shook her ripe body. The swinging lamp laid black shadows on the green felt as Bran leaned over it.

…

The brass lamp hissed and the moaning girl quieted. Suddenly the tavern was hushed, for these were the Forbidden Hours of the Serpent on Makkador and only men and women whose lives were as nothing against their lusts and hungers were abroad in the stews. A wind blew the tangy scents of desert weeds in through the barred windows, and with them the smells of old stone buildings and the swill that dotted the cobblestone streets beyond the tavern door.

Bran Magannon was once an admiral of far-flung humanity’s fleet of starships. But after winning a naval battle with the invading Lyanir, he lost a political battle against his colleagues while attempting to broker a peace with the Lyanir—during which time he and the queen of the Lyanir fell in love. But she fled when he was betrayed, and he resigned to wander the stars rather than stay in disgrace.

That’s where the story begins, in a seedy bar on a far desert outpost.

The Arsenal of Miracles contains many of the standard elements of sword & planet, but Gardner Fox’s skill elevates the book well above the standard.

[Emilia Renna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites.

I have gone through ten copies of this book over th years. I will eighty on 08/04/2020. I have asked this book to become an ebook several times. It is a joy to finally read it without the pages falling apart.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Was this the key to the universe?

OUTCASTS OF THE STARS

When Earth’s stellar empire was attacked by the Lyanir, a powerful race from the uncharted stars, it was Bran Magannon, High Admiral of Space, who met their battle-challenge. He saved the Empire, but he also fell in love with the beautiful young Lyanirn queen Peganna, and to the people of the Empire his name became that of traitor. Now he was a lone, brooding outcast among Empire’s outpost worlds, called Bran the Wanderer.

Then Peganna of the Silver Hair returned and told him of a fabled cache of deadly weapons left eons ago by the long-dead race of the Crenn Lir. She wanted those weapons for her people, to use against Empire if need be.

Bran the Wanderer laughed, and showed her how to find them. ‘

Front cover and interior blurb from the paperback 1964 F-299 Ace Double Edition.

Gardner F Fox is an interesting character, who began to write for DC Comics in his twenties during the Great Depression, and despite his name being somewhat obscure these days was an incredibly prolific writer, producing an estimated four thousand comic storylines and at least a hundred novels, which covered SF, Fantasy, Crime, Westerns and Sports stories.

Bran Magannon, an Admiral with the Empire Forces, was on the point of securing an engaging peace between the Lyanir and the Empire and had also fallen in love with their haughty queen, Perganna of the Silver Hair.
However, a false message was sent to the Lyanir, and their subsequent actions caused the Empire to think they had been double crossed. The Empire attacked and the Lyanir retreated to ‘the uncharted stars’.
Magannon, a tad depressed, resigns his post and goes wandering through the galaxy, using the ‘teledoors’ of an Elder Race called the Crenn Lir, although it’s not clear why Bran is the only person to have ever discovered them.
One day, Perganna finds him. Once misunderstandings have been cleared up, she tells him that she needs his help to find the lost arsenal of the Crenn Lir.
Meanwhile, Perganna’s evil brother has usurped her position and is planning to sell his people in slavery to the Empire.
Once more we have this concept of Empires and Royalty, and two multi-planetary forces which are each unified, socially and racially, it appears.
For its time, the concept and the style is dated. In context, Philip K Dick was publishing ‘Martian Time Slip’ and ‘The Penultimate Truth’, Frank Herbert was about to publish ‘Dune’. The times they were a changing.
This is also a novel which is high on Romanticism and low on actual science, and seems coloured by Fox’s comic-book traditions. We encounter spaceships, matter-transmitter portals, odd alien machines and storage facilities, and not even an attempt to explain even the history of the science behind the Empire technology.
It’s not a bad read, but it does seem like a piece that would have sat more easily ten or fifteen years previously.