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The Return of Ul Quorn #Vol. 2, Book 3
Captain Future: 1,500 Light Years from Home
Journey far beyond the solar system to a planet of danger with CAPTAIN FUTURE as he confronts the greatest menace humankind has ever faced … 1,500 LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME!
No ship from Earth has ever ventured past the outer worlds of the system. But that wasn’t until Ul Quorn, the criminal overlord called the Magician of Mars, stole an experimental warp drive and used it to hurl a hijacked spaceliner and his cut-throat gang across the galaxy to an inhabited planet orbiting Deneb, one of the largest and brightest stars in the known universe. For what purpose? No one knows … until now.
Curt Newton, the adventurer known as Captain Future, is about to find out, for he has inadvertently joined Ul Quorn’s quest to Deneb. Yet neither man is prepared for the horrors they’ll find there or the alien doomsday machine lurking nearby. The battle of wits between the two adversaries is only getting started, and the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance!
“Allen Steele has updated and supercharged the original incarnation of Curt Newton, reimagining him for 21st century readers. It’s a pleasure to see him back and in capable hands.” - Will Murray, author of Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars.
No ship from Earth has ever ventured past the outer worlds of the system. But that wasn’t until Ul Quorn, the criminal overlord called the Magician of Mars, stole an experimental warp drive and used it to hurl a hijacked spaceliner and his cut-throat gang across the galaxy to an inhabited planet orbiting Deneb, one of the largest and brightest stars in the known universe. For what purpose? No one knows … until now.
Curt Newton, the adventurer known as Captain Future, is about to find out, for he has inadvertently joined Ul Quorn’s quest to Deneb. Yet neither man is prepared for the horrors they’ll find there or the alien doomsday machine lurking nearby. The battle of wits between the two adversaries is only getting started, and the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance!
“Allen Steele has updated and supercharged the original incarnation of Curt Newton, reimagining him for 21st century readers. It’s a pleasure to see him back and in capable hands.” - Will Murray, author of Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars.
- GenresScience Fiction
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 19, 2021
7 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
About the author
Allen M. Steele
235 books419 followersBefore becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 21, 2023
Ul Quorn has captured Curt Newton, the Comet and all the Futuremen, freed the prisoners on Pluto, and gained control of the Slingshot device. Using the Slingshot, the Comet and the Liberator Ul Quorn goes to Deneb with Curt is a prisoner.
In the Deneb system they find an object that Curt dubs a disco ball. Trying to communicate with it, they only get a message to go home. Quorn doesn't give up. He ends up taking a party, including Curt, to the moon the DDB was orbiting. When Curt changes clothes, Oog is there and clings to Curt until he has no choice but to secretly take Oog. Curt can't really make a break for it, he's light years from home with no way to get back, so he plays along.
Book two left on a cliffhanger, but we immediately learn that Joan, Ezra, Otho and Grag were released and have made it back to the moon base. Half the cliffhanger gone. There are some interesting reveals about the Debebians (Xin'than as they called themselves). I think we knew this already, Ul Quorn tells Curt he started his uprising because the Aresians were genetically engineered to live on Mars and once the Terraforming of Mars is complete they will have built a home for base line humanity and worked themselves out of one.
I'm still questioning motives (why kill Lamont, but leave Curt alive, etc.), but the reveals are nice, and I liked this better than part two, 4.1 stars.
In the Deneb system they find an object that Curt dubs a disco ball. Trying to communicate with it, they only get a message to go home. Quorn doesn't give up. He ends up taking a party, including Curt, to the moon the DDB was orbiting. When Curt changes clothes, Oog is there and clings to Curt until he has no choice but to secretly take Oog. Curt can't really make a break for it, he's light years from home with no way to get back, so he plays along.
Book two left on a cliffhanger, but we immediately learn that Joan, Ezra, Otho and Grag were released and have made it back to the moon base. Half the cliffhanger gone. There are some interesting reveals about the Debebians (Xin'than as they called themselves). I think we knew this already, Ul Quorn tells Curt he started his uprising because the Aresians were genetically engineered to live on Mars and once the Terraforming of Mars is complete they will have built a home for base line humanity and worked themselves out of one.
I'm still questioning motives (why kill Lamont, but leave Curt alive, etc.), but the reveals are nice, and I liked this better than part two, 4.1 stars.
April 14, 2021
This is the third installment of a long novel, The Return of Ul Quorn, featuring Steele's rebooted and updated version of Edmond Hamilton's famous pulp hero Curt Newton, known all across the spaceways as Captain Future. It follows Captain Future in Love and The Guns of Pluto and is to be concluded in The Horror at Jupiter, which I'm already anxiously awaiting. It's great space-opera fun, with plenty of action-packed thrills, intrigue, and adventure. I do think that a synopsis of the earlier books should have been included, in the tradition of the great old sf serials. Remember the scrolling re-caps at the beginning of all of the Star Wars films? This volume also includes the script for a play that's famous in sf fandom, Captain Future Meets Gilbert and Sullivan, a dated but hilarious parody mash-up from 1962. I've heard about it for years, and was glad to finally get to see what the fuss was all about. Fun stuff. In this third volume, Curt doesn't make it quite so far away from home as James Tiptree, Jr. or The Rolling Stones went, but it's a great ride. It ends on something of a cliff-hanger, in the best tradition of the great pulp serials, and hopefully it won't be too long of a wait to see how Curt gets out of what seems like an insurmountable jam...
April 4, 2021
The vast distances of space and the limitations of current technology has kept mankind bound to the immediate "neighborhood". That didn't mean that humanity hadn't leveraged the resources of the planets, moons, and asteroids to their greatest extent. But the universe was waiting. Clues had been left behind by extra-solar races that would allow the shackles of Sol to be cast off and the universe to be opened up to discovery. The SLINGSHOT technology could make intergalactic travel a reality. Unfortunately, the first test of its abilities would not be under the critical auspices of science, but rather used at the hand of one of the worst criminals the system had ever seen. And, while the answer to Ul Quorn's evil had always been the abilities of Curt Newton - known to the entire Sol System as Captain Future - those abilities were now muted as Newton was a prisoner and hostage to the erstwhile Magician of Mars. Now the two mortal enemies had transcended the bounds of Sol and were 1,500 light years from home heading sunward to Cygni Alpha - also known as Deneb and its hidden secrets lost on those remaining worlds that yet survived its expansion. Secrets that Ul Quorn must have and Captain Future must make sure remaining just that.
Having grown up a child of the 50s, I had missed the true end of the PULP era. The heroes and stories that could be found on news stands various and sundry had enjoyed their days in the sun but had reached the cold night of their demise. A few survivors still remained - Amazing Stories chief among those. But... good stories never completely fade away. the 60s saw one of the first resurgence in all things pulp as Bantam began reprinting Doc Savage - revisioned and reimagined by the amazing James Bama covers. The Shadow was given NEW stories in a short series of books but then would step back into those shadows that gave him his name occasionally seeing special collections and book club editions that kept him in the minds of readers. Other smaller imprints brought back such heroes as Operator 5...The Spider...The Phantom Detective...and G-8. Even the villains saw the light of day again as Wu Fang and Dr. Death were given a short reprint run. But, for me, the most fun books were the great reprint run of a space hero and his companions that travelled through the depths of the solar system fighting strangely modified humans and villains such as the Magician of Mars!! Those stories by Edmund Hamilton would drive me to expand my, then, love of comics into the world of all things pulp. In fact, Captain Future in both his own self-titled magazine and subsequent adventures in Startling Stories, were the first...and only... complete run of pulps that i would acquire in my years of collecting. So, when word came that Allen Steele was (in fact already had with Captain Future in Love) going to continue with new stories of my favorite hero the sun shown a little brighter.
Now...One novel and 4 novellas (soon to be 5) later, Steele has taken a hero of the 40s and made him fun again in the new millennia. And, while many of the more "pulpy" aspects of Curt Newton and his stories have been shed for a more grown up version, the fun and adventure still continues. And the best news? There's more to come!!!
Having grown up a child of the 50s, I had missed the true end of the PULP era. The heroes and stories that could be found on news stands various and sundry had enjoyed their days in the sun but had reached the cold night of their demise. A few survivors still remained - Amazing Stories chief among those. But... good stories never completely fade away. the 60s saw one of the first resurgence in all things pulp as Bantam began reprinting Doc Savage - revisioned and reimagined by the amazing James Bama covers. The Shadow was given NEW stories in a short series of books but then would step back into those shadows that gave him his name occasionally seeing special collections and book club editions that kept him in the minds of readers. Other smaller imprints brought back such heroes as Operator 5...The Spider...The Phantom Detective...and G-8. Even the villains saw the light of day again as Wu Fang and Dr. Death were given a short reprint run. But, for me, the most fun books were the great reprint run of a space hero and his companions that travelled through the depths of the solar system fighting strangely modified humans and villains such as the Magician of Mars!! Those stories by Edmund Hamilton would drive me to expand my, then, love of comics into the world of all things pulp. In fact, Captain Future in both his own self-titled magazine and subsequent adventures in Startling Stories, were the first...and only... complete run of pulps that i would acquire in my years of collecting. So, when word came that Allen Steele was (in fact already had with Captain Future in Love) going to continue with new stories of my favorite hero the sun shown a little brighter.
Now...One novel and 4 novellas (soon to be 5) later, Steele has taken a hero of the 40s and made him fun again in the new millennia. And, while many of the more "pulpy" aspects of Curt Newton and his stories have been shed for a more grown up version, the fun and adventure still continues. And the best news? There's more to come!!!
June 25, 2024
Book 4 in the New Adventures of Captain Future, but book 3 in the Return of Ul Quorn serial of the New Adventures of Captain Future. Confused yet?
Okay, Captain Future was created Edmond Hamiltion in the pulps. There was even a short lived Captain Future Magazine (6 issues 1940-1943). But he fell into obscurity unlike Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, though he’s a very similar character. In 2017 Allen Steele re-launched Captain Future on the SF landscape with his novel ‘Avengers of the Moon’ authorised by the estate of Edmond Hamilton. Great book, huge fun. The adventures of Captain Future are continuing to be written by Allen Steele, but published in linked serialised novella format in the great pulp tradition and under the great pulp banner of Amazing Stories the magazine created by Hugo Gernsback in the 1920s. This book embodies a century of SF history and tradition.
So, this book. The end of the previous book, The Guns of Pluto, finished on the cliffhanger of leaving Pluto thorough a wormhole. And thus we get the title 1500 Light Years from Home. That’s where they pop out in chapter 1 of this book, around Deneb the blue-white super giant in the constellation of Cygnus. Captain Future continues his fight against Ul Quorn far, far away. We encounter the ruined cities of the Denebians whose ancient petroglyphs on the moon and Mars were key to the previous 2 books.
This book is boys own pulp space adventure. Ed Hamiton would be proud. But, and this is the crucial bit, the science isn’t pulp era. All of that has been updated. The atomic motors on Captain Future rocket have been replaced with an Alcubierre drive and the wormhole is an Einstein–Rosen bridge. Even the Captains ray-gun is given a new scientifically plausible spin.
I can’t say much more about the plot without significant spoilers of the first 2 books or this one. If you want pulp style space adventure with a modern spin this is the book for you.
It's not perfect though. There are places where it's people standing around explaining the plot to each other in slabs of infodump. And I saw the cliffhanger ending coming from miles off which sort of made it a less tense cliff to hang from.
And the extra historical realted inclusion will only really be appreciated by fans of SF conferences and Gilber and Sullivan, neither of which applies to me. Though it is interesting from a historical and anthropological view of that weird sub-set of humanity.
Okay, Captain Future was created Edmond Hamiltion in the pulps. There was even a short lived Captain Future Magazine (6 issues 1940-1943). But he fell into obscurity unlike Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, though he’s a very similar character. In 2017 Allen Steele re-launched Captain Future on the SF landscape with his novel ‘Avengers of the Moon’ authorised by the estate of Edmond Hamilton. Great book, huge fun. The adventures of Captain Future are continuing to be written by Allen Steele, but published in linked serialised novella format in the great pulp tradition and under the great pulp banner of Amazing Stories the magazine created by Hugo Gernsback in the 1920s. This book embodies a century of SF history and tradition.
So, this book. The end of the previous book, The Guns of Pluto, finished on the cliffhanger of leaving Pluto thorough a wormhole. And thus we get the title 1500 Light Years from Home. That’s where they pop out in chapter 1 of this book, around Deneb the blue-white super giant in the constellation of Cygnus. Captain Future continues his fight against Ul Quorn far, far away. We encounter the ruined cities of the Denebians whose ancient petroglyphs on the moon and Mars were key to the previous 2 books.
This book is boys own pulp space adventure. Ed Hamiton would be proud. But, and this is the crucial bit, the science isn’t pulp era. All of that has been updated. The atomic motors on Captain Future rocket have been replaced with an Alcubierre drive and the wormhole is an Einstein–Rosen bridge. Even the Captains ray-gun is given a new scientifically plausible spin.
I can’t say much more about the plot without significant spoilers of the first 2 books or this one. If you want pulp style space adventure with a modern spin this is the book for you.
It's not perfect though. There are places where it's people standing around explaining the plot to each other in slabs of infodump. And I saw the cliffhanger ending coming from miles off which sort of made it a less tense cliff to hang from.
And the extra historical realted inclusion will only really be appreciated by fans of SF conferences and Gilber and Sullivan, neither of which applies to me. Though it is interesting from a historical and anthropological view of that weird sub-set of humanity.
March 25, 2021
Rip-roaring space opera adventure, featuring one of science fiction's greatest heroes, written by one of science fiction's great award winning novelists: This is not your 1940s Captain Future - it's an updated, in tune with our times Neo Pulp adventure.
June 29, 2021
Excellent space opera adventure, perhaps the best of the revival series--with one caution--the story is directly continued in the final installment planned for an upcoming edition of Amazing Selects.
June 19, 2023
This third installment of the four-book series is the most dramatic so far. There is a part that I found somewhat disturbing, and what a cliffhanger! I will be reading the final book shortly.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews