Space Opera Fans discussion

Although published in 1960, The Wailing Asteroid is a throwback to the really good ol' days when brilliant scientists built interplanetary spaceships in their backyards and just took off on their own to explore. It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember it as being a lot of fun.

More Leinster I really enjoyed are the "Medship" books that predated both Star Trek and James White's Hospital Station. Two of the titles in the series are Doctor to the Stars and This World Is Taboo. Medical puzzles in outer space.

Leinster is one of the forgotten pioneers in sf, and deserves a lot more recognition.

"Chee," said Murgatroyd.

According to my research, it's past copyright (not renewed during that strange copyright hiccup during the 1970's).

This website has .pdf and .mobi ... didn't freak out my virus protection software.

http://www.classicly.com/download-the...

Stephen wrote: "Although published in 1960, The Wailing Asteroid is a throwback to the really good ol' days when brilliant scientists built interplanetary s..."

Do you remember the old tv show where Andy Griffiths built and launched a spaceship for his salvage yard?

Kirsten wrote: "Do you remember the old tv show where Andy Griffiths built and launched a spaceship for his salvage yard?"

Only vaguely. I hadn't thought about it in decades!

Anna wrote: "According to my research, it's past copyright (not renewed during that strange copyright hiccup during the 1970's)."

Thanks for letting me know. I'm sorry for Leinster's estate that this fell through the cracks, but I can't do anything about that. Might as well enjoy the book.

I love Leinster's Calhoun stories so much that I have a cat called Murgatroyd. I do not feed him coffee. Nor do I deliberately expose him to hideous alien diseases in the hope that he will magically develop an immunity to them.

Leinster wrote a series of four novelletes that combined SF and the detective genre. If I recall the situation correctly the first one was a pretty straitforward detective story with the criminal using some sort of scientific apparatus. However the stories got wilder as the series went on so most if not all ended up being published in (I think) one of the SF pulps. Three of them were reprinted in Startling Mystery Stories (edited by Robert A.W. Lowndes} and the only reason the fourth one never got reprinted was because the magazine was cancelled.

The Wailing Asteroid is one of my all time favourites. A story that is told on a personal level yet has great scientific or "what if" ideas.