The Electronic Siege

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About this book

John W. Campbell, Jr.'s The Electronic Siege first appeared in Wonder Stories in April 1932. The magazine's introduction says the story has strange adventures on another world, a mystery on an inhabited asteroid, disappearances in space and a colony of scientific experimenters who defy the rest of humanity.

The text shows Ezra Markham, a multi-billionaire, boarding a space liner with a train of luggage trucks behind him. He complains about Commander Morrison of the Interplanetary Lane Patrol, who gave him trouble over his pass, and about the cabin he is shown, and he demands a suite. In another passage Barclay climbs the wall of a power-house, where atomic generators hum behind metal walls, and finds the controls of a protolectric defense gun on the roof. In a third, a gun booth is left a molten heap after a flash of flame, and Barclay asks that the other ships be warned.

About the author

John W. Campbell

John W. Campbell Jr. (1910-1971) was an American science fiction writer and, more lastingly, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, where he shaped the genre's Golden Age. His early space operas ran under his own name, while darker stories such as Who Goes There? appeared as Don A. Stuart.