The Onslaught from Rigel

by Fletcher Pratt

A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace leaped through the air, struck the green globe and reached the earth in a thousand tiny rivulets of light. Mr. Pratt is well known for his Reign of the Ray, and The War of the Giants where in both stories he showed his excellent knowledge of warfare, and what a future war might be like. In The Onslaught from Rigel he combines that knowledge with a vivid and fertile scientific imagination to construct an interplanetary story that marks a new triumph. We know that many scientists believe that life may originally have come to earth in the form of spores, from other solar systems and other universes. We therefore might really have had our home dim ages ago, on worlds distantly removed from our earth. The ability to travel the interstellar spaces, however, might also be possessed by other creatures-creatures driven by fear, necessity and by the will to conquer. And if they come, in mighty waves, with scientific powers far beyond us, to dominate the earth, a terrible time will face the puny human race. And in this story they do come, and provoke some of the strangest and most exciting adventures that have yet been recorded.

Genres: Science Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2009

About the author

Murray Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was a science fiction and fantasy writer; he was also well-known as a writer on naval history and on the American Civil War.

Pratt attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines. When a fire gutted his apartment in the 1930s he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.

Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of a set of rules for civilian naval wargaming before the Second World War. This was known as the "Naval War Game" and was based on a wargame developed by Fred T. Jane involving dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artist Jack Coggins was a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and L. Sprague de Camp met him through his wargaming group.

Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.

Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also highly regarded.

Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style of Bernard DeVoto. One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it to drag, and it's definitely a product of its time, but I can't say I expected anything that happened in the first chapter or so to be what it was about. It gains a few points in my book for that.

[Bill Ramsell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Without L. Sprague DeCamp, Mr. Pratt is a bit of a pratt.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got bored; stopped reading. I tried book because I had read Author's history books, which were vibrant, fact-filled and entertaining. Rigel just didn't share tht style.

[Jim Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While dated by today's standards, I thought it was an OK read if you considered when it was written - 1932.