Sand Doom (Unexpurgated Edition)

Colonial Survey #2

by Murray Leinster

This Halcyon Classics ebook is SAND DOOM by acclaimed science fiction/mystery writer Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins). Leinster (1896-1975) was a mainstay of the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, and following World War II he broadened his audience by writing for Radio, Television, and Hollywood. Among his accomplishments, Leinster is credited with popularizing the notion of parallel universes and the concept of the internet. His 1946 short story "A Logic Named Joe" contains one of the first descriptions of a computer (called a "logic") in fiction. In the story, Leinster was decades ahead of his time in imagining the Internet. He envisioned logics in every home, linked through a distributed system of servers (called "tanks"), to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and commerce; one character says that "logics are civilization."

Set on an immensely hot world, humans struggle to survive. The problem was as neat a circle as one could ask for; without repair parts, they couldn’t bring in the ship that carried the repair parts!

This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text, with minor errors and omissions corrected.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

see also:
Will F. Jenkins
William Fitzgerald Jenkins

Murray Leinster was a nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

An author whose career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. From mystery and adventure stories in the earliest years to science fiction in his later years, he worked steadily and at a highly professional level of craftsmanship longer than most writers of his generation. He won a Hugo Award in 1956 for his novelet “Exploration Team,” and in 1995 the Sidewise Award for Alternate History took its name from his classic story, “Sidewise in Time.” His last original work appeared in 1967.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sand Doom is a novelette in Leinster's Colonial Survey series from a 1955 issue of John W. Campbell's Astounding SF magazine. It was packaged with three other stories (including the Hugo-winning Exploration Team) and lightly revised for publication as a fix-up novel from Gnome Press in 1957 as Colonial Survey and then as a mass market paperback from Avon as The Planet Explorer. It's one of Leinster's best and is a clever hard-sf engineering story. There's some ethnic stereotyping that wouldn't appear today, but nothing offensive. (The AmerInds are good at construction projects because they don't fear height, the Africans don't mind the planet's hot temperature, that sort of thing.) Leinster added engaging characters to the type of scientific puzzle stories that Isaac Asimov and Hal Clement popularized. He resisted writing a romance between the protagonist and his female assistant, which leant them both a more realistic depth. I did think it was amusing at one point when a character pulled out his slipstick to check a calculation. How many young folks today know how to use a slide rule? Good, classic, true sf, and very well presented in this reading via Librivox.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantasy listening 🔰

Due to eye issues and damage Alexa reads to me.
Another will written fantasy Sci-Fi space adventure by Murray Leinster with interesting characters. The story line is about relationships, family members and friends growing on a planet where all is lost but working together ❤it is turned around. I would recommend this fantasy Sci-Fi novella adventure to readers of fantasy Sci-Fi adventures. Enjoy the adventure of reading 📚2021 😮

[DOUGLAS J BERRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sci fi short story

By the master Murray Leinster. A sort of sealed situation, the engineer s probably could have seen the solution in time. Engineer Scott would have.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some well-meaning white saviour stuff.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in Astounding Stories of Super Science magazine, December 1955.

A ship is stranded in orbit, and its crew is ready to mutiny! With just 6 months’ worth of food and water they are just about done for. Only one man can find a way to bring everyone together and motivate them to work on a solution, while battling his own misgivings of his competence.

This story was full of science fiction adventure.

It was like stepping into an oven. The sand was still hot from the sunshine just ended. The air was so utterly dry that Bordman instantly felt it sucking at the moisture of his nasal passages. In ten seconds his feet—clad in indoor footwear—were uncomfortably hot.

🪐 🚀 Recommended.
🟣