Customer Reviews

The Black Star Passes

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This book by John Campbell actually consists of three seperate but loosely connected short stories that were first serialized in 'Amazing Stories' and were published together in 1953 in a collection by Fantasy Press.

The first story, Piracy Preferred, introduced the principal characters that play key roles in the series. The second story, Solarite, tells of the developemnt of a super vehicle that enables a trip to Venus, where two civilizations are engaged in a war of extermination, winner take all. And the third story, The Black Star Passes, deals with how Earth and Venus must beat back an invading fleet of ships from a world that belongs to another star system, which happens to be passing by of our own sun as the two travel through space on their separate journeys through the galaxy.

Campbell preferred to write pseudoscience, leading to all kinds of cleverly imagined bits of hardware that go from being a pipe dream to reality in a matter of hours and production lines that can produce entire fleets of star fighters in a matter of days, complete with fully trained crews where none existed before. But all of this aside, Campbell wrote some entertaining stories, and this is one of them. It isn't great literature, but it is easying reading that doesn't ask you to think deeply about anything, while at the same time giving you a few things to think about.

I went into this with great expectations, but found it flat out boring. Characters go on barely related tangents for pages at a time, giving pseudo-scientific explanations for every move they make. The original techno-babble.
I can forgive the dated science, considering the age, I just can't forgive that there is barely any story, and the characters make unbelievable advances in a matter of hours.
There are several sequels to this book, although I am thinking twice about tackling them.

I found this book back in the 70s and had a bunch of fun reading it. Campbell wrote it in 1930. This edition is 1953. Earth gets to go to Mars and battle beings that have aircraft with multi-mile-long wings and twenty pusher style propellors on each wing. The monster ships are powered by solidified light, no less. Now before you start laughing your head off, don't forget that light is made up of particles. Theoretically, they could be brought together to form a solid substance. Now if you want to laugh at the idea of a society of martians living on Mars with the knowledge we have today, well, go ahead. The story is very original and clever. I think it would have been great as a movie. I give it four out of five stars merely in light of what we now know about our planet neighbors. It's a good "what if" tale, though. Get it while it's cheap and enjoy it for the pure entertainment value that "The Black Star Passes" is.

Written around 1930, this futuristic Sci Fi novel introduces propeller airplanes the size of cities, invisibility devices, aliens on Venus, and chemical warfare that knocks people out and also cures cancer. This book is quite dated, but if you like silent movies for their insight into the past, you will enjoy Black Star Passes.