Outside the Universe (Ace SF Classic, F-271) [Unabridged] [Mass Market Paperback]

Edmond Hamilton (Author), Ed Valigursky - cover (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1964

Science-Fiction

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Ace Books, Inc.; 1ST edition (1964)
• ISBN-10: 0241002710
• ISBN-13: 978-0241002711
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,898,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Thrill-a-Minute Action with the Interstellar Patrol, December 15, 2010

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Outside the Universe (Ace SF Classic, F-271) (Mass Market Paperback)

Edmond Hamilton's _Outside the Universe_ was originally serialized in _Weird Tales_ in 1929 and was published in book form in 1964 by Ace. It is an Interstellar Patrol adventure and may be considered a companion volumn to Hamilton's collection _Crashing Suns_ (_Weird Tales_, 1928--1930; 1965). Both books are illustrated with appropriately dramatic, space opryish covers by Edward Valigursky.

There are, of course, the scientific details that are either out of date or preposterous: starships that bump along currents of ether in space, meteor swarms that travel several times the speed of light in a stream of ether, spaceships (and even fleets of ships) that make impossible right-angled turns in space, and a cheerful confusion of the terms "universe" and "galaxy".

But there is also that breathless, nonstop, thrill-a-minute action involving a fleet of ships piloted by vicious, serpentine aliens invading our galaxy from outside and prompting such lines of dialogue as these: "_Space-ships in thousands... They've come from somewhere... to attack our universe!_" (13); "_We're going to put our lives on one last mad chance and board that enemy ship in mid-space!_" (36); and "Too late--_no!_... We'll follow them across the void toward our own universe. They could not have completed that great death-beam cone yet..." (136).

And by the many rings of Saturn, there _are_ sections of the novel that thrill! The initial battle between fleets of ships in Cancer, the boarding of an alien spacecraft, an escape from "the hall of the living dead," and a chase across the void between the Milky Way and Andromeda... Hamilton makes it all great fun.

And perhaps it might be worth noting that Hamilton's science was not radically different from many astronomers of his day. John Gribbon (1999) notes that before the 1920s "the accepted picture of cosmology was that the Milky Way system _was_ the Universe" (201). It was not until 1923-1924 that Edwin Hubble produced photographic evidence of other galaxies. So the concept of a multitude of "island galaxies" was still fairly new when Hamilton was dashing off his early space operas. _Outside the Universe_ is recommended to those readers who can endure a certain amount of silliness with a tolerant smile.

_Reference_: Gribbon, John. _Almost Everyone's Guide to Science_. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999.