Questo riuscitissimo romanzo di un autore già conosciuto e apprezzato dai nostri lettori, piacerà sicuramente tanto a coloro che si occupano di problemi tecnici quanto a chi si appassiona di psicologia umana. E per tutti sarà una lettura scorrevole e interessante. Il principale protagonista di questa storia, l'Ispettore Bordman, una specie di medico condotto per pianeti malati, è un abilissimo ufficiale del Servizio Coloniale, ma la sua innata modestia lo condanna a non essere mai soddisfatto di sé, a sentirsi sempre inferiore agli altri, a voler fare sempre di più e sempre meglio. Chi ci guadagna, naturalmente, è il Servizio. Infatti, i superiori dì Bordman, che sanno di poter contare su di lui, non esitano ad affidargli i problemi più difficili. Dimesso, incerto, ìncapace di imporsi, l'uomo nelle cui mani sta il destino dei pianeti in agonia, e la vita di migliaia di esseri umani, viene accolta ogni volta con malevolenza, con irritazione, o con ironica superiorità. Ma ogni volta riesce a conquistarsi l'ammirazione, la simpatia, la riconoscenza, perché gli esseri umani rimarranno gli stessi, anche quando avranno conquistato le Galassie, con le stesse qualità e gli uguali basilari difetti. Qualità e difetti che rendono questo romanzo profondamente umano. Copertina di Carlo Jacono 3 • Il ghiaccio • \[Colonial Survey\] • (1956) • by Murray Leinster (trans. of Critical Difference) 38 • La sabbia • \[Colonial Survey\] • (1958) • by Murray Leinster (trans. of Sand Doom 1955) 75 • La palude • \[Colonial Survey\] • (1958) • by Murray Leinster (trans. of The Swamp Was Upside Down 1956) 118 • Un universo troppo grande (Part 5 of 11) • (1958) • serial by Isaac Asimov (trans. of Sucker Bait 1954) 125 • Curiosità scientifiche - Il nostro pianeta si sta sfasciando? • (1958) • essay

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.

The novelette is set in a future time during which humanity has begun colonizing planets in other solar systems. The Colonial Survey agency has decreed the (fictional) planet of Loren Two to be off-limits, due to the extremely dangerous native animals. Despite its decree, the Colonial Survey has authorized an experimental colony on the planet. At about the same time, the overcrowded inhabitants of another planet have established an unauthorized reconnaissance station on Loren Two. Neither group is aware of the other's existence. The authorized colony is well-funded, consisting of one dozen persons equipped with advanced robotic and other equipment. The unauthorized reconnaissance team consists of a single man, Huyghens (no first name given), accompanied by an eagle and four specially-bred Kodiak bears. The bears have been bred (the story uses the term "mutated") so as to have the psychological profile of dogs. They are friendly to humans and able to work in teams. When the story begins, Huyghens receives a signal indicating that a ship is about to land near his station. The ship drops off its sole passenger, an officer with the Colonial Survey named Roane (no first name given), and then departs. Roane soon learns that Huyghens is an illegal trespasser on the planet and that his (Huyghens') signal beacon was not that of the authorized colony. For his part, Huyghens is surprised to learn that there was an authorized colony on the same planet. The two men put their minds to the question of why the authorized colony's signal beacon was not working and soon determine that it has been replaced with a low-technology emergency beacon. From this, the two men surmise that the authorized colony has been overrun by the indigenous predators, but that some colonists might still be alive in the mine tunnels that the colony was expected to have dug. Huyghens and Roane, along with the bears and the eagle, undertake a dangerous cross-country trek to determine the status of the authorized colony.