THE GALACTIC MEDAL OF HONOR was the most important, the most coveted award of all time. It was given only to a handful of the bravest and most self-sacrificing of those defending earth from the mysterious alien invaders that had appeared fifty years before. It was almost always given posthumously. The Bearer of this medal became the idol of all mankind, would never want for any necessity or luxury—would never want for anything. Everyone on Earth sought that medal....One man was going to cheat to win it—and live to regret it. (Above text appears on the back cover)
Author
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in "Galaxy Magazine" and "Worlds of If Magazine". He was quite popular in the 1960s, but most of his work subsequently went out of print. He was an active supporter of the Socialist Labor Party; his father, Verne Reynolds, was twice the SLP's Presidential candidate, in 1928 and 1932. Many of MR's stories use SLP jargon such as 'Industrial Feudalism' and most deal with economic issues in some way Many of Reynolds' stories took place in Utopian societies, and many of which fulfilled L. L. Zamenhof's dream of Esperanto used worldwide as a universal second language. His novels predicted much that has come to pass, including pocket computers and a world-wide computer network with information available at one's fingertips. Many of his novels were written within the context of a highly mobile society in which few people maintained a fixed residence, leading to "mobile voting" laws which allowed someone living out of the equivalent of a motor home to vote when and where they chose.
