
Knud Axel Syrup, chief engineer of the spaceship Mercury Girl, sat and drank his favourite beer and thought about the coming war he was so anxious to avoid. For Grendel, the planetoid on which he was stranded, had been occupied by a band of fiery Irish revolutionaries. And once the rival Anglians discovered this, their response would be speedy and violent. Then, as Herr Syrup shook up a bottle of brew and let the foam shoot out of its top, he realized suddenly what could be done to get him off Grendel. And so came about the marvellous spaceship, built of beer kegs, bound by gunk, upholstered with pretzel boxes, and powered by the mighty reaction forces of malted brew!
Author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley. Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3] Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously. Series: * Time Patrol * Psychotechnic League * Trygve Yamamura * Harvest of Stars * King of Ys * Last Viking * Hoka * Future history of the Polesotechnic League * Flandry