Vaughan Roberts of the almighty Interstellar Patrol was literally riding a roller coaster when he got the appeal for help from a damsel in distress. And being a gallant space hero with time on his hands, he fell for it—She was a princess of Festhold, a planet addicted to soldiery, military adventure and hairy-chested heroics - where unfortunately for the maiden her side was being outfoxed and outsoldiered by a combination of treachery and might. And when Roberts found himself the odd man out in that perpetual war game, he realized that he was still on a roller coaster, on this time with his life and the Interstellar Patrol as the unwilling patsies.
Author
Christopher Anvil was a pseudonym used by author Harry C. Crosby. He began publishing science fiction with the story "Cinderella, Inc." in the December 1952 issue of the science fiction magazine Imagination. By 1956, he had adopted his pseudonym and was being published in Astounding Magazine. Anvil's repeated appearances in Astounding/Analog were due in part to his ability to write to one of Campbell's preferred plots: alien opponents with superior firepower losing out to the superior intelligence or indomitable will of humans. A second factor is his stories are nearly always humorous throughout. Another was his characterization and manner of story crafting, where his protagonists slid from disaster to disaster with the best of intentions, and through exercise of fast thinking, managed to snatch victory somehow from the jaws of defeat.
