In the year 2126, scientists Arcot and Morey chase a sky pirate—and invent the technology to travel through space. In the second story, the heroes travel to Venus and make first contact with an alien species. Finally, they must defend the solar system from invaders whose own star has long since gone dark. Originally published separately as “Piracy Preferred” in Amazing Stories June 1930 edition, “Solarite” in Amazing Stories November 1930, and “The Black Star Passes” in Amazing Stories Quarterly Fall 1930, these three novellas were edited and collected into this volume in 1953. This is the first book in John W. Campbell’s Arcot, Morey, and Wade trilogy. Most famous for editing Astounding Science Fiction and Fact magazine and introducing Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and many other great science fiction authors to the world, Campbell’s other notable works include the novella “Who Goes There?”, which was adapted to film as The Thing by John Carpenter in 1982. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention, first contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets and the arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System. These were the first three challenges of many that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Black Star Passes" by John W. Jr. Campbell. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

INTRODUCTION These stories were written nearly a quarter of a century ago, for the oldAmazing Stories magazine. The essence of any magazine is not its name, but its philosophy, its purpose. That old Amazing Stories is long since gone; the magazine of the same name today is as different as the times today are different from the world of 1930. Science-fiction was new, in 1930; atomic energy was a dream we believed in, and space-travel was something we tried to understand better. Today, science-fiction has become a broad field, atomic energy—despite the feelings of many present adults!—is no dream. (Nor is it a nightmare; it is simply a fact, and calling it a nightmare is another form of effort to push it out of reality.) In 1930, the only audience for science-fiction was among those who were still young enough in spirit to be willing to hope and speculate on a new and wider future—and in 1930 that meant almost nothing but teen-agers. It meant the brightest group of teen-agers, youngsters who were willing toplay with ideas and understandings of physics and chemistry and astronomy that most of their contemporaries considered “too hard work.” I grew up with that group; the stories I wrote over the years, and, later, the stories I bought for Astounding Science Fiction changed and grew more mature too. Astounding Science Fiction today has many of the audience that read those early stories; they're not high school and college students any more, of course, but professional engineers, technologists and researchers now. Naturally, for them we need a totally different kind of story. In growing with them, I and my work had to lose much of the enthusiastic scope that went with the earlier science fiction.

Often called the father of modern science fiction, John W. Campbell rivalled E. E. "Doc" Smith with his Arcot, Morey, and Wade series of space opera novels in the 1930s, which begins with The Black Star Passes!

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention, first contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets and the arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System. These were the first three challenges of many that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey.

The Black Star Passes, Islands of Space & Invaders from the Infinite constitute the Arcot, Morey and Wade trilogy which follows the adventures of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their adventures include a sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention, first contact with an alien race and the arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization.