The Professor Was a Thief (Fantasy Short Stories Collection) - Softcover

Hubbard, L Ron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592123511 ISBN 13: 9781592123513

Publisher: Galaxy Press (CA), 2009

Synopsis

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The Empire State Building has vanished into thin air! Gone, too, are Grant’s Tomb and Grand Central Station, and all hell is breaking loose in New York City!

What’s the story? One grizzled old newspaper reporter known simply as Pop—a role made for Walter Matthau—is on top of it . . . and better stay there, because his livelihood is on the line. If Pop fails to get to the bottom of the vanishing landmarks, his job will disappear as well—and land in the hands of the newspaper publisher’s son-in-law.

Any cub reporter could find a someone breaking the laws of the city, but tracking down a suspect who’s breaking the laws of physics is a different story altogether. But Pop’s like a dog with a bone, and he won’t let go until he gets at the truth . . . no matter how strange or astounding it is. In the end, he gets a lesson in larceny, proving that when you get down to business, size really does matter.

By the spring of 1938, Hubbard’s stature as a writer was well established. As author and critic Robert Silverberg puts it: he had become a “master of the art of narrative.” Hubbard’s editors urged him to apply his gift for succinct characterization, original plot, deft pacing and imaginative action to a genre that was new, and essentially foreign, to him—science fiction and fantasy. The rest is Sci-Fi history.

Also features the science fiction adventures Battle of the Wizards, in which an epic battle between science and magic unfolds with an entire planet hanging in the balance, and Hubbard’s first published foray into science fiction and fantasy, The Dangerous Dimension, the story of a mathematics professor who discovers an equation that enables him to teleport anywhere he can imagine . . . even if he doesn’t want to go.

About this title

Book Description:

Primed for promotion to the World-Journal city editor, grizzled senior reporter Pop is stunned when it's announced that young Leonard Caulborn, the publisher's son-in-law, will get the post. Worse, the lad wants him out. In protest, Pop demands to be given a beat again and gets his wish. . . only now he's got just two days to find the "real" story about a dead-end assignment— a month-old physics lecture— or be fired.
When Pop starts searching for the story's source, a professor named Pertwee, he lands in the middle of the story of a century after the Empire State Building, Grant's Tomb and Grand Central Station all disappear. Apparently, Pertwee's the mastermind behind it all. But Pop soon discovers that, instead of inventing a new way to blow things up, the professor may be doing quite the opposite.   --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author:

With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 230 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most acclaimed and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and ’40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard.

About this edition

• Publisher: Galaxy Press (CA)
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1592123511
• ISBN 13: 9781592123513
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152