Shining City, The & Red Planet, The

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic science fiction double novels. The first novel, “The Shining City” is grand futuristic adventure by Rena M. Vale. There was a deadly conflict between nature and science. Thor Larsen was an outsider—a “Northerner.” But he had left the wilds of the northern wilderness for a life dedicated to the greatest engineering feat of the modern age—the building of The Shining City, which was now a super-metropolis ruled by a cold scientific government. However, in spite of his staggering successes, Thor Larsen’s heart was heavy with the suspicion that his own son was a traitor to the city—but heavier still was the feeling that Thor himself had betrayed something even greater! Soon a war was brewing between the raw forces of nature and the technological power of hard, emotionless science. The second novel is a tale of revenge on Mars, “The Red Planet,” by sci-fi veteran Russ Winterbotham. When Gail Loring chose Bill Drake to be her husband—in name only—for the duration of the flight to Mars, she didn’t know that she had just signed his death warrant. Jealous Dr. Spartan, the leader of the expedition, swore to get revenge and force Gail to share his maniacal plan for power. Bound together in space, five men and a woman strained against the powerful tug of twisted emo¬tions and secret ambitions. But all plans were forgotten when they landed on the Red Planet and encountered the Martians—half animal, half vegetable—with acid for blood and radar for sight. When the Martians launched an assault against the spaceship, linking their electrical energy in an awesome display of power, Spartan realized that this was the perfect moment for personal revenge—and touched off his own diabolical plan of destruction against his fellow crewmen.