The Genius Beasts & This World is Taboo — Frederik Pohl

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic science fiction double novels. The first novel “The Genius Beasts” is a terrific tale by master sci-fi writer, Frederik Pohl. They were whisked away to Ganymede. For Nick and his friends it had started out as a simple sea voyage in a cabin cruiser. However, before long a huge ocean storm had turned their trip into a disaster; and when they ran afoul of a group of strange alien beings from outer space, disaster was turned into an amazing case of interplanetary kidnapping. What secret lay behind this extraordinary kidnapping and what was the intelligence behind it? Soon Nick and his comrades found themselves in the company of a strange woman on an even stranger world -- Ganymede. And the woman, who seemed to know all the answers, was unable -- or unwilling -- to tell what she knew. Surrounded by strange creatures, the three Earthmen found themselves in the unenviable position of finding out who, or what, had ordered their abduction, and most importantly…for what reason? The second novel is “This World is Taboo” by another heralded sci-fi author, Murray Leinster. Fear rode the rockets… That bastion of interplanetary space medics, the Interstellar Medical Service, was about the only remaining galactic organization that the hundreds of inhabited planets still respected. So when their service broke down in faraway Star Sector Twelve, it soon created the most dangerous of situations. When Calhoun took his Med ship out of overdrive near that sector's planet, Weald, he was only vaguely aware of the risks. But the crisis came home to him with a thundering crash the moment he radioed in for landing coordinates… “Contamination! Full mobilization! Red alert! Death to blueskins!” Such were the nature of his greetings. And it began to look like a case of the cosmic jitters that only the most drastic of orbital surgery could cure.