Slan
Critique • Quotes
First edition, 1946First publication
1940, serialized in Astounding Science Fiction magazine
First book publication
1946
Literature forms
Novel
Genres
Science fiction
Writing language
English
Author's country
United States
Length
First novel approx. 73,000 words
Notable lines
His mother's hand felt cold, clutching his. Her fear as they walked hurriedly along the street was a quiet, swift pulsation that throbbed from her mind to his.
First lines
"Yes, I said 'mob.' That's all people are these days. A mob, a beast we've helped build up with our propaganda. They're afraid, mortally afraid for their babies, and we haven't got a scientist who can think objectively on the matter. In fact, we haven't got a scientist worthy of the name. What incentive is there for a human being to spend a lifetime in research when in his mind is the deadening knowledge that all the discoveries lie can hope to make have long since been perfected by the slans ? That they're waiting out there somewhere in secret caves, or written out on paper, ready for the day when the slans make their next attempt to take over the world ?
Our science is a joke, our education a mass of lies. And every year the wreck of human aspirations and human hopes piles higher around us. Every year there's greater dislocation, more poverty, more misery. Nothing is left to us but hatred, and hatred isn't enough. We've either got to terminate the slans or make terms with them and end this madness."
Completely invisible, traveling many miles per second, his ship headed to Mars! He must have hurtled through mine fields, but that didn't matter now. The devouring disintegration rays that poured out from the walls of his great machine ate up mines before they could explode, and simultaneously destroyed every light wave that would have revealed his craft to alert eyes out there in the blaze of sun.
It was at that point in his thought that Kier Gray's voice cut across the silence with the rich tones of one who had secretly relished this instant for years:
"Jommy Cross, I want you to meet Kathleen Layton Gray...my daughter."
Last lines
Critique • Quotes
