Plot summary
An expedition from an imperialistic culture, led by a man hungry for power and riches, and accompanied by an "adept of the Universal Assembly" (a body of men apparently in communion with a higher power) arrives in a series of ships, with some difficulty—the ships land far from their intended destination, being "unsuited to atmospheric navigation"—and encounter the natives. Though the natives are civilized and capable of mustering armies in great number, their technology is inferior to that of the invaders. Despite being few in number, by guile and treachery the expedition is led to victory over the natives, culminating in the capture of their priest-god-king.
Time goes by and the leaders consolidate their gains, only to be undone by political maneuvering from those who arrive later in the conquered lands. The leader is eventually assassinated by the sons of a defeated rival.
The final line of the story reads "Thus died Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru."
Epilogue
Far from being a pulp yarn, the story is revealed to be an account of actual history, albeit one carefully mis-told. Having pulled off his deception, the author explains at length how not one word of the story was actually untrue. Nothing was described as being anything but what it was, although it was done in such a way as to invite the reader to imagine something else. "Universal Assembly" is simply a literal translation of Ekklesia Katholikos, or the "Catholic Church." The "power metal" which drove the Golden Empire was gold-197, because that is the only naturally occurring isotope of gold, and the "power" it brought was economic and political. The ships were never described as flying, and indeed the author did write that they "were not suited to atmospheric navigation". He protests that he had to abandon his intended last words for the leader ("I'm going to Heaven, and you, you bastards, can go to Hell!") in favor of Pizarro's actual last utterance, which was recorded as being "Jesus!" after he drew the sign of the cross in his own blood.
Being published in March, the story was, in effect, an early April Fools' Day prank. It was re-published in collections of Randall Garrett's works, and an anthology entitled Analog's Lighter Side edited by Stanley Schmidt.
Diego de Almagro, also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo, was a Spanish conquistador known for his exploits in western South America. He participated with Francisco Pizarro in the Spanish conquest of Peru. While subduing the Inca Empire he laid the foundation for Quito and Trujillo as Spanish cities in present-day Ecuador and Peru respectively. From Peru, Almagro led the first Spanish military expedition to central Chile. Back in Peru, a longstanding conflict with Pizarro over the control of the former Inca capital of Cuzco erupted into a civil war between the two bands of conquistadores. In the battle of Las Salinas in 1538, Almagro was defeated by the Pizarro brothers and months later he was executed.
Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States. He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.
Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess of the Atabillos was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
Francisco de Orellana Bejarano Pizarro y Torres de Altamirano was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. In one of the most improbably successful voyages in known history, Orellana managed to sail the length of the Amazon, arriving at the river's mouth on 24 August 1542. He and his party sailed along the Atlantic coast until reaching Cubagua Island, near the coast of Venezuela.
Conquistadors or conquistadores were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, Oceania, Africa, and Asia, colonizing and opening trade routes. They brought much of the Americas under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.
Gordon Randall Phillip David Garrett was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was a contributor to Astounding and other science fiction magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. He instructed Robert Silverberg in the techniques of selling large quantities of action-adventure science fiction, and collaborated with him on two novels about men from Earth disrupting a peaceful agrarian civilization on an alien planet.
Lord Darcy is a detective in a fantasy alternate history, created by Randall Garrett. The first stories were asserted to take place in the same year as they were published, but in a world with an alternate history that is different from the real world and that is governed by the rules of magic rather than the rules of physics. Despite the magical trappings, the Lord Darcy stories play fair as whodunnits; magic is never used to "cheat" a solution, and indeed, the mundane explanation is often obscured by the leap to assume a magical cause.
The Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration, part of the early modern period and largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, was a period from approximately the 15th century to the 17th century, during which seafarers from a number of European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the European colonisation of the Americas, with the Spanish and Portuguese at the forefront, later joined by the Dutch, English, and French, marked an increased adoption of colonialism as a government policy in several European states. As such, it is sometimes synonymous with the first wave of European colonization.
The Adventurer is a novel by Finnish author Mika Waltari, published in 1948. It is a fictional tale of a young Finnish man, Mikael Karvajalka (Hairy-foot), set in 16th century Europe. Mikael is portrayed as an intellectual but rather naive person. Beginning life as an orphan bastard, he pursues a better social position with help of friendly people and by means of theological studies, but ends up drifting along through historical events across Europe rather than being able to steer his life himself.
The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, also known as the Conquest of Peru, was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 168 Spanish soldiers under conquistador Francisco Pizarro, along with his brothers and their indigenous allies, captured the Sapa Inca Atahualpa in the 1532 Battle of Cajamarca. It was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting but ended in Spanish victory in 1572 and colonization of the region as the Viceroyalty of Peru. The conquest of the Inca Empire, led to spin-off campaigns into present-day Chile and Colombia, as well as expeditions to the Amazon Basin and surrounding rainforest.
Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics. Gnome was one of the most eminent of the fan publishers of SF, producing 86 titles in its lifespan — many considered classic works of SF and Fantasy today. Gnome was important in the transitional period between Genre SF as a magazine phenomenon and its arrival in mass-market book publishing, but proved too underfunded to make the leap from fan-based publishing to the professional level. The company existed for just over a decade, ultimately failing due to inability to compete with major publishers who also started to publish science fiction. In its heyday, Gnome published many of the major SF authors, and in some cases, as with Robert E. Howard's Conan series and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, was responsible for the manner in which their stories were collected into book form.
The Incas were most notable for establishing the Inca Empire which was centered in modern day South America in Peru and Chile. It was about 2,500 miles from the northern to southern tip. The Inca Empire lasted from 1438 to 1533. It was the largest Empire in America throughout the Pre-Columbian era. At the peak of the Inca Empire, it was the largest nation in the world and to this day is the largest native state in the western hemisphere. The Inca civilization was located from north to south of the western hemisphere of South America. The Inca state was known as the Kingdom of Cuzco before 1438. Over the course of the Inca Empire, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate the territory of modern-day Peru, followed by a large portion of western South America, into their empire, centered on the Andean mountain range. However, shortly after the Inca Civil War, the last Sapa Inca (emperor) of the Inca Empire was captured and killed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule. The remnants of the empire retreated to the remote jungles of Vilcabamba and established the small Neo-Inca State, which was conquered by the Spanish in 1572.
Diego de Almagro II, called El Mozo, was the son of Spanish conquistador Diego de Almagro and Ana Martínez, a native Panamanian Indian woman.
Space Viking is a science fiction novel by American writer H. Beam Piper, set in his Terro-Human future history. It tells the story of one man's search for his wife's murderer and its unexpected consequences. The story was originally serialized in Analog magazine, then published by Ace Books in 1963.
"The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" is a science fiction novelette by Roger Zelazny. Originally published in the March 1965 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it won the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novelette and was nominated for the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction.
The Nine Wrong Answers, first published in 1952, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr which does not feature any of his series detectives. It is an expansion of Carr's 1942 radio play "Will You Make A Bet With Death".
The first European to discover Chile was Ferdinand Magellan, in 1520, following the passage in the Strait which bears his name on a wall, at the southern tip of Latin America. Following the conquest of Aztec Empire by Hernán Cortés between 1518 and 1521, a new wave of territorial expansion occurs in the direction of the Inca Empire from 1532. This is done by Francisco Pizarro. The conquest of part of Chile started from 1535. This conquest is in a particular context and results in a partial settlement of the Spaniards in today's Chile.
Gordon MacCreagh was an American writer.
Columbia Publications was an American publisher of pulp magazines featuring the genres of science fiction, westerns, detective stories, romance, and sports fiction. The company published such writers as Isaac Asimov, Louis L'Amour, Arthur C. Clarke, Randall Garrett, Edward D. Hoch, and William Tenn; Robert A. W. Lowndes was an important early editor for such writers as Carol Emshwiller, Edward D. Hoch and Kate Wilhelm.
All the White Spaces is an alternate history, horror and supernatural novel by English writer Ally Wilkes. It is her debut novel and was first published in the United Kingdom in January 2022 by Titan Books. It is about a trans man who joins an expedition to Antarctica in 1920, where he is tormented by supernatural apparitions.
