![]() Dust jacket of first hardcover edition | |
Author | Fletcher Pratt |
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Cover artist | Richard Powers |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | 1953 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback) |
Pages | 148 pp |
The Undying Fire is a science fiction novel by Fletcher Pratt. It was first published in both hardcover and paperback by Ballantine Books in 1953. The novel has also been translated into Italian. [1] The book is an expansion of the author's novella "The Conditioned Captain," [1] originally published in the magazine Startling Stories in the issue for May, 1953. [2]
The story involves an interstellar expedition to steal a neptunium motor from the planet Danaan, punctuated by various political and romantic complications.
Groff Conklin, writing in Galaxy Science Fiction , called the book "tenuous," rating it "far below the best that Fletcher Pratt can do." He noted that "[t]he astropolitics encountered are involved and the various love motifs energetic, but neither do much to rescue the book from its basic weakness--lack of inventiveness." [3]
The book was also reviewed by the editors of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , August 1953, an anonymous reviewer in Startling Stories , January 1954, P. Schuyler Miller in Astounding Science Fiction , February 1954, Damon Knight in Science Fiction Adventures , March 1954, and L. Jerome Stanton in Future Science Fiction , March 1954. [1]