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| Cover art by Emsh |
| TEN YEARS TO DOOMSDAY Chester Anderson Michael Kurland | Rating: 5.0 High |
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| New York: Pyramid Books, May 1964 | ISBN ? | 158pp. | SC | $0.50 | |
Many years from now, the galaxy is at peace, united in a Federation composed of many alien races — until the day a Federation light cruiser on routine patrol is approached by an unknown vessel which, with no warning or attempt at communication, opens fire with an array of formidable weapons. Luckily for our side, the light cruiser has even more formidable armaments. The intruder is destroyed, and the cruiser — the first Federation ship to face hostile action in a millennium — runs for home to make its report.
Analysis of its report and other information reveals that the galaxy has only ten years to prepare for a massive onslaught — and it needs fifteen.
But there is one chance — a chance so desperate it looks absurd on its face, and also requires the strictest secrecy because it violates a noninterference directive.
That chance involves sending three men to the frontier planet Lyff, a planet roughly at the stage of sixteenth-century Earth in development. Their mission: with the physician/observer already on Lyff, they are to bootstrap its technological progress during that decade to Federation levels, in hopes that it will provide a bulwark against the invaders that allows the Federation the time it needs to get ready.
"From internal combustion to spaceflight is usually a matter of from eighty to a hundred and twenty five years. Your job is to reduce the total period of development to less than a decade." – Page 24 |
In the end, despite obstacles on the planet and within the Federation, the team members succeed. In fact they succeed entirely too well.
There are some quibbles that might be raised about the plot. For example, after team member John Harlen takes a sword though the shoulder in a fight with Lyffan bravos, he seems to recover entirely too easily. For another, none of the other races making up the Federation figure into the narrative. And, despite the cover art, the weapon that slices off the tip of the alien scoutship that lands on Lyff is not handheld, but mounted on a wheeled vehicle. But those quibbles aside, Ten Years to Doomsday succeeds very well at being what it intends: a cracking good entertainment yarn. Full marks.
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