To the Stars

by Hubbard, L. Ron

• ISBN13: 9781592122202
• ISBN10: 1592122205
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-30
• Publisher: Galaxy Pr Llc

Summary

To the Stars is set in an uncertain, strife-torn future when the first starships of man are traveling across the galaxy-but not without extracting a terrible price from their crews. The novel's thought-provoking opening line, "Space is deep, Man is small and Time is his relentless enemy," powerfully captures the challenges facing the brave men and women of these vessels-people who must give up their former lives to explore space as entire generations and whole societies come and go on Earth, while those aboard remain essentially untouched by the passage of time in a vessel traveling at nearly the speed of light. This immersing, remarkably ruthless drama begins when Alan Corday, a naively unseasoned but brilliant young engineer, is shanghaied from the spaceport at New Chicago and taken aboard the Hound of Heaven bound for the stars. Commanded by a distantly mysterious but charismatic leader by the name of Captain Jocelyn, the Hound traverses the galaxy in an effort to keep open a lifeline between Earth and the first colonies in other star systems. But in the time span of a few crossings, conditions on Earth grow gradually worse and more dangerous, while those aboard are treated increasingly as outcasts and a threat to the powers that control the planet. Against his will, Corday is mercilessly driven by Jocelyn to use his untested intellect and abilities to serve the ship and the beleaguered space colonies. But as events unfold among the turbulent reaches of the galaxy, and during the perilous returns to Earth, Corday discovers a startling truth about his destiny that will give a whole new meaning to man's place in the stars.

Author Biography

L. Ron Hubbard's legendary writing career, one of the most widely read and enduring of our time, encompassed more than 250 novels, short stories and screenplays in every major genre including 19 New York Times bestsellers. Among his bestselling and classic speculative fiction trendsetters are Fear, Final Blackout, Ole Doc Methuselah and his crowning epic masterworks, Battlefield Earth and the ten-volume Mission Earth series, which together dominated American bestseller lists for 153 weeks. Though he was first and foremost a writer, his life experiences and travels in all corners of the globe were wide and diverse. His insatiable curiosity and personal belief that one should live life as a professional led to a lifetime of extraordinary accomplishment. He was also an explorer and ethnologist, mariner, pilot, filmmaker, photographer, philosopher, educator, composer and musician. Growing up in the rugged frontier country of Montana, Ron broke his first bronc and became the blood brother of a Blackfoot Indian medicine man by the age of ten. In 1927, when he was sixteen, he traveled to a still-remote Asia. The following year, to further satisfy his thirst for adventure and augment his growing knowledge of other cultures, he left school and returned to the Orient. On his trip, he worked as a supercargo and helmsman aboard a coastal trader that plied the seas between Japan and Java. He came to know old Shanghai, Beijing and the western hills at a time when few Westerners could enter China. He traveled more than a quarter of a million miles by sea and land while still a teenager and before the advent of commercial aviation as we know it. He returned to the United States in the autumn of 1929 to complete his formal education. He entered The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he studied engineering and took one of the earliest courses in atomic and molecular physics. In addition to his studies, he was the secretary of the Engineering Society and president of the Flying Club, and wrote articles, stories and plays for the university newspaper. During the same period he also barnstormed across the American Midwest and was a national correspondent and photographer for the Sportsman Pilot magazine, one of the most distinguished aviation publications of its day.