Book description
In the second book in the Legion of Space series, Jay Kalam, Hal Samdu
and Giles Habibula fight The Cometeers, an alien race of energy beings
controlling a "comet" which is really a giant force field
containing a swarm of planets populated by their slaves. The slave races
are of flesh and blood, but none are remotely similar to humans. The
Cometeers cannot be destroyed by AKKA, as they are incorporeal from the
Universe's point of view and exist for the most part in an alternate
reality. The ruling Cometeers feed on their slaves and literally absorb
their souls, leaving disgusting, dying hulks in their wake. It is said
that they do so, as they were once fleshly entities themselves of
various species. Hence, the ruling Cometeers keep other intelligent
beings as slaves and "cattle." They fear AKKA, though, as it
can erase all their possessions. John Stewart 'Jack' Williamson was
born in Arizona in 1908 and raised in an isolated New Mexico farmstead.
After the Second World War, he acquired degrees in English at the
Eastern New Mexico University, joining the faculty there in 1960 and
remaining affiliated with the school for the rest of his life.
Williamson sold his first story at the age of 20 - the beginning of a
long, productive and successful career, which started in the pulps, took
in the Golden Age and extended right into his nineties. He was the
second author, after Robert A. Heinlein, to be named a Grand Master of
Science Fiction by SFWA, and by far the oldest recipient of the Hugo
(2001, aged 93) and Nebula (2002, aged 94) awards. A significant voice
in SF for over six decades, Jack Williamson is credited with inventing
the terms 'terraforming' and 'genetic engineering'. He died in 2006.
