Gradient Books › First English Editions › Captain Mors
A giant comet is hurtling toward Earth—and the world has begun to tear itself apart before it even arrives.
As astronomers predict an unavoidable collision, panic spreads across the globe. Riots erupt, governments struggle to maintain order, and millions become convinced that only weeks remain before the end of the world. In desperation, a European ruler turns to the one man capable of learning the truth: Captain Mors.
Aboard the Meteor, Mors races into space to intercept the approaching destroyer. But what appears from Earth to be a single immense comet proves stranger than anyone imagined. A dark, solid world travels ahead of a vast fiery mass—the separated nucleus and blazing envelope of a colossal double comet.
Mors lands on the mysterious dark body so that Professor van Halen can determine whether Earth can still escape destruction. Then disaster strikes. A hidden explosive device tears open the hull of the Meteor, leaving the spaceship crippled just as the fiery half of the comet begins racing toward them.
With the two celestial bodies on the verge of a catastrophic reunion, Mors and his crew must repair their shattered vessel under an increasingly hellish sky—and escape through the narrowing space between the comets before they are crushed in the collision.
First published as part of the pioneering German science-fiction adventure series Der Luftpirat und sein lenkbares Luftschiff, Caught Between the Comets combines cosmic catastrophe, sabotage, speculative astronomy, and desperate space adventure in a remarkably early vision of interplanetary exploration.
This Gradient Books edition presents the story for modern English-language readers in a new complete translation.
