A Galaxy Trilogy, Vol. 1

Star Ways, Druids' World, and The Day the World Stopped

By: Poul Anderson, George Henry Smith, Stanton A. Coblentz

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

This collection of classic science-fiction stories from the 1950s and 1960s features three imaginative novellas.

Star Ways by Poul Anderson is an action-packed saga of the Nomads, space gypsies voyaging endlessly through the cosmos, and of Joachin of the starship Peregrine, who must act as both bait and trap for the deadliest foe the Nomads had ever known.

In George Henry Smith’s Druids’ World, a fantasy of a crumbling civilization with ties to King Arthur’s era, a strong leader, Adam Max McBride, faces off with both a corrupt ruling class and horrible nonliving polymorphs in a battle to save the homeland.

In The Day the World Stopped by Stanton A. Coblentz, a U.S. president and his advisors plan to use the ultimate weapon in "preventive war" against China, while a young senator who tries to avert the calamity gets unexpected help from space visitors.

©1956 Poul Anderson, Druids' World 1967 George Henry Smith, The Day the World Stopped 1968 Stanton A. Coblentz (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"Enjoyable from first to last. Fast-moving and convincing." (Astounding Science-Fiction)

Good Poul Anderson anyway...

Skyways was a very good novel. In contrast to what another reviewer wrote I felt that it was well written and quite exiting. Anderson had a poetic and romantic side which shows here. The ending sort of laid the ground for more to come, but as far as I know he never wrote a sequel. The Smith novel was OK and perfectly readable. The Coblentz was not so good. A bit boring. I liked his even older stories from the pulps better. They had more ”sense of wonder”.

so disappointed!

I am a devoted fan of science fiction , but was mislead into buying this one based on the fact that Poul Anderson was one of the authors, a classic master of the genre. Unfortunately, although "Star Ways" was the "best" of the three stories, this was largely incredibly slow and boring and far too "campy" for my tastes (being as how it was written in the early sixties). The second, "Druid's World", was more fantasy than SF, with sea serpents and medieval-like castles, and the third, "The Day the World Stopped", was so silly and preachy as to make it almost unbearable.
I hope some far better anthologies of SF short stories show up soon on Audible.