The Forbidden Dream

Hallmeyer, Destroyer of Worlds #1

By: Ross Rocklynne

Narrated by: Peter Kuhn

Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

A golden age pulp series by Nebula Nominee Ross Rocklynne!

For the first time since their original appearance in the legendary pulp Planet Stories in the early 1940s, here are the three novelettes that launched the adventures of Sidney Hallmeyer, interstellar agent - one of the era's most trail-blazing series.

In essence, Hallmeyer is a scientific secret agent with a license to kill - entire cultures and worlds! If needed or if so ordered, when they stand in the way of Earth's territorial expansion and dream of empire. In fact, it is utopias Hallmeyer is most often instructed to terminate - with prejudice. In Exiles of the Desert Star, for instance, his assignment, as the original magazine blurb announced, is murder. Murder among the asteroids. Hallmeyer had orders to transform small Elron's brisk atmosphere to krypton. It meant killing that last gallant handful of royal exiles as surely as if his hand held a ray-gun.

Hallmeyer's charm and saving grace, and the surest sign of his creator's penetrant insight, is his conscience. For unlike, say, James Bond, and long before him, Hallmeyer is aware of the dubious nature of his profession.

The Hallmeyer series was clearly cut from such contrapuntal cloth that it is easy to understand why it made a big stir in the science fiction world of the time. Indeed, this two volume audiobook is a major science fiction event.

©2008 PageTurner (P)2020 Wordwooze Publishing

How have I never heard of this before?

OMG, what a freaking awesome set of tales. It is a series of stories centered on an intergalactic assassin who works for humanity. His one job? Wipe out alien species. Correction, entire alien species. It really doesn't matter if they are naughty or nice because they are going to get genocided into oblivion. Hallmyer ought to be codenamed Agent Apocalypse, because when he shows up unless you have escape pod Ala' Kal-El you are pretty much dead.

This is a pulpy passel of fun. I have no idea how I never heard of this before now, but I need more in my life. This was too much fun. Is that possible? Kuhn really plays this to the hilt.

Just didn’t work for me

The narrator was ... somehow just not suited to the story. And the stories were ... disturbing. It was a series a short stories- all with the same main character. Each one was a tale set on a planet or moon in our solar system. Each time it was a different set of aliens who lived there. And each time, he destroyed them. Even if they weren’t aggressive or anything. It just seemed overly dark and depressing. I’m sure it had political commentary of some sort, but I didn’t get it.

I received this audiobook for free in exchange for a fair review.

Delightful listening.

If you love Lovecraft books, you will definitely like this too. Very intriguing, not too much technical babble, a dash of humour here and there, making The Forbidden Dream a treat to the ears. I highly recommend this if sci-fi is your genre.