First published in the June 12, 1920 issue of Argosy, The Mad Planet was eventually to become one third of Murray Leinster’s fix-up novel The Forgotten Planet. But there were plenty of standalone republications too. It was, for instance, in the November 1926 issue of Amazing Stories – where it was published with this introduction by Hugo Gernsback:
It ran with this art (by Frank R. Paul):
Super Science and Fantastic Stories, December 1944:
Fantastic Novels Magazine, November 1948:
And now available as a LibriVox audiobook:
The Mad Planet
By Murray Leinster; Read by Roger Melin
4 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 2 Hours 46 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 6, 2011
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It is 30,000 years following dramatically changed climate conditions on earth which had let massive amounts of carbon dioxide belch from the interior of the planet into the atmosphere. Over the millenia this would have quite devastating effects on life as it had once been known. Much of the human and animal population would not survive the climate change, and indeed those few humans who did survive knew nothing of all which their predecessors had learned and built. Indeed, they knew not even of their existence. On the other hand insects and fungi would flourish over time. And so those few remaining humans were unknowingly at the very beginning of the building of a tribal society, which at the time of the story of Burl simply meant food and survival. And so it was Burl who chose to travel beyond his small tribal community in an effort to hunt for something new and different to hopefully impress Saya, the young female of his tribe to whom he felt a peculiar attraction. The Mad Planet is Burl’s adventure.
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[Thanks also to Betty M. and Barry Eads]
Posted by Jesse Willis