Good stuff from a bygone era. Rousing adventures, with engineers and scientists as the heros. This would be classified as 'hard SF' these days, I suppose, although the tech is pretty dated (ie. tubes instead of sold-state devices). This isn't of the 'super science' and monsters genre that was all too common in those days, but rather it tries to show decent people fighting power-hungry corporations and individuals, while trying to good engineering work. The characters are pretty well written, and the plots are interesting. The 'bad guys' are sometimes nasty, and sometimes just self-serving, but pretty believable all-in-all. Best of all (at least for me), the stories follow an overall story-arc, and it all comes to a nice conclusion. There was a follow-up short story that was done some years later (maybe for a Campbell memorial collection?), but it was quite disappointing. Worth the time to read, especially for engineers and techies who will see that some organizational issues never change. ( )

Although published in paperback in 1967 this boo" is actually a compilation of short stories and novellas that appeared in Astounding Science Fiction from 1942 to 1945. As such, it is quite dated.

Some works from that time are still readable/enjoyable. For example, Asimov and Heinlein were creating works not long after that which are still saluted for their imagination. This work, however, suffers from the writer's inability to imagine the technical advances that would occur in the next half century. Consequently, the depictions of the amazing advances that could have entertained readers in the 1940s describe technology that seems primitive to the modern reader.

As for the "story," this novel suffers the same fate as most of those that consist of shorter works of fiction that are strung together to create a "novel." There is some consistency in the characters from chapter to chapter but since each chapter is largely self-contained there is little continuity or increase in tension or mystery as the reader progresses through the book. ( )