This was the second pair of the tête-bêche Ace Doubles I read from the set that I claimed from a giveaway bin, and like the first two-book combo I enjoyed it proved something of a mix in terms of quality. I started with Jack Williamson's Dome Around America, which I was eager to read given the author's stature as one of the grand masters of the genre. And while the novel couldn't be regarded as among its greatest works, it demonstrated by he is regarded among science fiction's greatest. In it, North America survives behind an energy shield called the Ring after a dwarf star rips away most of the Earth's atmosphere and water. With the rest of the planet an airless rock, the Americans assume they are alone, until a young member of the Ring Guard sees something that suggests that there might be life on the other side of the shield after all.

Like so much of the science fiction of the period Williamson's novel is very plot-heavy and character-light, with an interesting mix of period stereotypes and elements that still hold up well today. My opinion of it only increased after reading The Paradox Men, which was the second novel of the pair. Charles Harness's novel is set in an "Imperial America" in which a Society of Thieves remains the sole force of freedom and honor set against a corrupt regime of slaveholders. The protagonist is a gifted Gary Stu type with a mysterious past that only remains mysterious so long as you don't think too much about it, and the outcome is never really in doubt. Harness has quite a lot of interesting elements at play in the story, but they never cohere well thanks to the absence of any real investment in the characters. In this the author demonstrates the limits of the approach towards writing science fiction novels back then, in which plot-driven works succeed only if the plot itself is strong enough to overcome the weaknesses of the other elements that make for good fiction. ( )