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When the Red King Woke
| Author: | Joseph E. Kelleam |
| Publisher: |
Avalon Books, 1966 |
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| Book Type: | Novel |
| Genre: | Science-Fiction |
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Synopsis
The shining pillar was nine or ten feet high and about a foot across. The top of it was flattened and rounded out. It was like a great golden pin thrust into the center of a shell. Within, Tom Blake saw a globe of reddish-gold that was neither solid nor gas. It began to move up and down the golden spike. At times, it flattened itself into a disc, or took the shape of a cylinder, or even a cone; then it became a globe again, and he wondered why it didn't tear itself loose from the spike that held it.
The Red King was a living core of light with a reddish halo. From this distance, it seemed little more than a cloud. When the cloud moved and changed its shape, a nucleus of reddish gold moved and changed with it.
They said that if your mind could contact the mind of this sleeping being they called the Red King, your dreams would come true, your wishes be granted. The Red King slept, but one day he would awake, and die--and those who could not contact him, and hated the minority who could, said that when he awoke, all the stuff of his dreams would vanish.
But what was this world? And what was Tom Blake doing here?
He and Flo DeLee had been out in the quadrangle at Squantley College that night, the night Tom was about to propose and give her the ring with the tiny diamonds that he had saved for for so long. Flo told him of a dream she had had, about a Red King who granted wishes...
Tom laughed, but he didn't laugh long. Three bell-like notes sounded, and a bubble seemed to come down from the tower of the college. It absorbed Flo and she was gone. And when Tom ran after her, another bubble captured him.
Tom found himself in a strange world where a bewildering variety of people, some of them Earthmen or the descendants of Earthmen, lived in a medieval-like civilization, and plotted against a minority who were able to contact the Red King and obtain their hearts' desire. They rode giant cats, instead of horses, and many things were strange-yet, so much was familiar. Tom was captured by Gathun of the Tiger Heart, Grand Marshal of the Marches and leader of the enemies of Eldon, the realm of those who could talk to the Red King. Every newcomer to his world was to be brought before the Red King, to see if contact could be made.
What chance did these semi-barbarians among whom Blake had fallen have against the super-science of Tulp and the folk of Eldon? And why did they hate the people of Eldon, when Tulp was not only willing but eager to share all the benefits he had obtained from the Red King with the entire world?
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