Cosmic Encounter -

A. E. van Vogt, Alfred Elton Van Vogt

Carroll & Graf Pub

1990

254 páginas

8h 28m

ISBN-13: 9780881846775

A space vehicle from Earth's distant future is trapped in the l8th Century, lands in the Caribbean Sea, and its crew boards the pirate ship Orinda. The unwitting pirate, Captain Fletcher, must cope with the uncanny problems posed by time-displacement, an alien "cabin boy;' captives sentenced towalk the plank who drown but do not die, and an ominous battleship that has sneaked in from a different point in the galaxy. How the "cabin boy" struggles to restore his ship, fight off the enemy battleship, and prevent Earth's history from being irrevocably changed, makes for a wonderful adventure that blends futuristic time-travel with the swashbuckling excitement of l8th-Century pirates.

A swashbuckling pirate yarn with a twist; no, a time-travel yarn with aliens causing the time dilation. All that and more; a fun read from beginning to end. Captain Nathan Fletcher, a British aristocrat-turned-pirate, is bent on his usual pursuits in the Caribbean: overtaking vessels, stealing cargo, tossing women prisoners overboard. The arrival of a mysterious “cabin boy” from out of the high seas is taken in stride, but when the Orinda is overtaken and boarded by a group of robots, it’s the cabin boy who communicates with the bronze-bright creatures. The crew of the Orinda makes it to England, but there, Fletcher finds an alien ship has docked and, despite his disfavor, cannot stay his impulse to warn the Queen. But how is it that he feels as if he has lived this time before? Or no, that he has given up the pirate life and lived peacefully in Italy for 50 years? Strange things are happening and Fletcher must take decisive action before the aliens forever change his England.