_The FORGOTTEN PLANET_ By MURRAY LEINSTER [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright had been renewed.] ACE BOOKS A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. THE FORGOTTEN PLANET Copyright, 1954, by Murray Leinster An Ace Book, by arrangement with Gnome Press, Inc. _The Forgotten Planet_ is based upon _Mad Planet_ and _Red Dust_ (copyrighted Amazing Stories 1926, 1927), and _Nightmare Planet_ (copyrighted 1953 by Gernsback Publications Inc.). To Joan Patricia Jenkins NATURE'S MISLEAD MADHOUSE! Beneath dense gray clouds through which no sun shone lay a forgotten planet. It was a nightmare world of grotesque and terrifying animal-plant life. Gigantic beetles, spiders, bugs and ants filled the putrid, musty earth--ready to kill and devour anything in sight. There were men amidst this horror--men who cringed and ran from the ravening monsters and huddled in the mushroom forests at night. Burl was one of these creatures. But one day inspiration hit Burl. He would find a weapon--he would fight back. And with this idea the first step was taken in man's most desperate flight for freedom in this most horrible of all worlds. But it was only a first step. About the characters in this book: This is something of an oddity among fiction stories, because some of its characters may be met in person if you wish. Down at the nearest weed-patch or thicket you are quite likely to see a large and unusually perfect spider-web with a zig-zag silk ribbon woven into its center. Its engineer is the yellow-banded garden spider (_Epeira Fasciata_) whose abdomen may be as big as your thumb. I do not name it to impress you, but to suggest a sort of science-fiction experience. Take a bit of straw and disturb the web. Don't break the cables. Simply tap them a bit. The spider will know by the feel of things that you aren't prey and that it can't eat you. So it will set out frightening you away. It will run nimbly to the center of the web and shake itself violently. The whole web will vibrate, so that presently the spider may be swinging through an arc inches in length, and blurred by the speed of its swing. You are supposed to be scared. When you are alarmed enough, the spider will stop. That spider, very much magnified, is in this book with crickets and grasshoppers and divers beetles you may not know personally. But this is not an insect book, but science-fiction. If the habits of the creatures in it are authentic, it is because they are much more dramatic and interesting than things one can invent. Murray Leinster _PROLOGUE_