Tarrano the Conqueror presents a tale of the year 2430 A.D. — a time somewhat farther beyond our present-day era than we are beyond Columbus’ discovery of America. My desire has been to create for you the impression that you have suddenly been plunged forward into that time — to give you the feeling Columbus might have had could he have read a novel of our present-day life.


Ray Cummings was one of the Golden Age scifi writers who had stories published nearly every month in the pulps. Some of them were great and some were less than great, but that was the same with all of them. Tarrano was one of his greats. It was more a political thriller than a scifi, though, and since it was written in the 1930s, it foreshadowed what was going on in Germany, and I am not the only one who saw quite a bit of Hitler in Tarrano. A wonderful read for anyone, even those who are not too fond of scifi. Cummings was a great writer.