50s Sci Fi book: “Superbomb” sends town to far future with Sun a red giant star [duplicate]












10
















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  • Book about a town that is transported by an explosion into a freezing desert

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I once read a book about 40 years ago that was from the early 1950s.



The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out and the city is hit.



The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant star and humanity is long gone.



Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.










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marked as duplicate by user14111 story-identification
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21 hours ago


This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.























    10
















    This question already has an answer here:




    • Book about a town that is transported by an explosion into a freezing desert

      1 answer




    I once read a book about 40 years ago that was from the early 1950s.



    The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out and the city is hit.



    The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant star and humanity is long gone.



    Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.










    share|improve this question









    New contributor




    James Corley is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
    Check out our Code of Conduct.











    marked as duplicate by user14111 story-identification
    Users with the  story-identification badge can single-handedly close story-identification questions as duplicates and reopen them as needed.

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    21 hours ago


    This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.





















      10












      10








      10


      1







      This question already has an answer here:




      • Book about a town that is transported by an explosion into a freezing desert

        1 answer




      I once read a book about 40 years ago that was from the early 1950s.



      The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out and the city is hit.



      The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant star and humanity is long gone.



      Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.










      share|improve this question









      New contributor




      James Corley is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.













      This question already has an answer here:




      • Book about a town that is transported by an explosion into a freezing desert

        1 answer




      I once read a book about 40 years ago that was from the early 1950s.



      The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out and the city is hit.



      The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant star and humanity is long gone.



      Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.





      This question already has an answer here:




      • Book about a town that is transported by an explosion into a freezing desert

        1 answer








      story-identification books aliens






      share|improve this question









      New contributor




      James Corley is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.











      share|improve this question









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      James Corley is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question








      edited yesterday









      Jenayah

      17.2k488123




      17.2k488123






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      asked yesterday









      James CorleyJames Corley

      533




      533




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      New contributor





      James Corley is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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      Check out our Code of Conduct.




      marked as duplicate by user14111 story-identification
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      21 hours ago


      This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.









      marked as duplicate by user14111 story-identification
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      21 hours ago


      This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
























          2 Answers
          2






          active

          oldest

          votes


















          11














          The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton. First published in the magazine Startling Stories (July 1950), and then printed as a book in 1951, and reprinted on various occasions since. In fact, I just now discovered that you could get an e-book version of it for Kindle, via Amazon's website, as part of a package deal which includes 15 other stories by the same author, conveniently collected in one big "Megapack," all for a mere 55 cents (U.S. money).



          I own one of the paperback reprints, with the cover art shown below (which may ring a bell for you?), but I don't have my copy on hand to let me quote passages from it, so I'm going to settle for quoting some material from a lengthy review on Goodreads to demonstrate that you are thinking of the same story I read some years ago.



          enter image description here



          You said:




          The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a
          Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out
          and the city is hit.



          The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted
          millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant
          star and humanity is long gone.




          The review posted by a guy called "Sandy" on the book's Goodreads page says, in part:




          The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if
          you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise,
          you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is
          introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a
          burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful
          June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is
          that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working
          site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise
          undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before
          the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is
          exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet.
          And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that
          the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a
          gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the
          stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by
          analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the
          impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a
          rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's
          future!




          You said:




          Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.




          Sandy on Goodreads says:




          In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the
          League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed
          pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien
          shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating
          the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much
          against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at
          World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's
          representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and
          plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he
          knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the
          futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy
          bomb" that can revive a dying planet....




          Put these points of similarity together with your recollection that the story dated back to the early 1950s, and I don't think there's any room for doubt!






          share|improve this answer





















          • 1





            If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago













          • Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

            – user14111
            2 hours ago



















          7














          That sounds like "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, 1951. The town had something to do with advanced weapons development, which was why they believe they were targeted by a first strike. A quote to check: "That furry brute is a technician?" They eventually revive the Earth by heating up the core of the planet.






          share|improve this answer
























          • Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

            – Lorendiac
            yesterday











          • That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

            – James Corley
            yesterday











          • @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago


















          2 Answers
          2






          active

          oldest

          votes








          2 Answers
          2






          active

          oldest

          votes









          active

          oldest

          votes






          active

          oldest

          votes









          11














          The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton. First published in the magazine Startling Stories (July 1950), and then printed as a book in 1951, and reprinted on various occasions since. In fact, I just now discovered that you could get an e-book version of it for Kindle, via Amazon's website, as part of a package deal which includes 15 other stories by the same author, conveniently collected in one big "Megapack," all for a mere 55 cents (U.S. money).



          I own one of the paperback reprints, with the cover art shown below (which may ring a bell for you?), but I don't have my copy on hand to let me quote passages from it, so I'm going to settle for quoting some material from a lengthy review on Goodreads to demonstrate that you are thinking of the same story I read some years ago.



          enter image description here



          You said:




          The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a
          Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out
          and the city is hit.



          The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted
          millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant
          star and humanity is long gone.




          The review posted by a guy called "Sandy" on the book's Goodreads page says, in part:




          The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if
          you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise,
          you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is
          introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a
          burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful
          June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is
          that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working
          site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise
          undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before
          the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is
          exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet.
          And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that
          the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a
          gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the
          stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by
          analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the
          impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a
          rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's
          future!




          You said:




          Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.




          Sandy on Goodreads says:




          In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the
          League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed
          pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien
          shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating
          the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much
          against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at
          World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's
          representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and
          plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he
          knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the
          futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy
          bomb" that can revive a dying planet....




          Put these points of similarity together with your recollection that the story dated back to the early 1950s, and I don't think there's any room for doubt!






          share|improve this answer





















          • 1





            If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago













          • Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

            – user14111
            2 hours ago
















          11














          The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton. First published in the magazine Startling Stories (July 1950), and then printed as a book in 1951, and reprinted on various occasions since. In fact, I just now discovered that you could get an e-book version of it for Kindle, via Amazon's website, as part of a package deal which includes 15 other stories by the same author, conveniently collected in one big "Megapack," all for a mere 55 cents (U.S. money).



          I own one of the paperback reprints, with the cover art shown below (which may ring a bell for you?), but I don't have my copy on hand to let me quote passages from it, so I'm going to settle for quoting some material from a lengthy review on Goodreads to demonstrate that you are thinking of the same story I read some years ago.



          enter image description here



          You said:




          The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a
          Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out
          and the city is hit.



          The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted
          millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant
          star and humanity is long gone.




          The review posted by a guy called "Sandy" on the book's Goodreads page says, in part:




          The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if
          you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise,
          you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is
          introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a
          burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful
          June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is
          that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working
          site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise
          undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before
          the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is
          exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet.
          And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that
          the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a
          gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the
          stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by
          analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the
          impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a
          rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's
          future!




          You said:




          Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.




          Sandy on Goodreads says:




          In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the
          League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed
          pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien
          shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating
          the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much
          against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at
          World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's
          representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and
          plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he
          knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the
          futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy
          bomb" that can revive a dying planet....




          Put these points of similarity together with your recollection that the story dated back to the early 1950s, and I don't think there's any room for doubt!






          share|improve this answer





















          • 1





            If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago













          • Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

            – user14111
            2 hours ago














          11












          11








          11







          The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton. First published in the magazine Startling Stories (July 1950), and then printed as a book in 1951, and reprinted on various occasions since. In fact, I just now discovered that you could get an e-book version of it for Kindle, via Amazon's website, as part of a package deal which includes 15 other stories by the same author, conveniently collected in one big "Megapack," all for a mere 55 cents (U.S. money).



          I own one of the paperback reprints, with the cover art shown below (which may ring a bell for you?), but I don't have my copy on hand to let me quote passages from it, so I'm going to settle for quoting some material from a lengthy review on Goodreads to demonstrate that you are thinking of the same story I read some years ago.



          enter image description here



          You said:




          The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a
          Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out
          and the city is hit.



          The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted
          millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant
          star and humanity is long gone.




          The review posted by a guy called "Sandy" on the book's Goodreads page says, in part:




          The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if
          you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise,
          you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is
          introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a
          burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful
          June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is
          that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working
          site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise
          undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before
          the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is
          exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet.
          And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that
          the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a
          gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the
          stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by
          analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the
          impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a
          rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's
          future!




          You said:




          Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.




          Sandy on Goodreads says:




          In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the
          League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed
          pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien
          shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating
          the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much
          against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at
          World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's
          representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and
          plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he
          knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the
          futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy
          bomb" that can revive a dying planet....




          Put these points of similarity together with your recollection that the story dated back to the early 1950s, and I don't think there's any room for doubt!






          share|improve this answer















          The City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton. First published in the magazine Startling Stories (July 1950), and then printed as a book in 1951, and reprinted on various occasions since. In fact, I just now discovered that you could get an e-book version of it for Kindle, via Amazon's website, as part of a package deal which includes 15 other stories by the same author, conveniently collected in one big "Megapack," all for a mere 55 cents (U.S. money).



          I own one of the paperback reprints, with the cover art shown below (which may ring a bell for you?), but I don't have my copy on hand to let me quote passages from it, so I'm going to settle for quoting some material from a lengthy review on Goodreads to demonstrate that you are thinking of the same story I read some years ago.



          enter image description here



          You said:




          The premise was a scientist working on a "Superbomb" (described as a
          Hydrogen bomb) in a rural American town/city. An atomic war breaks out
          and the city is hit.



          The bomb doesn't destroy the town; instead the town is catapulted
          millions of years into the future where the Sun is a growing red giant
          star and humanity is long gone.




          The review posted by a guy called "Sandy" on the book's Goodreads page says, in part:




          The novel strains the reader's credulity in its opening pages, but if
          you can get past them alright, and buy into the central premise,
          you'll be home free. In "City at World's End," the reader is
          introduced to the small city of Middletown, in Anywhere, U.S.A.; a
          burg of some 50,000 souls going about their business on a beautiful
          June morning. What the citizens of Middletown don't know, however, is
          that its local industrial laboratory is actually the secret working
          site of a group of atomic physicists, which makes the otherwise
          undistinguished locale a prime target in a potential war. And before
          the citizenry is even aware of it, a so-called "super atomic" is
          exploded right over their heads, knocking one and all off their feet.
          And that's all! As the populace dusts itself off, it is noticed that
          the air is now very much colder, and that the sun has changed to a
          gloomy-looking red ball in the heavens. The moon is now enormous, the
          stars are visible in the daytime sky, and the lab scientists, by
          analyzing those changed star patterns, soon come to realize the
          impossible truth: The city of Middletown has somehow been blown, via a
          rift in the time-space continuum, millions of years into Earth's
          future!




          You said:




          Aliens find the town and help the folk out somehow.




          Sandy on Goodreads says:




          In the book's next section, men from outer space, representing the
          League of Stars, arrive near New Middletown in response to its radioed
          pleas for assistance; these Earthmen of the future and their alien
          shipmates help get New Middletown going but then insist on evacuating
          the 20th century community to another, more livable world, much
          against the wishes of the old-fashioned folk. Thus, in "City at
          World's End"'s next section, it is up to Kenniston, as the city's
          representative, to go to the galaxy's capital world near Vega and
          plead his neighbors' case before the Board of Governors. And before he
          knows it, he has also become embroiled in a plot involving the
          futuristic scientist Jon Arnol, who claims to have invented an "energy
          bomb" that can revive a dying planet....




          Put these points of similarity together with your recollection that the story dated back to the early 1950s, and I don't think there's any room for doubt!







          share|improve this answer














          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer








          edited 3 hours ago

























          answered yesterday









          LorendiacLorendiac

          11.8k241115




          11.8k241115








          • 1





            If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago













          • Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

            – user14111
            2 hours ago














          • 1





            If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago













          • Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

            – user14111
            2 hours ago








          1




          1





          If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

          – user14111
          yesterday





          If you want quotes from the story, feel free to copy them from my old answer, or you could get them from the magazine version which is available at archive.org. (I read the story for the first time in that 1950 Startling Stories, though I later bought a copy of the paperback).

          – user14111
          yesterday













          @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

          – Lorendiac
          3 hours ago







          @user14111 Thank you for the offer, but I don't think I need to add quotes at this point. I feel uncomfortable with swiping chunks of text from your old Answer just to beef up mine a bit. I need to work on fixing a psychological blind spot -- last night it never occurred to me to search the site for previous Answers about the same book. For some reason, that only tends to occur to me with Story-ID Questions that I recognize as asking about fairly recent books (within the last 30 years, say), or such popular classics as Herbert's Dune or Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

          – Lorendiac
          3 hours ago















          Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

          – user14111
          2 hours ago





          Your choice. As I understand it, Stack Exchange posts are the property of the company that owns Stack Exchange, copying text from a Stack Exchange answer is no different from copying text from Goodreads or Wikipedia,

          – user14111
          2 hours ago













          7














          That sounds like "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, 1951. The town had something to do with advanced weapons development, which was why they believe they were targeted by a first strike. A quote to check: "That furry brute is a technician?" They eventually revive the Earth by heating up the core of the planet.






          share|improve this answer
























          • Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

            – Lorendiac
            yesterday











          • That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

            – James Corley
            yesterday











          • @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago
















          7














          That sounds like "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, 1951. The town had something to do with advanced weapons development, which was why they believe they were targeted by a first strike. A quote to check: "That furry brute is a technician?" They eventually revive the Earth by heating up the core of the planet.






          share|improve this answer
























          • Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

            – Lorendiac
            yesterday











          • That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

            – James Corley
            yesterday











          • @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago














          7












          7








          7







          That sounds like "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, 1951. The town had something to do with advanced weapons development, which was why they believe they were targeted by a first strike. A quote to check: "That furry brute is a technician?" They eventually revive the Earth by heating up the core of the planet.






          share|improve this answer













          That sounds like "City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton, 1951. The town had something to do with advanced weapons development, which was why they believe they were targeted by a first strike. A quote to check: "That furry brute is a technician?" They eventually revive the Earth by heating up the core of the planet.







          share|improve this answer












          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer










          answered yesterday









          stolenmomentstolenmoment

          811




          811













          • Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

            – Lorendiac
            yesterday











          • That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

            – James Corley
            yesterday











          • @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago



















          • Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

            – user14111
            yesterday











          • Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

            – Lorendiac
            yesterday











          • That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

            – James Corley
            yesterday











          • @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

            – Lorendiac
            3 hours ago

















          Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

          – user14111
          yesterday





          Beat me to it! See my answer to this old question: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/161580/…

          – user14111
          yesterday













          You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

          – user14111
          yesterday





          You can read the story here archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v21n03_1950-07#page/n11/…

          – user14111
          yesterday













          Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

          – Lorendiac
          yesterday





          Oops! Looks like stolenmoment posted his Answer while I was tracking down and pasting in a copy of the cover art that I remember from my own copy, and so forth. Beat me by a few minutes!

          – Lorendiac
          yesterday













          That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

          – James Corley
          yesterday





          That's it!!Thank you, guys ... especially for the Kindle tip!

          – James Corley
          yesterday













          @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

          – Lorendiac
          3 hours ago





          @user14111 I said I wouldn't swipe paragraphs from your old Answer, but I did decide to incorporate your link to the original magazine version into my answer. I did it for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across this Question at some later date and doesn't want to spend 55 cents to read the story on a Kindle.

          – Lorendiac
          3 hours ago



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