The novel “Alien Universe” by E.C. Tubb was published for the first time in 1952 under the pseudonym Volsted Gridban and reprinted in 2009 as “The Green Helix” under the author’s real name.
Caleb is the captain of his own cargo spacecraft, an old spaceship with which he manages to make some money despite the competition from big space corporations. He tries not to worry about the disappearance of various spaceships in hyperspace but the problem becomes important for him when Professor Armitage offers him the possibility of obtaining a huge profit if he finds his daughter, among the passengers of one of the missing spaceships.
Only one of the missing spaceships has been found but Professor Armitage claims that there are aliens at work attacking human spaceships. Caleb agrees to go on a journey to an entirely unknown destination that leads them into another universe.
E.C. Tubb is best known for his sagas, with the Dumarest and Cap Kennedy sagas making up the majority of his novels, but he also wrote standalone space operas throughout his career. They often had features typical of stories published in pulp magazines, and he usually wrote under pseudonyms. “Alien Universe” is a space opera that has some adventurous premise that is expected of a story written in the 1950s that the author develops in his own way.
In some ways, Caleb is an anti-hero, as he’s only interested in making some profit from interstellar commerce. Behaviors that are not exactly beyond reproach from an ethical and moral point of view are normal for him. He’s not exactly a lone wolf because his spaceship has a crew but he seems to be the type more at home in deep space than around people. Actually, the novel is short by modern standards, so the development of the characters is quite limited.
When Professor Armitage fails to convince Caleb with threats to go looking for his daughter and the spaceship she was traveling on when she disappeared, he succeeds by telling him about the treasure on the spaceship. Thus begins an adventure full of action and twists that takes the protagonists in the midst of serious dangers in a plot with tones that at a certain point turn to horror.
The author digs deep into the characters only concerning the exploration of the different reactions they have in dealing with the aliens. E.C. Tubb also captures the darker sides of human nature, in this case using them to add tension to an already intense storyline with everything happening at a very fast pace.
The adventurous side remains prevalent and it seemed to me well written even if some elements of the story show their age. In particular, today I couldn’t help smiling while reading that the engine that enables hyperspace traveling is monitored literally by ear with only a couple of strictly analog instruments that offer information on its operation together with the sound it produces.
This space opera also includes the best features of science fiction from those years. The story is full of sense of wonder with the setting in a future where interstellar travel is common but still hides some unknowns. E.C. Tubb literally creates another universe where there are aggressive aliens capable of traveling between universes to attack human spaceships.
“Alien Universe” is a high-level example of space opera with the characteristics of classic science fiction and is among E.C. Tubb’s standalone novels. For this reason, I recommend it to readers who appreciate adventurous science fiction stories with linear and intense plots.
