OPERATION SPRINGBOARD

As eighteen-year-old Chester Pawling listens to a lecture to a lecture by Dr. Havensson, famous space explorer, his excitement, mounts. As a result of an accident sustained as a child, he must walk on crutches, but his eager mind follows every daring step that will lead man into new universes. Consequently, from a question he asks at the end of the lecture, Chester is invited to join an American mission to Venus. When the group arrives on the planet they are confronted by a group of hostile Europeans who come pretty close to subjugating the American unit, but Chester saves the day, though he again injures his crippled leg. Due to an emergency operation and the peculiar atmospheric conditions in the space ship, the leg heals, and a proud and erect Chester walks down the gangplank to face the cheering crowds. Every conceivable device of science fiction crops up in this story to be combined here with a streamlined version of a miracle healing. The scientific background is reasonably handled, though the reader who is mature enough to cope with it might be a little bored with the simple minded personal story.