The Runaway Skyscraper

by Murray Leinster

Overview

Murray Leinster, an American author, wrote the science fiction short tale "The Runaway Skyscraper." A midtown Manhattan office building is where Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer, works in "The Runaway Skyscraper." Chamberlain is the only one who notices what is occurring as the sun abruptly starts to go backward in the sky. The structure is subsiding as a result of a fault in the granite beneath it, but rather than advancing across space, it is doing so backward. Chamberlain also understands that the seismic forces that caused the building to fall into the past can be used to bring it back into the present, but that doing so will require several weeks of hard work by the inhabitants of the building, who must prioritize taking care of their food in the interim. They can form hunting and fishing expeditions for the other occupants when Chamberlain persuades the head of a bank on the first level that he can get them back in time. Two weeks later, Chamberlain is prepared to put his strategy into action, and it succeeds! Reversing its previous time journey, the structure arrives back at the precise instant it left the present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798880919994
Publisher:	Start Classics
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Pages:	66
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.16(d)

About the Author

Murray Leinster was the pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American author of science fiction who lived from June 16, 1896, until June 8, 1975. More than 1,500 short stories, essays, 14 film scripts, hundreds of radio plays, and television plays were all written and published by him. Leinster was the son of George B. Jenkins and Mary L. Jenkins, he was born in Norfolk, Virginia; his father was an accountant. He dropped out of high school and started working as a freelance writer before World War I. When his first tale was published in H. L. Mencken's The Smart Set, he was two months away from turning 20. He served with the American Army and the Committee of Public Information both during and after the conflict. Science fiction author William F. Leinster was known for his prodigious output, and his 1956 short story "Exploration Team" earned him a Hugo Award. Men into Space and The Time Tunnel are only a couple of the science fiction TV shows that he created tie-in literature. He worked for the American Office of War Information during World War II. Both Galaxy Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction published his tales.