In four zany episodes, the unflappable detective Manning Draco travels the 35th-century galaxy to tackle a variety of insurance frauds, scams, and con men. In the process, he encounters bizarre-looking aliens from different planets, woos the most alluring humanoid females, is almost forced to wed a crocodilian princess, competes in futuristic games, and finally overcomes his rivals to win the affection of the fairest damsel in all of outer space. Three further adventures in the Manning Draco series await the reader of volume 2, Whistle Stop in Space. Kendell Foster Crossen, a mainstay of the...

Great Fomalhaut Manning Draco is back In Once Upon a Star, the interstellar insurance detective tackled a variety of weird con men and scammers throughout the 35th-century Galactic Federation. Now he returns in three further adventures, as a government agent sent to foil an anti-Federationist plot. The concluding story features a spoof of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and reveals how Manning became the only Terran to develop a secondary mind shield against the telepathic powers of other races in the Federation. Kendell Foster Crossen, a mainstay of the science fiction pulps in the 1950s,...