Medal of Honor

by Dallas McCord Reynolds

Genres: Classics; Science Fiction

Synopsis

Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was, and continues to be, a popular American science fiction writer. He wrote under many names including Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, and others. Reynolds was the first author to write an original novel based upon the 1966-1969 NBC television series Star Trek. The book was called Mission to Horatius and was written in 1968. "Medal of Honor" is considered one of the best of his many stories. In it, Captain Don Mathers, a less-than-heroic interplanetary scout during an interstellar war with powerful aliens, is approached by two businessmen with a scheme to fake an enemy engagement and win him the Galactic Medal of Honor, the "highest honor of which man has ever conceived". This medal is awarded to very few, since the bearer of the medal "can do no wrong". That would then make him above the law and able to accomplish certain unsavory projects with impunity. Things do not go exactly the way he or his associates hoped and, in a strange way, Captain Mathers learns that the motto associated with the medal is actually true.

Publisher: Start Classics

Print pages: 27