Biblio Library

Tarrano the Conqueror is a science fiction novel by American author Ray Cummings first published in 1930.

”In Tarrano the Conqueror is presented a tale of the year 2430 A.D. - a time somewhat farther beyond our present-day era than we are beyond Columbus' discovery of America. My desire has been to create for you the impression that you have suddenly been plunged forward into that time--to give you the feeling Columbus might have had could he have read a novel of our present-day life.

To this end I have conceived myself a writer of that future time, addressing his contemporary public. You are to imagine yourself reading a present day translation of my original text - a translation so free that a thousand little colloquialisms will have crept into it that could not possibly have their counterparts in the year 2430.

Apart from the text, you will occasionally find brief explanatory footnotes. Conceive them as having been put there by the translator.  If you find parts of this tale unusual or bizarre, please remember that we are living now in a comparatively ignorant day. The tale is not intended to be fantastic or full of new and strange ideas. I have used nothing but those developments of our present-day civilization to which we are all looking forward as logical probabilities—woven them into a picture of what life in America very probably will be five hundred years from now. To that extent, the tale itself is intended to be only a love story of adventure and romance—written, not for you, but for that future audience.” // Ray Cummings.

Ray Cummings (1887-1957) was an American author of science fiction, rated one of the "founding fathers of the science fiction pulp genre".

Having worked for Thomas Alva Edison, Ray Cummings was inspired by science’s possibilities and began to write science fiction.

His most highly regarded work was the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom published in 1922. His career resulted in some 750 novels and short stories, using also the pen names Ray King, Gabrielle Cummings, and Gabriel Wilson.