A "slug" is the general term for any unguided (or semi-guided) projectile.  Slugthrowers are as old as our family:  apes evolved with rocks in their hands.  Mechanically-launched slugs appear in the Late Pleistocene to Holocene in the form of spearthrowers, slings and bows; complex mechanically-launched slugs were first developed by the Ancient ( Read more... )

An updated version of my 2007 review of Edmond Hamilton's epic A Conquest of Two Worlds (1932), including a chronology and copious notes, is up on Fantastic Worlds here.  I invite commentary.

 Conquest of Two Worlds
(c) 1932
by Edmond Hamilton
Chapter 1:  Drake's Expedition
Jimmy Crane, Mart Halkett and Hall Bumham were students together in a New York technical school in the spring when Gillen's flight changed the world. Crane, Halkett and Bumham had been an inseparable trio since boyhood. They had fought youthful foes together, had ( Read more... )