This Island Earth (novel)

This Island Earth

Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author	Raymond F. Jones
Cover artist	Robert Johnson
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Shasta Publishers
Publication date	1952
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	220
OCLC	62875599

This Island Earth is a 1952 science fiction novel by Raymond F. Jones. It was first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories magazine as a serialized set of three novelettes by Raymond F. Jones: "The Alien Machine" in the June 1949 issue, "The Shroud of Secrecy" in the December 1949 issue, and "The Greater Conflict" in the February 1950 issue. These three stories were later combined into the novel entitled This Island Earth in 1952. The novel became the basis for the 1955 science fiction film This Island Earth.

The story revolves around a race of aliens who, in recruiting humans for a group called "Peace Engineers", are actually using Earth as a pawn in an intergalactic war. Both the novel and the film contain some intriguing concepts that had not previously been considered by most science fiction of the time, but while the movie starts out in a very similar manner to the novel, it quickly goes its own way.

At Ryberg Instrument Corporation, engineer Cal Meacham has received a quartet of bead-like devices that are meant to replace the condensers that he ordered. Thinking it a joke, he tests them anyway and finds that they work just as well as what he had ordered. He orders more and with them gets a catalogue filled with electronic apparatus completely unfamiliar to him. His interest piqued, he orders the parts necessary to build what the catalog calls an interociter.

When he turns the completed interociter on he confronts a man who invites him to join a group called Peace Engineers. Knowing that he would not refuse, the group sends a pilotless airplane to pick him up and take him to a small village/factory complex in a valley north of Phoenix, Arizona. He is greeted by Dr. Ruth Adams, a psychologist who seems to be afraid of something. Dr. Warner, the man he spoke with over the interociter, tells him that he will be in charge of the interociter assembly plant. He also meets Ole Swenberg, who was his roommate in college.

Six months later he meets the Chief Engineer, Mr. Jorgasnovara, who describes the Peace Engineers in terms reminiscent of the Babbage Society in Michael F. Flynn’s novel, In the Country of the Blind. Later he overhears Jorgasnovara’s thoughts through the interociter in his laboratory. One night he and Ruth discover that the interociters are being shipped out, not by truck, but by spaceship. Again overhearing Jorgasnovara’s thoughts, Cal learns that the Peace Engineers are involved in an interstellar war.