Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 6

# Museum Catalog Note

This June 1953 British edition of Astounding Science Fiction (Vol. IX, No. 6) contains the short novel "Un-Man" by Poul Anderson and the novelette "These Shall Not Be Lost" by E. B. Cole.

Anderson's story follows Donner, a secret operative conducting a daylight robbery from a 234-story agricultural corporation apartment building on the Illinois plains. Using a cord and climbing apparatus, Donner rappels eight stories down to reach a suspect apartment, defeats an alarm system, and opens a safe—triggering a concealed stun-gun that incapacitates him. He awakens in a decaying, abandoned Chicago tenement, held by six opponents who've deduced his false identity. The captors—including a gray-haired leader, a bearded man, a thin man, and a sharp-faced woman—interrogate him, determining he is an "Un-man," suggesting he operates outside established security agencies. The narrative emphasizes Donner's physical capability, his emotional connection to a woman named Jeanne and a child, and the mortal danger of his captivity in the vast, ruinous urban maze.