
When a seasoned enforcer known only as Joe Prantera accepts a job from the ruthless mob boss Big Louis, the night ends in a sudden flash that throws him beyond the familiar streets of his world. He awakens in a sterile facility where the walls seem to shift and the people speaking to him carry an unsettling precision. As he struggles to make sense of his surroundings, the mystery deepens—who is the calm doctor offering aid, and why does the city outside the window defy every law of physics he knows?
Caught between a criminal past that demands retribution and an alien environment that feels more like a puzzle than a prison, Prantera must decide whether to fight his way back to the streets he knows or to trust the enigmatic strangers promising explanations. The novel blends gritty noir dialogue with a disorienting, almost dream‑like sci‑fi setting, keeping listeners on edge as alliances blur and every answer seems to raise new questions. It’s a tense, atmospheric tale of survival, identity, and the strange price of a gun that can be hired by anyone.
Language
en
Duration
~29 minutes (27K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2008-01-11
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1917–1983
Known for big-idea science fiction with a practical, satirical edge, this prolific American writer explored politics, class, and economics long before those themes became common in the genre. His stories were especially popular in magazine science fiction from the 1950s through the 1970s.
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