However, he was still writing novel length fiction at the time, and one of his greatest series, although nowadays it would almost be looked at as a complete throwback, was the Arcot, Wade and Morey space opera novels; The Black Star Passes, The Islands of Space, and Invaders from the Infinite. These three novels were indicative of the style that was popular at the time, a very straightforward, pulp style of writing that revolved solely around plot and ideas. The characters of Arcot, Wade and Morey were barely sketched in. You got no idea of their private lives, their likes or dislikes, and especially what their personal lives were. There were no personal entanglements, women were nonexistent in the novels. In fact, one quote goes to show how much in the past these novels were:

     “We can’t have a pretty girl christen this ship, that’s sure. A flying bachelor’s apartment christened by a mere woman? Never!”

Campbell did not waste any time, getting straight to the action and the super-science that permeates these three books. Although Campbell was well known as a meticulous editor, he makes some fairly egregious scientific errors, willfully violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics with the trio’s molecular motion machine. The first novel has Arcot and Morey battling an earthbound foe, a pirate named Wade who steals from airplanes in flight using an invisibility machine. Once they defeat the pirate, they actually get him to join the duo and they fly to Venus, where, again in stark contrast to what is currently known about the planet, they meet two warring civilizations. They join one side, almost without even thinking about it, and defeat the other side with their molecular motion ray, which tears any object apart with the energy of its own molecular movement. From there, they enter into an interstellar war with a civilization passing by in orbit around a dead star. In the war that follows, mile-long spaceships are turned into junk by tiny one-man fighters, and thousands, both human and alien, die in space without a second’s consideration. Such is the world of Arcot, Wade, and Morey. In the two succeeding novels, they fly to other stars, meet new civilizations, and inevitably end up allying with one and destroying another. The weapons and ships become bigger, until soon entire suns are being extinguished, and Arcot is able to channel the power of the universe into a machine that enables his thoughts to become reality. Hundreds of ships become dust with a mere flick of a switch, and soon he is vanquishing entire solar systems while traveling back and forth in both space and time. While many would look at such writing now as being an extension of an imperialist way of thinking that has no place in the modern world, back then it was almost demanded that the ‘good guys’ win and the evil aliens lose every time. And so they did.

These books are almost impossible to find, as the only form they have ever appeared in is the original pulp novels (see the picture above) or in a collected anthology that is probably only available in a specialty bookstore. Nevertheless, they are a true illustration of the pulp style that was so popular in an era where space travel was still a distant dream, and the complexities of the modern world lay far far away, especially to the young men and women who read the books and marveled at the stories within.