THIS MEANS WAR!

Episode #527 · Written by A. Bertram Chandler · Narrated by Scott Miller

An expedition to the Third Planet returns with fewer ships, fewer answers, and a report that refuses to fit old assumptions. What was once treated as a reliable source of resources has become a place where every move invites retaliation, and every encounter raises new doubts. The familiar has turned hostile, and no one can explain why with certainty.

As the surviving officer delivers his account, the situation becomes harder to ignore. Each loss follows a pattern that points to preparation, not chance. The opposition is no longer reacting—they are anticipating. Every tactic that once ensured safety now carries risk, and every delay gives the unseen enemy more time to close the gap.

Pressure builds as the council listens. This is no longer a question of whether something has changed, but how far that change has already gone. What lies ahead is not a distant possibility but an approaching reality, and the next decision will shape everything that follows.

A. Bertram Chandler crafts a story driven by tension and command responsibility, where the weight of a single recommendation carries the future of an entire civilization. “This Means War!” draws its strength from the slow tightening of that pressure, as certainty erodes and urgency takes its place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A. Bertram Chandler was born in England in 1912 and later became an Australian citizen, building a writing career that ran alongside his years at sea. His fiction appeared in Astounding Science Fiction and Analog, and he became widely known for his John Grimes series, a sequence of spacefaring novels and stories that mirror naval command structures in a science fiction setting.

Chandler served as a merchant marine officer before becoming a full-time writer, and that experience shaped the tone of his work. His stories often focus on command decisions, chain of authority, and the consequences that follow when judgment is tested under pressure, elements that are central to “This Means War!”

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to This Means War! by A. Bertram Chandler — a classic science fiction tale of rising tension and a looming interplanetary conflict.

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The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.8 million listens.

Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.

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