The red brain by Donald Wandrei
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The red brain by Donald Wandrei is a science fiction short story written in the early 20th century. It envisions the far future as cosmic dust smothers the universe, leaving only the star Antares and its inhabitants—sexless, sentient Brains—while one aberrant Red Brain becomes the focus of a final, catastrophic bid to defy extinction. In the tale, the stars fade until Antares alone remains, sealed beneath a crystal dome where immense Brains
communicate by thought and devote themselves to science and survival. After ages of futile efforts to repel the dust—lightning storms in space, colossal magnets, explosive maelstroms, vacuum machines on distant stars, even engineered Super-Brains—the Great Brain convenes a last council in the Hall of the Mist. Silence reigns until the Red Brain declares it has found an infallible solution, exalting itself in a rapturous chant. With the assembly’s minds held open in hope, it unleashes lethal will-impulses that instantaneously dissolve the other Brains into lifeless pools, extinguishing the final hope of the universe as madness triumphs over a dying cosmos. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Wandrei, Donald, 1908-1987 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Rankin, Hugh, 1878-1956 |
| Illustrator | Senf, C. C. (Curtis Charles), 1873-1949 |
| Title | The red brain |
| Original Publication | Indianapolis: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1927. |
| Series Title | Produced from Weird Tales, October 1927 (Vol. 10, No. 4.). |
| Credits | Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction |
| Subject | Life on other planets -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77823 |
| Release Date | Jan 31, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 358 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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