The Chronicles of the Star Kings. Star Kings Return to the Stars: Two Classic Novels in One Volume (Venture Science Fiction)

These were two of my favorite science fiction novels when I was a teenager... It's great to rediscover them again, some 30 years later! Hamilton creates a larger-than-life future world, 200,000 years from now, when humanity has spread out and colonized the galaxy.... He writes of fabulous crystalline cities lying under gleaming white suns, huge starships traversing space and fighting titanic battles among alien races and worlds... His language is fairly flowery and overwrought at times (at least to modern eyes/ears), but very engaging... He has a real skill at painting an image of an alien world or city with his words. This is an excellent example of how writers around the time of World War II saw humanity's future amongst the stars... a very entertaining read!