Los primeros sonidos llegaron a medianoche. Era un plañidero gemido de una voz ignota perdida en la vasta extensión del espacio sin límites. Al cabo de pocas horas el mundo entero había escuchado la extraña música extraterrestre… y comenzó el pánico.
¿Eran los sonidos una petición de ayuda? ¿De quién? ¿De dónde? ¿O acaso eran una orden demasiado terrible para pensar en ella? Nadie lo sabía. Y el horror creció en millares de millones de mentes humanas…

¿Pero cómo podía el hombre, que todavía no había llegado a la luna, hacer frente al desafío de las estrellas? Y horas después el segundo mensaje alcanzó los oídos de un mundo impotente para reaccionar… Y los días de la Tierra estaban contados.

Enjoyed it a lot - it felt like the fifties, but the science fiction was excellent... ( )

A signal from outer space reaches Earth and is broadcast over the radio, interrupting Joe Burke just as he is about to propose to his secretary and longtime friend, Sandy Lund. As it turns out, the signal is comprised of sounds resembling those of a flute. They are eerily familiar to Burke from a recurring dream he had as a child after his uncle gifted him with a number of relics found in a Cro-Magnon cave.

Though disappointed, Sandy returns to Burke's engineering office where he plays a recording he made of the sounds years before and they are an exact match to those from space. Soon after, astronomers identify the source of the signal as an asteroid on a course that will bring it close to Earth.

Without sufficient evidence, the United States and Russia interpret the signals as a threat. The two major powers compete, and fail, to send a craft to the meet the aliens. However, Burke designs and constructs a small ship with the assistance of a yacht builder named Holmes and a taciturn electronics expert named Keller. Sandy's sister Pam joins the team to assist with tracking orders and receiving shipments.

Early in their testing of a reactionless drive, an explosive mishap draws the attention of a reporter, two government agents, and the police. Burke tries to persuade them that he is building an advanced bomb shelter. They are not convinced and suspect Burke and company of conspiring with the aliens. A few days later, the police return to arrest them, but Burke launches the ship with Holmes, Keller, and the Lund sisters aboard.

A week and a half later, they reach the asteroid and fly the ship through a tunnel, which closes behind them. Lights, breathable air, and an artifcial gravity system are activated, allowing the intrepid voyagers to leave the ship. To their dismay, they find the asteroid devoid of life.

Burke and his team explore the interior and learn that it is a garrison, long abandoned by its troops. They also interpret the flute-like signal as a beacon ordering the ancient soldiers to return in order to defend against an approaching enemy. Who were the soldiers and where did they go? More importantly, can Burke and company learn how to operate the garrison in time to defend Earth against this powerful and unknown threat from interstellar space?

If you can ignore Leinster's cardboard characterizations—such as the whiny and emotionally clueless Burke and the stereotypical capricious, husband-hunting women—The Wailing Asteroid is an enjoyable light-hearted adventure with a healthy dose of plausible 1960s science and engineering. ( )

What an odd stew. Published in 1960, the plot and male characters would have fit right in a 1930s pulp. Like other early SF, there's an undeniable draw to the initial mystery set forth -- what is this signal from space and why has it been a part of Burke's dreams since childhood? How does he know how to invent a "negative inductance" space drive in his garage? Leinster plays fair and answers those questions, along with a trip to an asteroid long abandoned by some alien race, a lot of speculation about what happened and invading fleet of aliens bent on destroying our solar sytem. Short though the novel is, it would have been better even shorter, as Leinster hammers every plot point home several times.

A few ingredients make this forgotten novel interesting, not counting that it was filmed by Hammer, from a script by John Brunner, that changed at least half of the story.

First, there is the care with which Leinster develops the engineering of the space drive, and an impressively prescient passage where Burke describes to his crew mates the kinds of information useful for creating a private code to communicate with the US government. Unfortunately, this level of care is dropped when a techno-babble is needed to save the solar system at the end.

Second is the portrayal of the two female characters. The social roles and conventions are solidly pre-1950s: hey are "the girls" and referred to by first name, Sandy and Pam, while the other three crew members are "the men" and referred to by their last names, Burke, Holmes, and Keller. Sandy's arc begins when Burke is about to propose to her at the beginning of the book, and completes when she gets her man at the end. Yuck. And yet, throughout the book Sandy, and to a lesser extent Pam, are presented as clearly intelligent, and often far more observant and deductively astute than the men.

The third interesting and oddest element is the opening pages of Chapter 7. Earlier in the book, in classic Space Race fashion, the Russians launch a manned probe to the asteroid. Little more is said about this, until Chapter 7 describes the lone astronaut aboard that craft, as he flies from one refueling station to the next, on a mission that clearly is taking him nowhere but into the emptiness of space. Then it's back to our heroes. An odd but moving sidebar.

Recommended for those interested in the evolution of SF. ( )

This little, nearly 60 years old novel was actually a delightful surprise in my reading endeavours venturing into classic SF, especially after the Basses and Aldanis I read last year.
First, it's an exciting, gripping story about the lone scientist (who isn't really a scientist in this case) saving mankind from incomprehensible dangers. Screw the actual science, it was plausible enough to appease my suspension of disbelief.
Second, Leinster is actually good at characterisation. His hero is a sympathetic weirdo, his female characters are more than lampposts, and his depiction of one of the first computer geeks of literature is frighteningly close to what nowadays is accepted as an established lifestyle.
Third, women. It deserves an extra mention, especially in regards to the era, but two of the five main characters are women, and they're actually a backbone of the story. Especially Sandy is amazing, she doesn't take shit from her boyfriend when he's being a weirdo and carries totally her own weight.
Fourth, romance. It's there, but so far in the background that it's really not. The book starts with a borked marriage proposal, and the first kiss happens in the very last sentence. Inbetween, we know that there's something, but all characters are so preoccupied with saving their own and humanity's existence that there's really no time for feelz - just like it should be. I wish modern authors would follow that example more often.
Fifth, background and worldview. Not much, but every now and then Leinster sprinkles in little reflections on the state of mankind, and they're strangely clear-sighted , especially as he doesn't make the mistake to position the story or his characters in a cold war scenario. And it seems the world hasn't changed much between 1960 and 2018:

It was not a comfortable settling-down, because the consequences were not likely to be pleasant. Earth was beginning to be crowded, and there were whole nations whose populations labored bitterly with no hope of more than subsistence during their lifetime, and left a legacy of equal labor and scarcer food for their descendants. There were hydrogen bombs and good intentions, and politics and a yearning for peace, and practically all individual men felt helpless before a seemingly merciless march of ominous events. At that time, too, nearly everybody worked for somebody else, and a large part of the employed population justified its existence by the length of time spent at its place of employment. Nobody worried about what he did there.

In the richer nations, everybody wanted all the rewards earned for them by generations gone by, but nobody was concerned about leaving his children better off. An increasingly smaller number of people were willing to take responsibility for keeping things going. There'd been a time when half of Earth fought valiantly to make the world safe for democracy. Now, in the richer nations, most men seemed to believe that the world had been made safe for a four-card flush, which was the hand they'd been dealt and which nobody tried to better.

Then the signals came from space. They called for a showdown, and very few people were prepared for it. Eminent men were called on to take command and arrange suitable measures. They immediately acted as eminent men so often do; they took action to retain their eminence. Their first instinct was caution. When a man is important enough, it does not matter if he never does anything. It is only required of him that he do nothing wrong. Eminent figures all over the world prepared to do nothing wrong. They were not so concerned to do anything right. ( )