The Avenger

"The Avenger" by Stuart Fleming is a science fiction story set in the early 1940s about a man, Peter Karson, and the survival of humanity. After waking from a coma, Karson finds Earth threatened by aliens with the power to painfully merge and harm humans. He builds a spacecraft, "The Avenger", to travel into space, planning to transform himself into a superman ready to combat the aliens. Through mutation, he begins a new, intelligent race. However, Karson is faced with the choice of loyalty for his home, Earth, or kinship to his new creations. Unexpectedly, his creation lacks emotional intelligence and chooses not to return to Earth. The themes include challenging traditional values, the definition of humanity, and the moral issues about the nature of evolution.