Subspace Explorers — E.E. "Doc" Smith

Imagine a future in which the creative energies of the West have all been turned to space -- to the exploration and development of dozens of new worlds -- leaving behind on Earth only a fat, sluggish, decadent remnant of former greatness.

Imagine now a Dictator's world, tough, disciplined, ruled by a single absolute monarch, the Nameless One of the East.

The only possible result: raging conflict, conflict on the Earth and conflict in outer space, conflict as only the Grand Master of science-fiction “space opera” could have written it.