The Hand of Zei

Blurb

The Hand of Zei is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, the second book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. The book has a convoluted publication history.
It was first published in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction as a four-part serial in the issues for October, 1950-January 1951. The text was redivided into two parts for its first publication in book form by Avalon Books, appearing as the separate volumes The Search for Zei and The Hand of Zei. To facilitate the new division, de Camp wrote a new ending for the first and a new beginning for the second to briefly recapitulate the portion of the story already told. The two parts were then reissued together in paperback by Ace Books in 1963, back to back and inverted in relationship to each other, as an "Ace Double". The Ace versions were slightly abridged by the author. The first half of the novel was published in the UK by Compact Books as The Floating Continent in 1966. A restored text bringing both segments back together was finally published by Owlswick Press in 1981.