Customer Reviews

Beast Master's Ark

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Beast Master's Ark (2002) is the third SF novel in the Beast Master series, following Lord of Thunder. In this novel, the Arkship is trying to collect genes from every available Terran species. This collection started with unauthorized samples of species used by the Beast Master Command and expanded to include all Terran species. After the flaming of Terra by the Xiks, the Ark became an official instrument of the High Command.

Tani is the niece of Brion and Kady Carraldo, the couple running the Ark. She is the daughter of a Beast Master who died with his whole team on Trastor. Tani's mother went a little crazy after his death and she has told Tani that the High Command deliberately sent her father on a suicide mission. She also tells Tani that most Beast Masters send their beasts into combat without regard for their safety. Then her mother is killed by Xiks on Terra.

Tani has been working on the Ark for her aunt and uncle as a biogenetic technician, collecting gene samples and splicing gene sequences for various species. She is a good worker, but she still has an attitude toward Beast Masters. When an effort to obtain samples from one team on Fremlyn was mishandled and a beast died, Tani blamed the Beast Master rather than her uncle.

With this attitude of disdain and distrust for beast masters, Tani comes to Arzor to collect samples from the team of Hosteen Storm. While Hosteen had been scheduled to greet the Ark crew, a local rancher reports that something is killing his frawn and asks for help from the Beast Master and his team. Hosteen finds evidence of something eating both animals and men down to the skeleton. The natives are also suffering from its hunger and are totally mystified.

When he is not present at their arrival, Tani decides that Storm is being rude toward her aunt and uncle. However, she learns to like Brad Quade, Hosteen's stepfather. After Storm arrives and encounters Mandy, the paraowl, Tani reacts defensively and abruptly asks his business. Then she foists him off to Jarro, an unimaginative prig, who snubs the Beast Master and sends him on his way.

Although Tani continues to see Storm as an arrogant and self-centered man, Hosteen learns more about her and begins to treat her as a victim of war trauma. When the mobile lab vehicle arrives at the Quade ranch, Tani relaxes her defenses and spends much time with Logan Quade, Hosteen's half-brother. They go for long rides and Logan tells her about the Norbies and other aspects of Arzor.

Then Tani starts to have trouble sleeping. When her aunt gives her something to help her sleep, she has a full-blown nightmare. From her description, Hosteen suspects that she is picking up the feelings of both the victim and its killer.

Tani grows tired of being confined to bed and decides to go for a ride. She sees a young duocorn-bred filly in the corral and makes friends with the animal. The filly is entranced by the young women who displays no trace of fear. Tani presents the riding tack to the filly and then saddles her. Although the filly is slightly startled as Tani leaps into the saddle, Tani is a good rider and the filly is soon satisfied. They walk out of the corral and they speed up a little. Finally, Tani lets out a war whoop and they take off into the brush.

Tani, the filly, her coyotes and Mandy enjoy the ride and the subsequent meal. However, Tani drops off to sleep and wakes up too late to ride back; she doesn't want to chance riding the filly at night for fear of hidden holes and obstacles. They settle down for the night. The next day four Nitra warriors appear and Tani welcomes them to her camp.

No one has told Tani about the Nitras. Since she has been told that the natives are friendly, she treats them as such. They are impressed with her lack of fear and her respect for tradition; the leader tells the others to treat her with full courtesy. One young warrior, however, tries to ride the filly without permission and the filly kills him for his arrogance. The Nitra leader accepts the death as justified for the defiance of his orders and he invites Tani to accompany them back to his camp.

This novel is an action adventure, but is also a romance. Despite the poor start, Tani and Hosteen gradually develop a deep affection for each other. Of course, both doubt that the other reciprocates such feelings, but the intimate mental linkages soon resolve such doubts.

Highly recommended for Norton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high adventure, alien cultures and romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

...

About the new book: I have no problem with the plot focusing on a heroine rather than Hosteen Storm - Ms. Norton has done this before and very successfully, particularly in the "Warlock" series - but what a heroine! She is whiney, illogical, pouty, thoughtless, nasty,...and of course, a "troubled teen." The animals seem to love her but I can't figure out why. The very similar psychological trauma that took an entire novel to gradually resolve for Storm in the original novel is switched off for Tani by a hug and an "ah ha" moment. I always thought Hosteen was sexy but I had no idea that one hug from him could turn around 13 years of negative conditioning. What a guy! And we are expected to believe that a mature, strong, talented man of 26 is going to match-up with our childish Tani. No way.

The background and action of the book is fine - which is why it got 2 stars from me instead of one. The view of life in the Nitra village was the best part of the book - if a little too naive. "Death Which Comes in the Night" and the return of the Xik threat was a great plot device that could have taken more pages and built more tension but certainly worked.

The weakest part of the book, besides our so annoying lead character, was the dialogue. It was wooden. The short, simple declarative sentences must have been written for the virtually illiterate market. Maybe Tani wouldn't have been so bad a character if she hadn't been made to speak and think such dribble...

If you are expecting something like the Beast Master movies and TV series - don't. Although supposedly based off of Norton's original Beast Master novel, those were fantasy and these books are strictly SciFi. The only thing in common between them is a man that has bonded with a team of animals that work together to fight a common foe. The character development is stronger and more complex with no one perfect hero. It is a real joy to have a new story in this series.

The first two volumes in this set, The Beast Master and Lord of Thunder, are some of the best of Norton's science fictional work. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up this sequel, written with a co-author and many years after the original two, as my experience with this type of thing has not been good. I was pleasantly surprised.

The story picks up almost immediately after the events of Lord of Thunder, with Hosteen, Brad, Logan, and Dumaroy still much in evidence. A new major character, Tani, is introduced, child of another Beast Master, but mainly raised by her gene-scientist aunt and uncle. Her father was killed during the Xik war, and her mother, believing his death was a product of high command malfeasance and most beast master's attitude of treating their teams merely as tools, inculcated in Tani a belief that beast masters were not good people and that animals should never be used for war purposes.

The Ark, a gene bank of just about every Terran species, was put together during the war as a fail safe to ensure that life forms were not permanently lost. Tani and her aunt and uncle bring the Ark to Azor, both to collect new gene specimens and to possibly create mates for Hosteen's animal team. But on Azor, a strange set of killings, both of animal life and Norbie/humans, has started to occur, seemingly originating out of the Deep Blue, causing some Nitra tribes to move into the area around Hosteen's ranch. This sets the stage for Tani to become deeply involved in the Norbie tribal culture, and for her to find and use her own beast master talents to combat the threat.

Tani is a well realized character, with enough background to allow understanding of her feelings and positions, who changes during the course of the action in a believable manner. Hosteen also shows some development, to a mature man who knows at least some of what he wants out of life. The plot is comparatively simple, but there are certainly enough thrill points and dramatic moments to hold your attention, and it is not just another re-hash of plot lines Norton has used many times in the past.

Thematically this work does not tread much new or deep ground. Those familiar with Norton's work will certainly recognize her themes of the sacredness of life balanced by practical necessity, of the need for honesty and the room to be distinct individuals, of the value of cultural heritage, of respecting the beliefs of others, and the sometime power of belief in the unseen. This is not necessarily bad, as profoundness of philosophical thought in this work would have worked against its basic nature of being an adventure tale, and the level provided still gives enough food for thought to be useful.

The ending was perhaps a little too pat, with certain relationships easily predictable, and the primary mystery's resolution too easy given the earlier books in this series background. Also, I found myself missing any real involvement of the ancient vanished alien race that created the Sealed Caves that was so prominent in the first two books.

Not as strong as the first two books in the set, but a very nice addition, and has helped restore my faith in sequels written with co-authors.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

One of the very first Andre Norton titles I ever read, more than 25 years ago as a 7th grader, was a science fiction story titled "Lord of Thunder", featuring Beast Master Hosteen Storm and his furred or feathered companions Baku the eagle, Surra the dune cat and Hing the meerkat. It was set on a desert planet called Arzor peopled with a fascinating mixture of humans and horned natives called Norbies, along with their wilder, more formidable cousins the Nitra. I became hooked on Ms. Norton's writings, and have been a major fan of hers ever since. In fact, I just did an inventory of her books on my shelves, and counted exactly 100 of them. This includes "The Beast Master", the first of the Hosteen Storm series.

For those who do not know her work, Ms. Norton is positively legendary in the sci-fi/fantasy field. Born in 1912 as Alice Mary Norton, her first published work was (I think) in 1939. In those days, it was not considered proper for women to write science fiction, so she took on the pseudonym Andrew North and, later on, Andre Norton. Here we are now, some 64 years later, and she is still writing, at the age of 91. This in itself is most remarkable. True, her recent works tend to have co-authors, but this is true of younger writers as well. Anne McCaffrey, another of my favorites, comes immediately to mind.

Unlike some other reviewers on this page, I do not in any way believe Ms. Norton's mental abilities have declined one whit with age. With my brand-new paperback copy of "Beast Master's Ark" in hand, I began a marathon session, rereading the first two books of the series, then plunging directly into the new one. One thing that struck me at once was the stylistic continuity. I know Ms. Norton's voice very well, and it rang true. Co-author Lyn McConchie may have helped out, but I don't see how she could have done the bulk of the work. Not unless she's an excellent mimic.

Granted, given the forty years since "Lord of Thunder" came out, there have been some changes in the terminology used. None of the writers of the '50's and '60's, it seems, could have dreamed of the tremendous advances in computer technology and genetics which have developed in recent years. These, extrapolated into the future, play an important role in this new story. And "lasers" have replaced "slicers", but what of it?

One thing which has always struck me about Ms. Norton's work has been her emphasis on tolerance and harmony, both between the races of humanity and between humans and the other intelligent beings in the galaxy. She has to have been one of the very first writers in her field to delve into the (still very relevant today) themes of overcoming prejudices. Hosteen Storm is a full-blooded Navajo, and other major characters are also of Navajo or Cheyenne extraction. This plays an important role in all three of the "Beast Master" novels, as in how Native American spiritual values mesh with those of the Norbies. I cannot say for certain how accurate Ms. Norton's portrayal of these beliefs are; I can, however, say that she has always treated them with the utmost respect.

And what of Tani, the new female character introduced in "Beast Master's Ark"? I have no objections to her at all. She was completely believable and sympathetic. Both Storm and Tani have similar issues: they are in a sense incomplete. Both have their animal companions, but Storm has a problem: what to do about mates for Baku, Surra and Hing? Terra (Earth), their homeworld, has been fried to a cinder by the evil Xiks. Beast Masters have very close bonds with their companions. What will happen when these grow old and die, or meet with an untimely accident? This has happened already with Hing's mate, Ho. And Storm himself is a bit of a loner. Where will he find his counterpart?

Tani, on the other hand, is an orphan. Her father was a Cheyenne Beast Master, killed in the war against the Xiks, while her mother, of Irish extraction, driven past the bounds of sanity in her grief, has filled Tani with a hatred of all other Beast Masters, believing that they treat life callously, all too willing to throw it away for all the wrong reasons. Tani's aunt and uncle, master geneticists, have given her a home on the spaceship known as Beast Master's Ark, a vast, traveling repository of genetic material rescued from Earth just before its destruction. But they are absorbed in their work, and do not give her all the attention she needs.

Naturally, a crisis erupts on Arzor which will throw Storm and Tani together. Somehow they will have to overcome their differences, identify the nature of the inimical Death-Which-Comes-in-the-Night, and neutralize it. The idea for this ruthless killer, and the driving force behind it, is quite clever. But, as any veteran of 100 Andre Norton novels can testify, the ending in many ways is quite predictable. Still, it left me feeling good, and looking forward to the next installment in the series, "Beast Master's Circus".

In fact, I'm so taken by these characters that I may very well buy "Circus" in hardback, something I very seldom do.

My only regret is that the publishers haven't yet reissued the first two books of the series. For those who can't wait, there are always the used book stores.

Good ideas, good plot. But very sloppy writing. Lots of repitition, lots of exposition. It reads like a poorly edited draft. As a Sci Fi Grandmaster, Norton should know better.

Death-which-Comes-in-the-Night is as deadly a killer as anyone will find. The creature hunts its prey in darkness, but leaves no traces that it has dined except the totally cleansed bones of the victim. No one has lived to tell anything about this deadly scourge that eradicates populations with ease.

Death-which-Comes-in-the-Night assaults and feeds from the people of planet Arzor. Native American soldier Storm, who barely survived the Zik destruction of Earth, wants to stop the creature from razing his new home world and is willing to use his Beast Master skills to defeat the invincible foe. He needs help and it seems to have arrived with Tani, a genetic engineer from off-planet. Tani's mother does not want her daughter to follow the path of her deceased husband, a dedicated Beast Master; the lass grew up to hate Beast Masters, not knowing she is one of them. Only if these two individuals team up can they halt more than just a dangerous creature. They must try to stop a interstellar conspiracy that if successful will destroy all the human planets.

After a forty year void, Andre Norton (and Lyn McConchie) returns to her Beast master novels (see THE BEAST MASTER and LORD OF THUNDER) with the highly exciting BEAST MASTER'S ARK. The story line is loaded with action that never slows down though there are no major surprises as the tale plays out, as the audience would expect. Still readers will cheer the heroes and wonder what this Death-which-Comes-in-the-Night truly is. Fans will want a fourth book and the reprinting of the first two novels.

Harriet Klausner

Some of the continuations of Andre Norton's worlds have been gems, and some of them have been disappointments. Beast Master's Ark is the worst to date. The original Beast Master was one of my favorite books, with Norton's classic complexity of phrase, her textured and troubled main character, and her believable yet alien world. This sequel has simplistic language, startling to someone expecting Norton's turn of phrase, and no plot to speak of. The story never generates tension, and there is no climax. McConchie does a great job with characterization, but good characters are not enough. There must be some story. To add insult to injury, there are multiple typos, and some editing mistakes like tense switching that add to the general sense of a book that is not well written. I am sorry that Andre Norton put her name to this one.

This book is a sequel to the two books in the "Beast Master" series (NO resemblence to the movie/TV version, which is good) about the discharged stellar commando Hosteen Storm. As with many other recent books by Norton, she has a co-author here, who probably wrote most or all of the book.
In general the style of Miss Norton's old SF novels is kept too, but the writing seems a little different, and the dialogue less natural.
The attempt to update the technology with lasers instead of blasters does not work for me, sticking with the original would have been better. Similarly, the discussion of how Earth was "burned off" makes no sense.
The other break from the original is that the Xiks are back as a power, albeit a constrained one. I got the impression the Xik worlds were destroyed from the originals. In the final fight with the Xik "aper" in the first book Storm distracts him by taunting him that he is alone, his home destroyed. But I guess that wouldn't be PC these days.
Overall a decent read, but not as good as the original.

The reviewer below whose review labels this book schizophrenic really peeved me. First being 90 doesn't presuppose senility or incompetence, and I've never seen an aging male accused of that when they write until the age they leave this planet. Second she has written several novels within the last three years without a co-writer and which were fully up to her old style, which shows that the writer of that review didn't bother to do his homework. It has become remarkably common for even midlife or younger famous authors to take on writing companions or partners to keep up with audience demand, publishing schedules and/or find a way to get the overwhelming number of plots and characters coalesced. This was one of my very favorite series of her that I was overjoyed to see a sequel be published. Her characters have become part of my psyche's inner population. As others have said on this board some co-writers are more personal favorites than others, and we probably would all have different ones, so that says something too.