Customer Reviews

The Book Of Skaith Volume 3: The Reavers Of Skaith (Planet Stories Library)

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To read Leigh Brackett is to return to a simpler era of science fiction - and I say that with all respect and affection. Brackett was a prolific writer for science fiction pulp magazines in the 40's and 50's, especially for "Planet Stories," which promised "Strange Adventures on Other Worlds." Though written later, Brackett's Skaith series lives up to that motto. It is a straightforward adventure story: a man on a quest traversing an alien world, encountering strange foes, making allies, fighting to survive. There's no post-modern psychological baggage, no mind-blowing quantum technology, just clean, simple story-telling.

The Skaith books follows the exploits of Eric John Stark, "the Dark Man" - a character Brackett used in several short stories in the pulp era - as he tries to rescue his foster-father, Simon Ashton, who has been taken captive on the backwater world of Skaith. Stark is a great pulp hero, a man raised by semi-human natives on Mercury, who has learned to cover his animal instincts with a veneer of civilization. He is smart, strong, and without fear, and when he needs to fight - which is often - he unleashes the savage within.

Skaith is an old world orbiting a dying sun, growing ever colder. The encroaching cold has reduced a once-technological society to a medieval state, ruled by the Wandsmen. When starships arrive, the inhabitants of Skaith discover for the first time that they are not alone in the universe, and some dream of leaving. This threatens the Wandsmen's power, however, so they abduct the off-world representative, Ashton, which draws in Stark and sets powerful events in motion.

Reavers is the third book in Brackett's Skaith trilogy. Though sold as separate books, they are a continuous story, so you'll need to begin with Ginger Star and Hounds of Skaith before reading Reavers.

For the modern science fiction reader, it is satisfying to return to the genre's roots, and experience what first attracted readers: a strange world, a brave hero, and lots of fighting and action. I almost feel guilty that I enjoyed Skaith as much as I did.

As with the previous entries in this series, Leigh Brackett does not cheat her many enthusiastic readers. The final showdown between the Dark Man, Eric John Stark, and the rulers of Skaith comes about in this rousing volume. By turns dark, violent, and spellbinding, The Reavers of Skaith is a triumph of the imagination that brings the chronicles of the world of Skaith to their end. Brackett's roots in both pulp science fiction and pulp noir mystery are on display as she takes us on a trip with Stark and his allies across a dying world to save its inhabitants from certain doom. Unlike others in its genre though, the series ends on a bittersweet note very palpable to the reader. It is a fitting conclusion to Brackett's trilogy, her writing career, and sadly her own life. Thank you for writing these books, Ms Brackett. I will treasure them always even as I laud you for the ingenius work you gave us in your career.

I found the reading of the trilogy The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, and The Reavers of Skaith to be extremely compelling and difficult to set aside. I would always be pulling the pages to see what happens next. The final book in the trilogy had me a little perplexed, though, as there was but a single reference to the word "reavers" in the entire 157 pages of this story. Throughout, I kept wondering when they were going to start to use the term "reavers" frequently in referencing who the reavers were, similarly to how the term "hounds" was used in the second book of the trilogy. After reading the entire story, I returned to search the book for that single reference and found it in Chapter 17. It does give a fleeting hint as to who the reavers are, but the reader needs to pick up on that subtle phrase. The statement, found about two-thirds through the chapter, says "Ashton had chosen his words carefully. He kept the meassage short, accenting the urgency of his request for a rescue ship. He mentioned Penkawr-Che and his reavers."