Dark Planet [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles W. Sasser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

Kadar San, a human-Zentadon crossbreed distrusted by both humans and Zentadon, is dispatched with a Deep Reconnaissance Team (DRT) to the Dark Planet of Aldenia. His mission: use his telepathic powers to sniff out a Blob assault base preparing to attack the Galaxia Republic. Dominated by both amazing insect and reptile life forms, and by an evil and mysterious Presence, Aldenia was once a base for the warlike Indowy who used their superior technology to enslave the Zentadon and turn them into super warriors to deploy against humans. The DRT comes under attack not only from savage denizens of the Dark Planet, but also from the mysterious Presence, which turns team member against team member and all against Kadar San. The Presence promises untold wealth and power to any member of the team unscrupulous enough to unleash the contents of a Pandora's box-like remnant of Indowy technology. The box's possessor poses a greater threat than the entire Blob nation, for he is capable of releasing untold horrors upon the galaxy. Kadar San finds himself pitted against a human killer, an expert sniper, in a desperate struggle to save both the Republic and the human female he has come to love. Like all Zentadon, however, Kadar San cannot kill without facing destruction himself in the process, and he has no choice but to kill. In order to save the galaxy, Kadar San must face the truth . . . no one will leave the Dark Planet .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Abundant action, a fast pace and an unusual ethical dilemma help redeem this otherwise mediocre and derivative first foray into military SF from prolific military author Sasser (Detachment Delta, etc.). The Republic of Galaxia sends an expedition to the Dark Planet Aldenia, which is crawling with monstrous insects and reptiles, to deal with a threat from the alien Blobs. The expedition includes Kadar San, a half-human, half-alien telepath, a type that will be quite familiar to Star Trek fans. Kadar San and company face many hazards on landing, including the lindal, a powerful device left behind by the Indowy, who once held Kadar San's race, the Zentadon, as slaves. And Zentadons become lethally dangerous when under stress—which promptly rises as the Galaxia soldiers fight temptation, the local wildlife and terrain, and one another. At the climax, as Kadar San and the team's sniper, "Blade" Kilmer, stalk each other through the jungle, Kadar San faces a terrible choice: if he kills Kilmer and goes berserk from his own raging hormones, he may endanger his surviving comrades; but if he sacrifice his own life, the sniper will kill everyone, including the female sergeant with whom Kadar San has fallen in love. Readers may find the resolution of this conflict a trifle facile.
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About the Author

Charles W. Sasser has been a full-time freelance writer/journalist/photographer since 1979. He is author of nearly 50 published books, reprinted in several different languages, including Spanish, French, German, Russian, and Chinese, and has published more than 2,500 magazine articles and short stories. He lives and writes on a ranch near Chouteau, Oklahoma, with wife Donna Sue, where he rears and trains registered quarter horses.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Medallion Press (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932815139
• ISBN-13: 978-1932815139
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,604,387 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars very poor copy, April 9, 2005

By 

Jhn1 "John Palmer" (Largo, Fl) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

For pretty much the same story, similar characters with the same powers, aliens species with the same names, same problems for the hero, same equipment, same opponent, ect...

Read the Baen book Hero(ISBN#0-7434-8827-X)published about a year earlier
another reader gathered up the particulars, so I will use their post for this.
An alien race in DP : Indowy
The main character is an outsider who joins a human Deep Recon Team (DRT)
The main character is psychic.
he main character is incapable of killing.
The main character uses a 'punch gun'
The DRT infiltrates an alien held planet.
The enemy aliens are nicknamed 'blobs'
An ancient artifact is found, called a 'lindl'
The main character must fight one of his team members, a sniper, for possession
of the artifact.
read the copy, or read the original, by Mike Williamson. Also, in the original, there is an entire series that has many of the books available at the publishers website in full, for free.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Original and inspiring, April 12, 2005

By 

Leo Champion (Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

That this book was by Charles Sasser is an obvious warning sign to begin with: the man is known for many things, but not for his writing ability. His work can be generally expected to be of dismally low quality, but Dark Planet plumbs a new depth even for him.

More than two years ago, he was approached to co-write a book with John Ringo, set in Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata universe. His attempt, however, sucked; after repeated consultations he was unable to improve upon it, despite the fact that Ringo had told him basically what to write. He was dropped from the project after his incompetence was firmly proven, and the job given to Michael Z. Williamson, who wrote the book known as Hero, which was published in July 2004.

However, unwilling to accept that he sucked, Sasser then attempted to pawn off the rejected filling-in of someone else's plot as his own work; as this book, Dark Planet. However, he knew that it would be critically necessary to change certain elements so that he wouldn't be pinpointed as having stolen Ringo's work without paying or crediting him. Rather than changing trademark issues ("Indowy", "blobs", and so forth, all appear in their original context in the book), Sasser chose instead to alter details of realism. In the inference that his readers are no smarter than he is, and possibly to show general contempt for the "geeky" SF genre, Sasser instead chooses to differentiate his work from Ringo's by displaying an apparent third-grade science education.

Among other things, Sasser's hero is an alien with deep romantic desire for a human; he has ignored the fact that it is biologically impossible for aliens to feel lust or love for humans, let alone breed with them. Further, Tau Ceti is a star system, not a galaxy. These are plausible mistakes that a Star Trek quality-control team would not let through, mistakes that do to suspension-of-disbelief what multiple-megaton explosives do to suspension bridges.

Nevertheless, this book does have merits. It's inspirational, for aspiring writers who hope to get published and fear their work will never be good enough. A quick glance through Dark Planet will show even the crudest writer of Harry Potter slash fanfic that his work is superior to *something*, which will be worth the price of admission to many.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What happens when a contracted manuscript is rejected?, April 11, 2005

By 

James S. Cochrane (Marietta, Georgia United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Planet (Mass Market Paperback)

The author changes a few names and submits it somewhere else, even if it WAS originally written in another author's universe using that other author's outline... A quick search on Usenet will reveal that Charles Sasser was the original coauthor contracted to write "The Hero" with John Ringo, but the manuscript was deemed unrepairable by the publisher and so the contract passed to Mike. Leaving Charles Sasser with a manuscript and no contract for it. As can be seen from the description, little was changed from John Ringo's outline, and some of the alien race names are retained (although anyone calling the Indowy warlike obviously didn't read the other Aldenata books very closely).