Customer Reviews

Mission to A Star

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When the alien spaceships first arrive bearing the human-like people that called themselves the Scorpions, it seems the start of a golden age. The Scorpions certainly seemed friendly, at first, but it is now beginning to dawn on some people that the Scorpions are hiding something. And when an old man who was traumatized after walking in on a crashed Scorpion ship, and whom the humans hoped would be a source of information, suddenly goes comatose after a Scorpion "accidentally" walked into the room, it appears that they are right.

And so ace reporter, Jim Lawrence, is assigned to go to the town where the downed Scorpion ship is, and see just what is going on. But, the Scorpions know who Lawrence is, and they have a use for him that he little suspects. And soon, he finds himself on a mission to a star - the home planet of the Scorpions to get to the bottom of just what is going on.

Frank Belknap Long (1901-94) was a prolific science-fiction and horror author, and he received awards for his writing. As such, I must say that I was sadly disappointed by this book. At first the book looks like a suspenseful scare-story - are the aliens here to enslave us? Then, Jim Lawrence is kidnapped to space, and the entire tenor of the store changes. After that point the book takes on the tone of social commentary, where we see problems in our own society writ large in the problems of the alien story.

What's wrong here is that the social commentary is poorly handled and not at all penetrating. And, to make matters much worse, the story itself is neither interesting nor exciting. No, this book may have been written by a great author, but it is not a great book. I did not enjoy reading this book, and I certainly do not recommend it.