Customer Reviews

PLANET DOUBLE SUN (The Garland Library of Science Fiction)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Professor Jameson stood in the fore of the spaceship and gazed philosophically into space, ruminating upon the past, present and future, and upon the strange events in his life" (35). The opening line to "Planet of the Double Sun" catches the flavor of this book-- a roughness of style coupled with a naive charm and amiability.

Neil R. Jones was an insurance claims investigator who wrote science fiction on the side from 1933 to 1951. His most popular stories were those of Professor Jameson and the Zoromes. The professor's body is launched into space in 1950. He is revived forty million years later by a civilized, robotlike race called the Zoromes. They transplant the professor's brain into a metal body like their own.

_Planet of the Double Sun_ consists of the first three Professor Jameson stories: "The Jameson Satellite" (_Amazing_ 1931), "Planet of the Double Sun" (_Amazing_ 1932), and "The Return of the Tripeds" (_Amazing_ 1932). The first story is an expositional piece, setting up the background to the series. The second story dramatizes the defeat of the Zoromes on a hostile alien planet. The third story shows--not overly convincingly-- how victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat.

The stories are pretty good pieces judged by the standards of 1930s pulp magazines. But the truth is, they haven't aged well. They creak a bit at the joints.