Customer Reviews

The Planet Mappers

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This modest juvenile aimed at teenage readers might be the best novel written by obscure sf author E. Everett Evans in the early 1950s. MAPPERS dates from 1955 and was the last novel of his published during his lifetime (1893 - 1958). His two earlier novels, MAN OF MANY MINDS and its sequel ALIEN MINDS, were published as for adult readers, but actually might as well have been issued as juveniles, since the hero of both is about 20 and there are no female characters.

The "depicted universe" in THE PLANET MAPPERS is similar to that in his two earlier novels as well. It's the distant future, and interstellar travel is routine... yet the technology otherwise seems to be that of the 1940s. Two teenagers, Jon and Jak Carver, are out to help their famous explorer father, Tad, locate and chart new worlds in distant solar systems, and denote ones especially suited for human colonization. As the novel opens, a meteorite breaches the hull of their small interstellar ship, and by chance causes Tad to fall, break his leg and knock himself out against the deck... just as the ship enters a new solar system. Of course, Jon and Jak (who have complementary skills, one being a genius at physical sciences and engineering, one being a master of biology and medicine) take over, while their mother is [of course] completely useless at everything but fixing meals and taking an occasional photo.

Can the boys manage to survey an entire solar system of planets without assistance from anyone else, following the exacting rules laid out by "The Board" which regulates and certifies such discoveries? And when is the evil Slik Bogin going to show up with his armed space ship and crew of cutthroats and steal their discoveries? [Of course if the discovery is not credited to the Carvers, Tad, who has borrowed to the limit to fund his voyage, will be penniless and in heavy debt, his days as an explorer over for good.]

Readers unused to science fiction of the 1940s will perhaps be taken aback by the depiction of women or by the ridiculously primitive state of "advanced" future technology, but if you're willing to cut the slack that always needs to be cut in dealing with futuristic fiction of this era, you'll find much to appreciate in this work that carries quite a charge of that "sense of wonder" that was vanishing completely from science fiction at right about this time.