The Planet Savers: Also Including the Waterfall [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Marion Zimmer Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2001

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 139 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783890656
• ISBN-13: 978-0783890654
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,027,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars the first Darkover novel, March 31, 2005

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Planet Savers \ The Sword of Aldones (Paperback)

"The Planet Savers" is the very first Darkover novel written by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It is a rather slim volume, my copy only had 91 pages, but it tells a fairly complete story. While this novel doesn't seem to fit in with the other Darkover novels, it does help to explain a little bit about who the Trailmen are, which is never explained in any depth in other Darkover novels. Bradley also explains why this novel doesn't quite fit with the other Darkover novels and how this novel came to be in the forward to the book. It is fairly interesting to understand how Bradley conceptualized Darkover.

This short novel tells the story of the 48 year Trailmen Fever. This is a nasty plague like sickness that seems to crop up every 48 years in Darkover's history, and Darkover is about to enter into a plague year. Now that the Terrans are back on Darkover, they are determined to end the plague. But the only way to do that is to get the cooperation of the Trailmen who are immune (and might in some way be a carrier). The Trailmen are fiercely territorial and violent to trespassers. But as a young child the human (the Trailmen aren't considered completely human, I'd imagine more like Neanderthal Man) Dr Jason Allison was raised by the Trailmen and is being recruited to lead the expedition to ask for the help of the Trailment. But Dr Allison seems to suffer from multiple personalities. One is a doctor Jay Allison who is a talented Doctor, but doesn't remember the language of the Trailmen and is something of a wuss. The other is Jason, a rougher man who is fully at ease in physical situations and is still fluent in the language and culture of the Trailment. Somehow a Terran doctor is able to revert Jay to Jason and the adventure begins.

It is a decent enough novel, and it involves other characters familiar to the Darkover reader, in particular Regis Hastur, who is a major player in other novels. As a standalone Darkover novel, "The Planet Savers" isn't anything special and I would not recommend it to anyone who wasn't trying to read all of the Darkover novels (as I am).

-Joe Sherry

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beginning of a Delightful Series, March 19, 2011

By 

Anne Wingate (Salt Lake City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Darkover, Book I: The Planet Savers ($.99 Science Fiction Classics) (Kindle Edition)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VYBHHW/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_img

I have read all MZB's Darkover novels, and actually the Trailmen are discussed in one more novel, though I don't remember which one. The idea of Darkover was by no means fully developed when this book was written, but the roots were there, and the characters show up later as adults in fully developed and very good books written decades later. I strongly recommend that SF/F fans read this book; if you haven't yet discovered Darkover (though I find that unbelievable), this is a good introduction before you try to jump to The Forbidden Tower, which is an awfully long jump. I try to sort out which books are set in the Age of Chaos, which during the Terran occupation, and which after the Terrans leave and read that way, as MZB didn't write them in any kind of order and admits herself that her geography and history are somewhat muddled.

Buy it. Read it. If you don't enjoy this one, you have no imagination whatever and should distance yourself from science fiction, fantasy, and psychology.

Especially psychology.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story for you Darkover fans..., June 12, 2003

By 

Angela Rary (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Planet Savers: Also Including the Waterfall (Hardcover)

Nobody had reviewed this book, so I thought I would. This was one of the first Darkover books I read, and I enjoyed it very much. The Darkover books seem to vary in quality from slightly interesting to absolutely fabulous, but I'd rate this one as very good. It was first written in 1962, so it's a little dated, but the main character was interesing and it gives true Darkover fans some insights into some little-explored areas of Darkovan life.