Customer Reviews

Planets of Adventure

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Murray Leinster was the pen name of American author William Fitzgerald Jenkins (1896-1975), a prodigious author of fiction and non-fiction. He is rightly considered one of the fathers of science fiction; with his story "The Runaway Skyscraper" appearing in 1919! This book was published in 2003, and is a combination of two of Jenkins' 1954 book: The Forgotten Planet, and Planets of Explorer.

The Forgotten Planet tells the tale of a world whose terraforming was interrupted, and allowed to evolve into a veritable hell of a world. When a space-liner crashes on the world, the human inhabitants have to survive in a world gone mad. This is an exciting a gripping story!

The Planet Explorer is actually a collection of nine sci-fi short stories. Each of the exciting stories takes place on a fascinating world, where a desperate crisis must be dealt with. Unlike most short story collections, all of these stories are great, not a clinker in the groups

Overall, I found this to be a great book, with lots of interesting stories to read. Mr. Jenkins was indeed a great science fiction author, whose works should be considered classics in the genre. I loved this book, and give it my highest recommendations!

I don't know if Irwin Allen got inspiration from some of these stories. One of them with giant bugs must have inspired Land of the Giants. It was about people from the future crash landing on a planet where everything was hundreds of times their actual size. This anthology was terrific. If you are tired of Star Wars and Star Trek franchise novels; read this novel. It's where a lot of material was drawn for future movies and films. I can see why William Jenkins (the author's actual name) was called the dean of science fiction. I can't get over how all this material was written in the fifties and sixties and it's still readable.

Are you tired of that same old, humdrum fiction you've been reading off the bestseller rack? You know the kind I mean.

Do you like your bugs both biologically accurate, huge and man eating?

Do you like your heroes heterosexual? smart? tough? and maybe even decent?

Do you like adventure that is both fun and nerve wracking and without graphic sex and gratuitous obscenity?

Do you like your fiction peopled by women who are NOT stronger, meaner and smarter than the men?

Had enough of "modern" science fiction where the hero never gets the girl and the ending is always bad?

It doesn't have to be that way, you know...
Why not try the golden age of science fiction and get that old fashioned satisfying flavor of good writing?

Mmm, mmm, there's nothing like a good golden age reading experience! Try em and you'll soon be saying to your wife or girl friend, "Gosh, honey, I sure love golden age science fiction!"

And, folks, if you like this one, try First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster for even more of that satisfying golden age reading.