Customer Reviews

Star Flight

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Star Flight (2007) is an omnibus edition of the two SF novels in the Astra series. It includes The Stars Are Ours and Star Born.

In The Stars Are Ours (1954), mankind has reached the Moon, Mars and Venus, but found little to justify terraforming. However, the three space stations provided a number of services. One of these stations was invaded by unidentified armed men who turned certain installations into weapons which they unleashed against the planet. A major portion of the planet was completely devastated and the loss of life was incalculable.

Among the survivors was Arturo Renzi, who had lost his entire family. He began to preach the evils of science and was welcomed as a great leader throughout the world. However, his message was too liberal for some of his followers and he was assassinated, apparently by a Free Scientist.

For three days after the assassination, Renzi's followers engaged in a furious purge against scientists and techneers. Then Saxon Bort, one of Renzi's chief lieutenants, assumed command of the leader's forces and established the tight dictatorship of the Company of Pax.

In this novel, a decade or so later, Dard Nordis is the son of a Scientific family, living with his older brother, Lars, and his niece, Dessie. Lars and Dard, together with Lars' pregnant wife, Kathia, had fled the purge, but the escape had left Lars a twisted cripple and his wife an amnesiac. After Dessie was born, Kathia retreated into her own dream world until her death.

Now Dard, Lars, and Dessie live on a farm far from any population center. The only nearby farm is Hew Folley's place. Dard doesn't trust Folley, for he wants their farm.

Then one night, a Pax 'copter lands in the snow just before the house and armed Peacemen surround the building. Dard has the others gather food and supplies and sends them down into the cellar, then torches the house. Moving aside some rotting bins, he uncovers a tunnel, sends Dessie ahead, and helps Lars struggle down the passage.

After the Peacemen leave, Lars sends Dard out to leave a packet for his Scientific underground contact. Dard hears a shot shortly after he drops the packet and runs back to find Folley clutching a squirming Dessie. Dard throws his knife and fatally injures Folley, then discovers that Lars is dead.

This story is another of the author's post-apocalyptic works, but the emphasis herein is on spaceflight. Mankind had achieved interplanetary flight and was working on interstellar flight when the terrorists destroyed civilization. Other fanatics then ripped up civilization into even smaller pieces and tried to ensure that ignorance would reign forever. The Scientific community, however, was working on a stardrive and that work was continued in hiding.

In Star Born (1957), the Terran refugees have found a habitable planet, which they named Astra. It has evidence of a prior civilization. Still, the Terrans have little choice except to settle the planet, for their ship was not capable of taking them any further.

In this novel, Dalgard Nordis is making his man-journey into strange lands. With him goes Sssuri, a merman and his knife brother. Dalgard and Sssuri intend to explore a city of Those Others that is shunned by most of the mermen. The city is one of the accursed sites, only a rumor to the merman and unknown to the Terrans. So they will be the first to investigate the ruins.

The two are traveling by outrigger along the coastline when they sight a break in the cliffs. They paddle their boat into the cove. While Sssuri slips into the sea with his spear, Dalgard waits by a stream broadcasting a feeling of friendship and goodwill. When he makes mind contact with a hopper -- a twenty inch high animal with some mental talents -- Dalgard trades some crystal beads for dried fruit. After Sssuri returns with a fish, they prepare their meal.

After they finish eating, Sssuri notices the presence of runners in the dark, primitive primates distantly related to the mermen. Usually the runners are nocturnal, but something has excited them. They have left their hunting grounds to seek new territory.

Seeking the cause of the runner migration, Dalgard and Sssuri travel inland to the central plains. They are observed by hoppers and notice a small herd of duocorns. Finally they discover a running stream and settle down to await the runners. As night falls, they see a streak of fire cross the sky from east to west.

In this story, centuries have passed, the Pax has fallen, and Earth is once again trying to reach the stars. Experimental overdrive ships are being built and sent into space every five years. None have returned, but the latest venture has brought the RS-10 to an unknown planet.

The crew soon discovers that the new world has cities. When they set out to explore the nearest city, they also find natives. Although Raf Kurbi is suspicious, his crewmates seem to accept the aliens as benign survivors of a great civilization.

This story has the aliens looting a store of alien technology within the abandoned city. The ship crewmen have come with the aliens to see these artifacts and learn about the technology. Eventually Dalgard and Raf discover each other in the alien city.

This duology contains several of the characteristic signatures of the author's space adventures, including mutations, psionic talents and aliens. And it heralds the beginnings of the spread of humanity to the stars. But it does not include symbiotic animals.

These works lay the foundations for the civilization that ends in Star Rangers. The story is a little dated, but it is still a pleasure to read.

Highly recommended for Norton fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of interstellar flights, alien civilizations, and strange powers.

-Arthur W. Jordin

The first half, "The Stars Are Ours," was one of my favorite books when I was growing up. I was thrilled at the prospect of getting a hardback copy to save wear and tear on my 40+ year old paperback copy. Thrill turned to horror when I saw what a hack job the publisher did. The stories are still great but there are glaring typos on nearly every page, many pages with as many as three or four misspelled or omitted words. I'm not normally one to complain about a few typos in a book, but this one's so bad I actually found myself wondering if the "proofreaders" know English.

I enjoyed both the books which make up this omnibus edition when I first read them about 40 years ago. I still enjoy the stories and take my hat off to Andre Norton who could write the stories that stood the test of time. My only complaint was the typos which kept cropping up and breaking me loose from the hold the stories had on me. Still I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys space opera and Andre Norton.

The Stars Are Ours. Humanity established space stations so that interplanetary flight could occur cheaper. However, terrorists took control of a station and attacked earth from it devastating the planet. Survivor Arturo Renzi saw his loved ones die so he preached an anti-science message that led to his assassination. Outraged, his followers attacked the opposition with a vengeance forming the dictatorial Company of Pax. Brothers Dard and Lars Nordis and the latter's pregnant wife Kathia fled the purge; however Lars was crippled and Kathia suffered a brain injury and after giving birth to Dessie she died. The siblings and Dessie hide at a remote farm for a decade until the Pax Peacemen arrive. They try to escape, but Lars dies leaving Dard and Dessie running from the Peacemen.

Star Born. The Pax ended space exploration as part of their anti-scientific campaign as they blame the pandemic devastation on scientists. However, some rebels managed to steal a few spaceships and flee to form colonies that had no ties to earth. A century passes with the Federation of Free Men having disposed of the Pax and space exploration redeployed with faster than light engines. The RS-10 ship reaches Astra where an earth colony was established. However, it is the fiendish natives that greet the terrans who they have plans to eradicate with their strange science.

This omnibus reprint of Andre Norton post-apocalyptic "Star" saga showcases how talented the author truly is especially in "The Stars Are Ours"; in which a terrorist act leads to security superseding freedom (the Neocons must have wolfed this one down). "Star Born" is also well written, but pales compared to its predecessor as the evil species that plan to wipe out humanity on RS-10 display no redeeming quality not even rationalizing saving a way of life from outsiders. Still these are two entertaining science fiction tales sets one hundred years apart in different galaxy locations. Ms. Norton's fans will soar with STAR FLIGHT.

Harriet Klausner

My copy was full of misspellings and dropped sentences. I bought it new to read while saving my originals of the two books, but I've had to refer to them to make sense of entire pages! Other than that, it is ok although a bit slow in places. So much of the book is about the repressive and backward society, that at times I wondered if the title was even appropriate.

Andre Norton's STAR FLIGHT tells of a hunted man whose brother is murdered for covert activities as a scientist in a world where scientists are blamed for the global war that destroyed mankind. It's a part of THE STARS ARE OURS and STAR BORN and represents their first combined publication under one cover.

Star Flight

Star Flight (2007) is an omnibus edition of the two SF novels in the Astra series. It includes The Stars Are Ours and Star Born.

In case you haven't heard, Baen is going back and republishing a number of Andre Norton's books in Omnibus form, at least two books per. I personally appreciate this since my old paperbacks are getting somewhat worn and this will give a new generation easier access to the "Mistress of Science Fiction and Fantasy".



The Stars Are Ours

Ad Astra Novel

This is the first novel in the Astra duology. Mankind had reached the Moon, Mars and Venus, but found little to justify terra-forming, so interplanetary flight was used only for scientific research. However, the three space stations provided a number of services, including astronomical and meteorological observations and refueling interplanetary flights. One of these stations was invaded by unidentified armed men who turned certain installations into weapons which they unleashed against the planet. A major portion of the planet was completely devastated and the loss of life was incalculable.

Among the survivors was Arturo Renzi, who had lost his entire family. He began to preach the evils of science and was welcomed as a great leader throughout the world. However, his message was too liberal for some of his followers and he was assassinated, apparently by a Free Scientist. For three days after the assassination, Renzi's followers engaged in a furious purge against scientists and techneers, hunting them down and killing them. Then Saxon Bort, one of Renzi's chief lieutenants, assumed command of the leader's forces and established the tight dictatorship of the Company of Pax.

In this novel, a decade or so later, Dard Nordis is the son of a Scientific family, living with his older brother, Lars, and his niece, Dessie. Lars and Dard, together with Lars' pregnant wife, Kathia, had fled the purge, but the escape had left Lars a twisted cripple and his wife an amnesiac. After Dessie was born, Kathia retreated into her own dream world until her death. Now Dard, Lars, and Dessie live on a farm far from any population center and the only nearby farm is Hew Folley's place. Dard doesn't trust Folley, for he wants their farm. Then one night, a Pax 'copter lands in the snow just before the house and armed Peacemen surround the building. Dard has the others gather food and supplies and sends them down into the cellar, then torches the house. Moving aside some rotting bins, he uncovers a tunnel, sends Dessie ahead, and helps Lars struggle down the passage.

After the Peacemen leave, Lars sends Dard out to leave a packet for his Scientific underground contact, but Dard hears a shot shortly after he drops the packet and runs back to find Folley clutching a squirming Dessie. Dard throws his knife and kills Folley, then discovers that Lars is dead. With no other recourse remaining, Dard and Dessie return to the contact point to wait. Lotta Folley finds them there and gives them food and a scarf for Dessie; Lotta knows that her father is dead, but she recognizes that he was a man full of hate and who liked to hurt people. Besides, Lotta likes Dessie and liked her mother even more; they were the only people that ever treated her as a real person instead of an object. Lotta takes the rifle back to the barn to fool the Peacemen.

When Lars' contact arrives, Dard convinces him to take Dessie and himself back to safety. They spend the night in a cave, but a Pax 'copter is circling the area when they awake. The contact, Sach, leads the Peacemen away so Dard and Dessie can proceed to the next point in their journey. They move away from the cave along a bare ledge as far as they can and then jump into a snow drift on the edge of the woods. Their journey is fairly easy until they reach the river; the ice is too thin to support even Dessie's weight. After looking up and down river, Dard finds only one place that may support them, an arch of ice covered with snow. Dard carries Dessie across, slowly and carefully, then rests for a while on the other side. Again heading to the peak that marks their goal, Dard hears the 'copter return and throws Dessie and himself into a tangle of bushes. The men in the 'copter fire into the bushes . He and Dessie scoot out the other side, but find it to be a wide sweep of open ground.

. This story is definitely a little dated, but it is still a pleasure to read, as is the sequel, Star Born.


Star Born


Star Born (1957) is a sequel to (The Stars Are Ours) 3 to 4 generations in the future. Dalgard Nordis of the colony, with a Merman, Sssuri, are on a "man-Journey", sort of like a continental tour, to gather knowledge and a scouting trip to investigate some old ruins in the North that were rumored to have been visited by the evil former inhabitants only to see a space ship in the sky land near there. After discovering the old ones looting the city for lost technology Dalgard finds the people from the star ship to be of his race. Good sequel.

Highly recommended for fans of Classic Andre Norton, science fiction and good storytelling.

Gunner November, 2008

Our book club chose this book as an entry into the science fiction genre that few of us read. Andre Norton was one of the most prolific scifi writers, and one member had meet her on an international flight.

The basic story in the first half, is how world peace was achieved by locking up the intelligensia, and how they managed to escape in a space ship. The second half deals with events many generations later when remants of the descendants of both groups meet in the future.

This books seemed to be a reprint combining two different short stories copyrighted at two different earlier times into one novel with two parts (the two earlier books.) The story is not too bad, but this was purely an attempt to make money.

There are so many typos and misprints in the books that sometimes it was neccessary to reread a sentence or passage several times to understand it. Many pages had multiple errors. It was soon so distracting that it was hard to enjoy the book.

We felt we had been cheated two ways. First, it was not a new novel, and second, it was poorly printed. It may not prevent me from reading another Andre Norton book, but I wouldn't suggest anyone spend any money on this one. (This may not be the best written review, but I didn't have supposed benefit of a publisher.)