This World Is Taboo [Hardcover]

Murray Leinster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2006

"The little Med Ship came out of overdrive and the stars were strange and the Milky Way seemed unfamiliar. Which, of course, was because the Milky Way and the local Cepheid marker-stars were seen from an unaccustomed angle and a not-yet-commonplace pattern of varying magnitudes. But Calhoun grunted in satisfaction..."

Written by Murray Leinster (a pseudonym of William Fitzgerald Jenkins's) This World Is Taboo was first published as "Pariah Planet" in Amazing Stories, July 1961, and is the second volume in the Med Services series. Leinster wrote more than 1500 stories and articles during his career and is credited with first using the concept of parallel universes in his fiction.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Aegypan (July 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159818900X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598189001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,644,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Romance, June 18, 2006

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This World is Taboo (Paperback)

_This World is Taboo_ is one of Murray Leinster's Med Service yarns. It originally appeared in _Amazing_ in 1960 under the title "Pariah Planet." It received little critical attention when it first appeared, and what little it got was lukewarm. I believe that it deserves a better fate; it is one of the top half dozen novels that Leinster wrote. It has one characteristic that makes it stand out a bit from the other stories in the Med Service series: There is an understated romance between Calhoun and the heroine, and there is even a tone of regret when the heroine marries somebody else at the end. The man whom she marries is certainly not the equal of Calhoun.

I have sometimes wondered whether Leinster (who hailed from Virginia) named his hero after John C. Calhoun, the great nineteenth century statesman from South Carolina. One of Calhoun's contemporaries once described him as a "cast iron man," similar to a massive machine. The nickname stuck. Leinster's Calhoun may also seem to be something of an iron man; but in _This World is Taboo_, there is a touch of humanity that shines through like a ghost in the machine.