Customer Reviews

Voodoo Planet

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Voodoo Planet" and "Star Hunter" have both been reprinted recently but were previously published together as "The Space Adventure Novels of Andre Norton." These two very short novels are not related to each other, except that they're both set in Andre Norton's Forerunner universe. As humans explore the far reaches of the galaxy, they keep finding the ruins of highly advanced alien civilizations that have vanished. Some planets have not been well explored, some have been colonized, and some are home to aliens. (Click on my name to see the list of about 40 books in this universe.)

"Star Hunter" is a typical Andre Norton buddy story about two characters who don't like each other very well. In fact, one of them has had the other brainwashed, to be passed off as the heir to a fortune .. and to be used as someone's puppet. They end up trekking on foot across an unexplored planet, pursued by bizarre creatures, trying to figure out a mysterious alien device that has entrapped and killed all the humans who have come before. The relationship that develops between these two characters is the strong suit of this tale. If you're a fan of Andre Norton, you will probably enjoy it. I give "Star Hunter" four stars because it's entertaining but very much like many others by this author.

The second novella, "Voodoo Planet," is the third installment in the Solar Queen series. The Solar Queen is a small spaceship that usually makes cargo runs, but in this story, three of the crew members (Dane, Medic Tau, and Captain Jellico) are invited to a hunting safari on a planet colonized by people from Africa. They run afoul of a local voodoo priest, who stalks them through the jungle. Luckily, Tau has studied magic as a hobby and is able to counter some of the weird attacks as the expedition tries to get back to civilization. For me, the adventures were fun, although the magic was not entirely convincing or well explained. This is not compelling science fiction, but I give it four stars instead of three because it's part of the Solar Queen series.

This is the entire Solar Queen series:
1. Sargasso of Space (1955)
2. Plague Ship (1956)
3. Voodoo Planet (1959)
4. Postmarked the Stars (1969)
5. Redline the Stars, with PM Griffin (1993)
6. Derelict for Trade, with Sherwood Smith (1997)
7. A Mind for Trade, with Sherwood Smith (1997)

Sargasso of Space" and "Plague Ship" were reprinted recently in a single volume called "The Solar Queen."

"Star Hunter" was first published in 1961 and is one of the few 'straight' science fiction novellas (96 pages) of Lifetime Grand Master of Fantasy, Andre Norton, who passed away on March 17, 2005 after a long and extremely fruitful career. Her first novel, "The Prince Commands" was published in 1934, and her last, "Three Hands for Scorpio" in 2005. Her magically detailed world-building skills and upright, against-all-odds characters will be sorely missed.

"Star Hunter" is a forerunner of Norton's Dipple series, starring dispossessed planetary outcasts (usually orphans), who are sometimes gifted with mysterious psi talents. These likeable, self-reliant young men and women start off in the cesspool of galactic civilization (the `Dipple' of later novels), and fight their way to freedom through a series of adventures with inscrutable, powerful aliens and evil, grasping humans.

Vye Lansor is a malnourished swamper (janitor) in a down-and-outers' bar near Nahautl's starport. Part of his job involves cleaning up the burned and bloody bits after a typical night's brawl. He can't believe his luck when an Out-Hunter (stellar big game hunter) offers to take him on as a gearman on his next frontier-world safari.

He is right to guess that his fortune has not changed for the better. When he next wakes up, Lansor is on a strange planet, implanted with a set of false memories about a young castaway named Rynch Brodie.

Okay Norton fans, we're on a strange planet but in otherwise familiar territory: a young outcast pitted against an alien wilderness, hunted by mysterious, unsavory characters--this time consisting of a big-game safari, and the even more deadly aliens of Jumala's humid jungles. This author keeps us turning the pages, not only for the cliff-hangers that Lansor gets himself into, but also for tantalizing clues as to the nature of the aliens, who seem to have turned an entire planet into a death-trap for out-worlders.

"Voodoo Planet" (1959) follows "Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956), and precedes "Postmarked: the Stars" (1969) in the series of `Solar Queen' space adventure novels, starring Dane Thorson, a lanky young apprentice-Cargo Master.

After ten years of schooling, Dane had been assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile, to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

"Voodoo Planet" weighs in as the slightest of the four original `Solar Queen' novels at 159 pages, and features only Dane, Captain Jellico, and ship's medic, Tau out of the original crew. While the `Queen is being fitted up for her new job as an interstellar mail carrier, the three crew members are invited to Khatka, a planet settled by African refugees from Terra's ancient racial wars.

Norton's fascination with magic is woven into this novel via a witch doctor gone over to the Dark Side. Lumbrilo is in league with poachers who are stripping the planet of its native animals. Captain Jellico, Medic Tau, and Dane team up with Khatka's Chief Ranger and his men to track down the off-world thieves and their powerful sorcerer, after their flitter crash-lands in a remote game preserve.

Minor Norton but a must for `Solar Queen' fans.

"Voodoo Planet" (1959) follows "Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956), and precedes "Postmarked: the Stars" (1969) in the series of `Solar Queen' space adventure novels, starring Dane Thorson, a lanky young apprentice-Cargo Master.

After ten years of schooling, Dane had been assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile, to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

"Voodoo Planet" weighs in as the slightest of the four original `Solar Queen' novels at 159 pages, and features only Dane, Captain Jellico, and ship's medic, Tau out of the original crew. While the `Queen is being fitted up for her new job as an interstellar mail carrier, the three crew members are invited to Khatka, a planet settled by African refugees from Terra's ancient racial wars.

Norton's fascination with magic is woven into this novel via a witch doctor gone over to the Dark Side. Lumbrilo is in league with poachers who are stripping the planet of its native animals. Captain Jellico, Medic Tau, and Dane team up with Khatka's Chief Ranger and his men to track down the off-world thieves and their powerful sorcerer, after their flitter crash-lands in a remote game preserve.

Minor Norton but a must for `Solar Queen' fans.

"Voodoo Planet" (1959) follows "Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956), and precedes "Postmarked: the Stars" (1969) in the series of `Solar Queen' space adventure novels, starring Dane Thorson, a lanky young apprentice-Cargo Master.

After ten years of schooling, Dane had been assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile, to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

"Voodoo Planet" weighs in as the slightest of the four original `Solar Queen' novels at 159 pages, and features only Dane, Captain Jellico, and ship's medic, Tau out of the original crew. While the `Queen is being fitted up for her new job as an interstellar mail carrier, the three crew members are invited to Khatka, a planet settled by African refugees from Terra's ancient racial wars.

Norton's fascination with magic is woven into this novel via a witch doctor gone over to the Dark Side. Lumbrilo is in league with poachers who are stripping the planet of its native animals. Captain Jellico, Medic Tau, and Dane team up with Khatka's Chief Ranger and his men to track down the off-world thieves and their powerful sorcerer, after their flitter crash-lands in a remote game preserve.

Minor Norton but a must for `Solar Queen' fans.

The two novellas herein do not form a novel when put together; they're both set in the Council / Confederation universe, but don't involve the same characters. Why they've been allowed to be out of print so long passes my understanding.

"Star Hunter" - Ras Hume was blacklisted as a star pilot, courtesy of the craziness of the drug addict who was 3rd owner of the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz line, which left him with high-profile commendations (the records couldn't be wiped after the Patrol got them), a pension, and a plasta-flesh hand. In his new career as a member of the Out-Hunter's Guild, he's been able to console himself with exploring new planets to open for safaris for the rich. On the newly-discovered world of Jumala, he found (and didn't report) something that may let him extract some payback from the company that cost him his career - if he can bring together a scheme involving port-rat Vye Lansor and crime boss Milfors Wass.

Vye Lansor is really the focus of the story: one of the down-and-out youngsters who appear often in Norton's work. On the occasions when they manage to scramble out of the pits into which life has tossed them, they don't live happily ever after, but they manage to build a life for themselves - if they survive.

"Voodoo Planet" - Over the years, this has been the hardest to find of all the _Solar Queen_ stories, fitting into the narrow gap between the end of _Plague Ship_ and the beginning of _Postmarked the Stars_, when the Queen is being refitted to pick up her new contract as a mail ship between Xecho and Trewsworld. Only Captain Jellico, medic Tau, cargo apprentice Dane Thorson, and Sindbad (ship's cat) are aboard when a Chief Ranger from Khatka, Xecho's sister planet, comes calling.

Tau, as a hobby anthropologist specializing on 'magic', is fascinated by Khatka's people rather than its legendary hunting preserves. The original colonists broke out of a concentration camp in Africa during the Second Atomic War, then started a reverse-apartheid system. (That aspect of their culture appears to have been eliminated by the time this story opens, though.) Now somebody has dug deep into their cultural weaknesses, and is using 'magic' to psychologically drive key men in Khatkan politics to their deaths. Tau is asked to bring Jellico and Thorson along, and try to uncover whoever is behind this reign of sabotage and murder.

If planetary cultures of African origin interest you, try Norton's _Android at Arms_, which deals with another such planet at greater length and in more detail.

Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton

Voodoo Planet (1959) is the 3rd book in the series detailing the adventures of the crew from the Free Traders Starship Solar Queen. The other books by Andre Norton and the first publication date are as follows: Sargasso of Space (1955), Plague Ship (1956), and Postmarked the Stars (1969).

It certainly would be desirable to read these books in sequence but it is not essential. Each story stands alone but references are made to events that took place in the previous volumes. Unfortunately the books are long out of print but are readily available on used book sites like Amazon at reasonable cost.

The story open with the Solar Queen being retrofitted as a mail transport on the planet Xecho. The Chief Ranger from Xecho's sister planet Khatka convinces Captain Jellico that an expense paid excursion to the exclusive game preserves on his planet would be beneficial for both the three invited members of the Solar Queen's crew and for the Ranger. Chief Ranger Asaki confesses that his society has a problem with an outbreak of voodoo and need the assistance of the ships medic Tau who has made a study of magic on many worlds.

Norton deftly weaves into the opening chapter the startling history of Khatka. During the Second Atomic War on Earth all native Africans were herded into concentration camps for extermination. Some of the prisoners escaped and commandeered two Starships that eventually landed on the Eden-like planet Khatka. The new order is that the lighter your skin the lower you are on the social scale.

Honestly I could not put this book down until the last page. This book is a tour de force of Norton's writing talents and is highly recommended to interested readers.

Dane Thorson and fellow crew members of the trader ship Solar Queen are invited to investigate a mystery. The planet Khatka, a jungle world used as a hunting preserve for rich tourists, is being affected by a powerful sorcerer/magician. He is slowly altering the landscape of the animal world, by using mysterious psychological powers to induce hallucinations and mind control. The adventure is taken up with the the hunt for the sorcerer. Explanations are thin at best, and the story is too short to have much impact, beyond mild entertainment. Skip this one, and opt instead for virtually any other Norton novel.

well you get what you pay for... kind of upset about this. seemed real short for a book that you would pay for!!! I think this is just a short story from a bigger book.. it would be nice to know how long a book is befor you pay for it... well all in all it was a good story

Classic Andre Norton.A little less action than other books in this series,
but still a great read. I enjoyed this as a young person and enjoyed it as an adult as well. B.C.

"Star Hunter" was first published in 1961 and is one of the few 'straight' science fiction novellas (96 pages) of Lifetime Grand Master of Fantasy, Andre Norton, who passed away on March 17, 2005 after a long and extremely fruitful career. Her first novel, "The Prince Commands" was published in 1934, and her last, "Three Hands for Scorpio" in 2005. Her magically detailed world-building skills and upright, against-all-odds characters will be sorely missed.

"Star Hunter" is a forerunner of Norton's Dipple series, starring dispossessed planetary outcasts (usually orphans), who are sometimes gifted with mysterious psi talents. These likeable, self-reliant young men and women start off in the cesspool of galactic civilization (the `Dipple' of later novels), and fight their way to freedom through a series of adventures with inscrutable, powerful aliens and evil, grasping humans.

Vye Lansor is a malnourished swamper (janitor) in a down-and-outers' bar near Nahautl's starport. Part of his job involves cleaning up the burned and bloody bits after a typical night's brawl. He can't believe his luck when an Out-Hunter (stellar big game hunter) offers to take him on as a gearman on his next frontier-world safari.

He is right to guess that his fortune has not changed for the better. When he next wakes up, Lansor is on a strange planet, implanted with a set of false memories about a young castaway named Rynch Brodie.

Okay Norton fans, we're on a strange planet but in otherwise familiar territory: a young outcast pitted against an alien wilderness, hunted by mysterious, unsavory characters--this time consisting of a big-game safari, and the even more deadly aliens of Jumala's humid jungles. This author keeps us turning the pages, not only for the cliff-hangers that Lansor gets himself into, but also for tantalizing clues as to the nature of the aliens, who seem to have turned an entire planet into a death-trap for out-worlders.

This is another fantastically populated universe, created by one of the most underrated fantasy/science fiction writers of our time. "Star Hunter" was closely followed by other similarly-themed coming-of-age, galactic-adventure stories such as "Secret of the Lost Race" (also published in 1959), "Storm over Warlock" (1960), "Catseye" (1961), and "Night of Masks" (1964).

*******
"Voodoo Planet" (1959) follows "Sargasso of Space" (1955) and its sequel "Plague Ship" (1956), and precedes "Postmarked: the Stars" (1969) in the series of `Solar Queen' space adventure novels, starring Dane Thorson, a lanky young apprentice-Cargo Master.

After ten years of schooling, Dane had been assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile, to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the 'Solar Queen' "lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted" was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns "to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training."

"Voodoo Planet" weighs in as the slightest of the four original `Solar Queen' novels at 159 pages, and features only Dane, Captain Jellico, and ship's medic, Tau out of the original crew. While the `Queen is being fitted up for her new job as an interstellar mail carrier, the three crew members are invited to Khatka, a planet settled by African refugees from Terra's ancient racial wars.

Norton's fascination with magic is woven into this novel via a witch doctor gone over to the Dark Side. Lumbrilo is in league with poachers who are stripping the planet of its native animals. Captain Jellico, Medic Tau, and Dane team up with Khatka's Chief Ranger and his men to track down the off-world thieves and their powerful sorcerer, after their flitter crash-lands in a remote game preserve.

Minor Norton but a must for `Solar Queen' fans.