Science Fiction Book Review: Ace Double D-509: Star Hunter and The Beast Master by Andre Norton

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I love Ace Science Fiction Doubles. These books were published over a period of about twenty years, from the early 50s to the 70s. Each one consisted of two books published back to back. There were a couple of hundred published in total, and I've collected about a hundred of them so far. Hopefully I'll be able to complete my collection one day. Will I have time to read all of them before I die? A man can dream. At least I know that I'll always have something to read for the foreseeable future. Here's my review of an Ace Double from the early 60s. One of the most famous female science fiction writers of the 20th Century was Andre Norton. This particular Ace Double includes two short novels by her: Star Hunter Star Hunter is set at some time centuries in the future, when humanity has colonised many planets throughout the galaxy, and interstellar space travel seems to be about as routine as see travel is today. The central character – I won't say “hero” - is Ras Hume, a former space pilot who was sacked and blacklisted after he was unfairly blamed for a serious accident several years previously. Now working as an “Out-Hunter” - a safari guide for rich tourists who want to go big game hunting on alien planets – he still harbours a grudge against his former employers. He's recently come back from taking part of a survey on behalf of the Guild he works for, to check in a newly-discovered planet is suitable for hunting. No intelligent life has been found on the planet (Jumala), which means it's legal for hunting, but Hume has found an abandoned life capsule from a spacecraft which was destroyed in an accident years before – a spacecraft which was carrying a young boy – Rynch Brodie - who would have inherited a third share in the shipping line. With no sign of any survivors from this life capsule, Hume has kept his discovery to himself – because it's given him a very devious and underhanded idea. Hume approaches the powerful crime boss Wass with his idea for a new type of crime. The plan is to kidnap a young man of the right age and physical appearance and have some crooked specialists in Wass' employ reprogramme his mind with a false set of memories to make him think that he's the missing heir Brodie, having survived alone on the alien planet since the life capsule landed. Then Hume can lead a hunting expedition there, pretend to discover this fake Brodie, “rescue” him and then Hume and Wass can share in the massive rewards that are likely to follow from rescuing the heir to billions. Hume already has a victim picked out – Vye Lansor, a poor kid with no friends of family, who is scraping a living cleaning up in a sleazy, violent pub that makes the cantina in Star Wars look respectable. Lansor's right at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, and can be “disappeared” without anyone noticing or caring. This is something that Hume arranges with no trouble – he's a pretty ruthless character. His conscience does trouble him slightly, but he tells himself that Lansor will end up happier as a billionaire. The kidnapping and brainwashing job done, Lansor is drugged and left on the surface of Jumala, not far from the life capsule, while Hume lands a spacecraft with a hunting party a few miles away, with the intention of leading the tourists to “accidentally” discover Lansor. Immediately Lansor wakes up, it's clear that things have gone wrong. Wass' crooked psychologists have done a less than perfect job – instead of just having the false memories of being Brodie, and surviving alone on Jumala for years, Lansor has also retained some of his real memories. So he has two conflicting sets of memories. When he comes into contact with Hume, he half-remembers him as the man who drugged and kidnapped him. To complicate things further, some kind of previously-undetected alien intelligence on the planet is probing the humans telepathically and causing the local wildlife to attack them, herding the humans into a trap. Hume and Lansor have to cooperate to survive. To be honest, I expected a better read from a writer of the calibre of Andre Norton. I've read two or three other books by her in the past and enjoyed them, but I couldn't relate to the characters in this one. Hume is brave, intelligent and highly competent, but he's also got an ends-justify-the-means mentality which put me off. And Lansor has very little personality of his own. It could be that the story was edited down for length, being only 96 pages long, restricting the amount of space available for the author to develop the characters, but I found this story disappointing. It wasn't boring, but it could have been better. The Beast Master This is much more like it. I'd heard of “The Beast Master” before – it was adapted into a film in the 80s, but apparently the film-makers changed everything but the title. This is an abridged version of a full-length novel that was published earlier, the abridgement was apparently skilfully done, because I enjoyed it and had no trouble following the action. The book is set centuries in the future, in another of these interstellar civilisations – the human-dominated Confederacy. The Confederacy has recently won an interstellar war against an aggressive alien race called the Xik. Humanity won, but at a terrible price – towards the end of the war, the Xik attacked Earth and left it “a deadly blue, radioactive cinder.” Not surprisingly, the shock of losing their home world has left a lot of Terran servicemen psychologically unstable, to the point of being a danger to themselves and those around them. The Confederate military has therefore made the decision to disarm these traumatised soldiers, give them whatever psychological support is possible, and help them to resettle on other human-occupied planets. One of these newly-demobilised soldiers is Hosteen Storm, the Beast Master of the title. Storm is an ex-Commando, and Beast Master was his rank in the army. Storm is a Navajo – possible the last of his people left alive. He was a very specialised Commando, being in charge of a team of wild animals with whom he has a telepathic rapport. He can't directly control his animals, but he can communicate his wishes to them, and they obey him out of respect and training. His team consists of an eagle, two meerkats and a specially-bred cat about the size of a Puma – they were used for sabotage and reconnaissance missions during the war. Unlike some of the other Terran soldiers, Storm shows no visible sign of instability, so there's no problem when he requests re-settlement on the frontier planet Arzor. The reasons he gives for wanting to move there are that it has a similar climate to his lost homeland, and that the principle industry is herding a type of native cattle called frawn – he's been assured that his unusual set of skills as a Beast Master should ensure he can find employment there. This seems reasonable to his commanding officer, who has no choice but to discharge Storm, despite having a nagging feeling that Storm is acting a bit too normal. And the commanding officer is right to have doubts, because Storm has a hidden agenda. When he was a child, his grandfather – who educated Storm in the traditional tribal ways of the Navajo – made him swear an oath to kill a man called Brad Quade. The reason behind this vendetta is not made clear until the final chapter, but Storm feels honour bound to see it through, and he's traced Quade to Arzor. Arriving on Arzor with his Beast Team, Storm secures employment working for a local man who is herding some horses to another town to auction off. Arzor is a colonial situation very reminiscent of the Wild West. Humans settled on the planet several generations earlier, but there is also a native humanoid race called the Norbies, who live a Stone Age, tribal lifestyle. They remind Storm very strongly of his own lost people. Some of the Norbie tribes have treaties with the humans, requiring each side to respect each other's territory, and have established mutually beneficial trading relationships. Other tribes are less friendly, and are prone to rustling horses and frawn from time to time. And of course some of the humans (not all) are prejudiced against the Norbies. If you think this sounds like a Western transferred to another planet, you'd be right, at least for the first half of this book. That doesn't stop it being entertaining. Storm's reason for taking employment as a horse wrangler is that they're taking the horses to the town where he knows Brad Quade lives. On the way, Storm makes several friends among the workforce – including a young Norbie called Gorgol – and one enemy, in the shape of a human employee called Bister, who is unaccountably prejudiced against both Norbies and Storm. Shortly after delivering the horses, Storm is attacked by a local thug, and easily knocks him out using his commando training – he suspects Bister is behind the attack, but doesn't have time to do anything about that, as he has his business with Quade to conclude. His original plan is to confront and kill Quade – but on meeting Quade, he doesn't get the feeling that he's the evil man that Storm's grandfather made him out to be. Too confused by this to go through with his plan, Storm temporarily evades the issue by taking employment with an archaeologist who is organising an expedition to a nearby mountain range to look for evidence of an earlier alien settlement. The Norbies have a legend that centuries earlier, another race of people came from the stars and settled on their planet, building cities there. The legend goes that these unknown aliens eventually abandoned the cities they'd built, and sealed themselves in caves, to sleep until they wake again at some unknown point in the future. Physical evidence has recently been found of this visitation, and the archaeologist has obtained permission from the Norbies to investigate this mountain range, which they regard as sacred territory. And this is where the story transitions from being almost a western, to being much more science fictional. A natural disaster – or maybe it wasn't natural – wipes out half the expedition, and Storm is forced to use all his skills to survive, as it becomes clear that an unknown hostile group wants to leave no witnesses to their activities. Human outlaws, aliens and Norbies are all involved in an increasingly violent and action-packed plot, and Storm and his surviving friends find direct evidence of the earlier alien visitation. Someone's trying to provoke war between the human settlers and the Norbies, and Storm has to use both his military training and the skills he learned from his grandfather to win through. At the same time, he is subconsciously dealing with his trauma at losing his home world. It becomes clear that he needs a purpose in life to keep going – first his vendetta against Quade, and now the struggle against the hostile faction in the mountains. The final chapter covers Storm's final confrontation with Quade, and the reason for his blood feud. I won't reveal that here, because it's much more fun to read the book and try to work it out for yourself, but a satisfactory conclusion is reached. I find Hosteen Storm to be a very well-realised character – he's undemonstrative, keeps his emotions under control, but deep down he's vulnerable. His Navajo background isn't just character colour, he follows his people's religion and even uses traditional Native American meditation and self-hypnosis techniques when he needs extra courage. Oddly, the cover of this edition portrays the character as a white guy – presumably the artist was just given a brief story outline and a strict deadline. There were several sequels written about Hosteen Storm, and I look forward to reading at least the first one in the fairly near future.