Language English Media type Print (Hardback) ISBN 978-0152794262 Originally published 1953 Page count 280 (Hardback edition) Cover artist Richard M. Powers | Series Central Control Pages 280 (Hardback edition) OCLC 586596 Genre Science Fiction Country United States of America | |
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Similar Andre Norton books, Science Fiction books | ||
Star Rangers, also known as The Last Planet, is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton, published on August 20, 1953, by Harcourt, Brace & Company. This is one of Norton's Central Control books, which lay out the history of a galactic empire through events suggested by Norton's understanding of Terran history (see also Star Guard).
Contents
Background
The First Galactic Empire is falling apart and petty tyrants are creating their own little fiefdoms out of the fragments. Near the edge of the Empire one Central Control agent seeks to rid himself of the Stellar Patrol, the last protector of law and order, by sending it out to locate lost stellar systems. The ships are sent to retrieve and align these systems under the benign rule of Central Control. The ship that fuels this story is the Scout ship, "Starfire".
Among the humans, several kinds of aliens (some known as Bemmies, from BEM (Bug-eyed monster) appear in the story. All possess, to some degree, telepathy, the ability to read and to project mental imagery. The aliens in the story are:
Story
In the year AD 8054 the Stellar Patrol Scoutship Starfire has crashed in a desert on an Arth-type planet that displays no readily visible signs of civilization. Atmosphere, gravity, and solar radiation are almost ideal for the Rangers and the Patrolmen. After burying their dead, the survivors set up camp in a forest along a nearby river.
One night one of the men notices the bright beam of a beacon sweeping across the sky. Ranger Sergeant Kartr and Ranger Rolth take the aerial sled to investigate a few nights later. They find an abandoned city lit up as if it were inhabited. There they meet Joyd Cummi, an Ageratan Vice-Sector Lord, who has come to the city with almost two hundred people from a starliner that has made an emergency landing nearby.
Against Kartr's advice, the Patrol's ranking officer decides that the Patrolmen and the Rangers will move to the city and join the other refugees. Not trusting Cummi, the Rangers take up residence in a tower isolated from the rest of the building occupied by the starliner's passengers and crew. Soon Kartr and the others discover that all is not well in the Cummi dictatorship.
Inspired by the arrival of the Patrol, the rebels begin their revolt and the Rangers are drawn into the battle. With their expertise, the Patrolmen and the Rangers help the rebels win the fight. Cummi flees the city, taking telepathic control of Kartr's body and using him to fly the Rangers' aerial sled for him.
Kartr wakes up on the ground in a rainstorm. The surviving Patrolmen and Rangers soon find him and take him to their new camp. Several days later he and his Zacathan buddy go hunting for Cummi, starting from the wreckage of the sled. In the wilderness they rescue an injured boy and take him back to his clan's camp, where Kartr must confront Cummi. In that mind-to-mind battle Cummi succumbs to a hideous disease that he has spread to the natives.
Kartr and the other refugees decide to avoid the natives, lest they spread even more disease. With nothing else to do and with a faint hope of finding an intact spaceship, they set out to find the Meeting Place of the Gods that the native boy had mentioned to Kartr. When they come to that sacred place they see a building that looks exactly like the Place of Free Planets in the Imperial capital, but much older. Inside the building they find the legendary, almost mythical, Hall of Leave-Taking and discern that the planet on which they stand is Terra of Sol, old Earth, the original home of Humanity.
As they marvel at the discovery another band of refugees, from a Stellar Patrol base destroyed by pirates, joins them. As ranking officer, Kartr asks for a vote on whether to return to the city or try to live in the wilderness. The people vote unanimously for a new start and Kartr leads them into their future.
Publication history
Reviews
The editors at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (November 1953), wrote:
A magnificent success, both in romance and wonder. An engrossing adventure that is skillfully set on a small stage against the massive background of intergalactic intrigue and decadence.
The reviewer of Kirkus Reviews August 1, 1953 Issue wrote:
The 80th century A.D. when an impartial rule of galactic systems is disintegrating frames a science fiction story with adult concepts and a catchy theme. Kartr of the loyal Space Patrol crashes on a strange planet where they find that the democracy to which they have been faithful is no more than a shell and that their own chieftain has false ambitions. They explore and settle the new planet which becomes a refuge for others, and as a new and better life unfolds, they learn that the planet is the legendary Terra of the first spacemen. Reptiles and birdmen as well as humans people this and their worlds are a myriad of far-reaching systems, quite imaginatively projected.
In the Saturday Review for November 14, 1953, the reviewer wrote:
Natives of a dozen planets, the Rangers were a varied lot, birdmen, reptile men, human beings, and others, but they were all loyal to Central Control, which commanded the First Galactic Empire. Things were in a bad way in the year 8054 A.D.; there was corruption in high places, space pirates had disrupted celestial commerce, and one by one the universes were falling to enemies. Short of supplies because of betrayal, the crew of the patrol ship Starfire was wrecked on a planet that had been unmapped and forgotten for centuries. There was no hope of escape so the Rangers set out to adapt themselves to the ways of the lost world and its people. And what a time they had, a super-hair-raising time! The story has a style that is not always easy to follow, but it will be eaten up by older boys and adult space fans.