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    Voodoo Planet
    Voodoo Planet
    Voodoo Planet
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Voodoo Planet

    By Andre Norton

    3/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 1, 2006
    Voodoo Planet
    Author

    Andre Norton

    <DIV>For well over a half century, Andre Norton was one of the most popular science fiction and fantasy authors in the world. With series such as Time Traders, Solar Queen, Forerunner, Beast Master, Crosstime, and Janus, as well as many standalone novels, her tales of adventure have drawn countless readers to science fiction. Her fantasy novels, including the bestselling Witch World series, her Magic series, and many other unrelated novels, have been popular with readers for decades. Lauded as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, she is the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. An Ohio native, Norton lived for many years in Winter Park, Florida, and died in March 2005 at her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.</DIV>

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    Reviews for Voodoo Planet

    3/5

    37 ratings6 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      A blending of fantasy and science fiction that just left me feeling like I was watching an old episode of Star Trek where they all transported to a fantasy world where everything gets strange from there.
    • 4/5
      Some of the tech didn't age well, not being able to survey a planet or communicate without there being some solid reasons sounds a little strange, but this story of a break on a jungle world, Khatka, that was inhabited by people from Africa. Invited there by Chief Ranger Asaki they see at first hand poachers and a bit of a political battle between Asaki and Lumbrilo, a shaman who is willing to use a variety of tools, both chemical and psychological to defeat his enemies and our friends from the Solar Queen are in the way.
      It's interesting to think, as another reviewer I saw said, that this was originally published in 1959; the locals from Khatka aren't depicted as savages or strange just as people, both good and bad, adapted to their new world but People all the same, and this is treated as matter-of-fact.
      I liked it, somewhat dated and I did want more from this story, it felt a bit rushed, but it is a novella so it's short by it's very nature. I really should root out some of my other books in this series and read them.
    • 3/5
      t as a stand alone book, is just okay. When you add it in to the Solar Queen adventures, it gets a little better. It does read quickly, but it will not be an earth shaking experience since it doesn't develop the story due to length.
    • 3/5
      Another installment with the sympathetic intergalactic free traders from the Solar Queen at the centre, this is more Tarzan than Star Trek. The Queen-team comprised of Dane, Jelico and Medic Tau visits a planet ruled by a (very advanced and noble!) hunter-gatherer-society where they become unvoluntary part of the power-struggle between the chief ranger Asaki and witchman Lumbrilo.

      Lots of magic disguised as science (hypnosis, drugs and psychological terror), survival after wrecking in a hostile jungle against alien fauna and a very stalwart fight against a band of poachers later, and the outlanders have successfully solved Asaki's authority problem.

      Predictable but fun.
    • 4/5
      Rating: 3.5* of five

      A novella really, and a weird cross between science fiction (space travel, other planets) and fantasy (magic, telepathy). A true old-fashioned one-sitting read.

      Dane Thorsen, Free Trader of the ship Solar Queen, returns to your screens as a tag-along to Captain Jellico's eagerly anticipated vacation to Khatka. He has corresponded for some time with Asaki, a Ranger of very high status on Khatka, in his other-hatness of xenobiologist. Asaki has headed up the creation of a no-kill big game reserve on his homeworld, which happens to be in the same system as the Solar Queen's penalty planet of Xencho. (In Plague Ship, the Solar Queen was "sentenced" to spend two years as a mail carrying ship for one of the huge trading corporations, Combine.)

      Since space travel takes extended amounts of time, all spacers have hobbies; Jellico, a long-time spacer, has become a renowned xenobiologist due to massive time to study and experiment aboard ship as well as freedom to explore many different planets as a trader. The Khatkans are descended of African Terran roots (they sound like Maasai to me) and happen to land their colony ships on a planet with very African climate and geography. Keep in mind this book was published in 1959 by a white librarian lady. This was some avant garde stuff!

      Add in Grand Master Norton's already extant Negro (in the parlance of the times) characters, explicitly stated to be normal members of the Solar Queen and Spacers' Guild crews, and you have jaw-droppingly ahead of her time thinking evident here. Asaki is explicitly stated to be Jellico's equal. He is regularly deferred to by the Queen white and Asian crew members. There are 21st-century authors who don't do as well as Grand Master Norton does in this sixty-year-old tale.

      The story, well, the story is the story and it's creaky. No notion of satellite mapping, no personal computing power, etc etc blah blah blah. The plot seems to be a bit, well, slapdash; are we fighting a sorceror, a crafty mind-gamer, an interplanetary smuggling ring, our PoV characters' personal nightmares? Sorta kinda alla the above. In just over 100pp, that is way too much to handle effectively.

      But hellfire, y'all, it's not like stuff coming from mighty modern pens is perfect, and this lady was born 106 years ago, so what say we smile for the fun turns of phrase (particularly love her regular use of "Not so!" for the much less sparkly "No.") and the amazing inclusiveness of her vision? Let's carp less and crow's-foot some smile, hmm?
    • 2/5
      More of the traders on the Solar Queen. There is a voodoo magic showdown at the end of this one, yay! I guess originally published with Star Hunter, because that's how people get novellas published.

    Book preview

    Voodoo Planet - Andre Norton

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Voodoo Planet, by Andrew North

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: Voodoo Planet

    Author: Andrew North

    Release Date: July 16, 2006 [EBook #18846]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOODOO PLANET ***

    Produced by Greg Weeks, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online

    Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

    CHALLENGE ME WITH MONSTERS!

    "From between the two shuffling dancers padded something on four feet. The canine-feline creature was more than just a head; it was a loose-limbed, graceful body fully eight feet in length, and the red eyes in the prick-eared head were those of a killer.... Words issued from between those curved fangs, words which Dane might not understand....

    Dane slid his blade out surreptitiously, setting its point against the palm of his hand and jabbing painfully; but the terrible creature continued to advance.... There was no blurring of its lines....

    Dane Thorson of the space-ship Solar Queen knew there was only one way to win out over this hideous thing—a battle to the end between his rational mind and the hypnotic witchcraft of Lumbrilo, the mental wizard of the planet Khatka.

    CAST OF CHARACTERS

    Dane Thorson

    He wanted to spend a short vacation on Khatka, not the rest of his life.

    Medic Tau

    Was he physician or magician—or a little bit of both?

    Chief Ranger Asaki

    Tracking the forests had taught him that mad animals—whether real or imaginary—were to be feared.

    Captain Jellico

    Would his knowledge of alien life-forms help him in his fight against alien ghosts?

    Nymani

    Not even this pilot's most scientific skill could overcome a voodoo charm's ground-drag.

    Lumbrilo

    On his own planet he was a witch doctor; on Earth he'd have been a master politician.

    VOODOO PLANET

    by

    ANDREW NORTH

    ACE BOOKS, INC.

    23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.

    VOODOO PLANET

    Copyright ©, 1959, by Ace Books, Inc.

    All Rights Reserved

    Printed in U. S. A.

    Transcriber's Note

    There is no evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.

    Table of Contents

    I

    Talk of heat—or better not—on Xecho. This water-logged world combined all the most unattractive features of a steam bath and one could only dream of coolness, greenness—more land than a stingy string of islands.

    The young man on the promontory above the crash of the waves wore the winged cap of a spaceman with the insignia of a cargo-master and not much else, save a pair of very short shorts. He wiped one hand absently across his bare chest and brought it away damp as he studied, through protective sun goggles, the treacherous promise of the bright sea. One could swim—if he wanted to lose most of his skin. There were minute organisms in that liquid that smacked their lips—if they had lips—every time they thought of a Terran.

    Dane Thorson licked his own lips, tasting salt, and plodded back through the sand of the spaceport to the berth of the Solar Queen. This had been a long day, and one with more snarl-ups than he cared to count, keeping him on a constant, dogged trot between the ship and the fitting yard where riggers labored with the slowest motions possible to the human body—or so it seemed to the exasperated acting-Cargo-Master of the Free Trader. Captain Jellico had long ago taken refuge in his cabin to preserve the remnants of his temper. Dane had been allowed no such escape.

    The Queen had a schedule for refitting to serve as a mail ship, and that time allowance did not allow for humidity playing the devil with the innards of robot fitters. She had to be ready to lift when the Combine ship now plying that run set down and formally signed off in her favor. Luckily, most of the work was done and Dane had given a last searching inspection before signing the rigger's book and reporting to his captain.

    The air-conditioned interior of the Queen comforted him as he climbed to his quarters. Ship air was flat, chemically pure but unappetizing stuff. Today it was a relief to breathe

    . Dane went on to the bather. At least there was no lack of water—with the local skinners filtered out. It was chill but relaxing on his gaunt young body.

    He was sealing on his lightest tunic when the ramp buzzer sounded. A visitor—oh, not the supervisor-rigger again! Dane went to answer with dragging feet. For the crew of the Queen at the moment numbered exactly four, with himself for general errand boy. Captain Jellico was in his quarters two levels above, Medic Tau was presumably overhauling his supplies, and Sindbad, ship's cat, asleep in some empty cabin.

    Dane jerked his tunic into place, very much on

    his guard as he came to the head of the ramp. But it was not the supervisor-rigger. Dane, thoroughly used to unusual-appearing strangers, both human and alien, was impressed by this visitor.

    He was tall, this quiet man, his great height accented by a fit leanness, a narrowness of waist and hip, a length of leg and arm. His main article of clothing was the universal shorts of the Xecho settler. But, being fashioned of saffron yellow, they were the more brilliant because of his darkness of skin. For he was not the warm brown of the Terran Negroes Dane had served beside, though he shared their general features. His flesh was really black, black with an almost bluish sheen. Instead of shirt or tunic, his deep chest was crossed by two wide straps, the big medallion marking their intersection giving forth flashes of gem fire when he breathed. He wore at his belt not the standard stun gun of a spaceman, but a weapon which resembled the more deadly Patrol blaster, as well as a long knife housed in a jeweled and fringed sheath. To the eye he was an example of barbaric force tamed and trimmed to civilized efficiency.

    He saluted, palm out, and spoke Galactic Basic with only a suggestion of accent.

    I am Kort Asaki. I believe Captain Jellico expects me.

    "Yes,

    sir!" Dane snapped to attention. So this was the Chief Ranger from fabulous Khatka, Xecho's sister planet.

    The other ascended the cat ladder easily, missing no detail of the ship's interior as he passed. His expression was still one of polite interest as his guide rapped on the panel door of Jellico's cabin. And a horrible screech from Queex, the captain's pet hoobat, drowned out any immediate answer. Then followed that automatic thump on the floor of the blue-feathered, crab-parrot-toad's cage, announcing that its master was in residence.

    Since the captain's cordial welcome extended only to his guest, Dane regretfully descended to the mess cabin to make unskilled preparations for supper—though there was not much you could do to foul up concentrates in an automatic cooker.

    Company? Tau sat beyond the cooking unit nursing a mug of Terran coffee. "And do you have to serve music with the meals, especially that particular selection?"

    Dane flushed, stopped whistling in mid-note. "Terra

    Bound" was old and pretty well worn out; he didn't know why he always unconsciously sounded off with that.

    A Chief Ranger from Khatka just came on board, he reported, carefully offhand, as he busied himself reading labels. He knew better than to serve fish or any of its derivatives in disguise again.

    Khatka! Tau sat up straighter. "Now there's a planet worth visiting.

    "

    Not on a Free Trader's pay, commented Dane.

    You can always hope to make a big strike, boy. But what I wouldn't give to lift ship for there!

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