Nightchaser by Amanda Bouchet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Space adventure! This book opens with action – running from the law! Space battle! Black holes and certain death! It’s a super fun book with action and sexy chemistry and books and a cat. Also a viral epidemic, which put me off just a little as we’re currently in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I went into this book having read the author’s Kingmaker series, so I wasn’t expecting a pat resolution at the end of the book. It’s more like part one of a saga, with a clear To Be Continued on the main plot and partial resolution of some part of the story. If you’re okay with that, (and with the fact that books 2 and 3 aren’t out yet!) then go for it.

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The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. Van Vogt

The Book: The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. Van Vogt. Copyright 1951, printed in 1961 by Ace books, D-482.

The Setting: Earth, 1951 and 4784.

The Story: The Weapon Shops sell guns. Guns which cannot be used against others, except in self defense. The government of Isher wants to destroy the shops. Things get a little timey-wimey. Also, a boy doesn’t want to go into the family business, goes to the big city, and gets in some deep trouble.

The Science: Clarke’s third law states that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This is the case with the Weapon shops. Their existence, their infrastructure, and their guns are all basically indistinguishable from magic. Apparently, the founder of the shops was a super genius who figured out how to imbue objects with the ability to determine the intent of an individual when an individual touches them. Magic. The rest of the Isher-world has to get by with corruption and not-a-little-bit of seediness.

The Reaction: Here’s another book I had a good time reading. I would stay up late just to read some more. There are a lot of points of view, and a few jarring moments, not to mention, the author seems to have a man-crush on one of his characters. But it was fun.

The Cover: Cover art by Harry Barton. Boy howdy, do I love this cover. Two guys in jeans and t-shirts are fighting in front of some super-neat device (a ray gun of some kind?), against a future-city backdrop. There’s so much energy in this cover. And you know the guns are from the future because they have those three little rings around the muzzle. And did I mention they’re wearing jeans and t-shirts? So awesome.

Etc: According to wikipedia, this book apparently is a bringing together of three stories from the same universe –

“The Seesaw” (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July 1941)
“The Weapon Shop” (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 1942)
“The Weapon Shops of Isher” (Wonder Stories, February 1949)

This explains some of the slight jarring I felt while reading, but they are sewn together pretty darn well.

The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Book:  The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Originally published as a serial in 1913, the edition read was published by Ballantine Books in 1973.

The Setting: MARS!  Okay, okay…   BARSOOM!

The Story: John Carter returns to Mars and finds himself in the Martian afterlife.  He fights his way out and then back in again against: blood sucking tree men of Mars, white apes of Mars, white priests of Mars, black pirates of Mars, more black men of Mars, green Warsoon of Mars, red men of Mars, the black and the white men of Mars at the same time, and Issus the Goddess of Eternal Life and Death of Mars.  And maybe some other stuff.  He fights till he passes out, alone and with friends.  He finds his son, discovers his wife is missing, seeks his wife, finds her, then loses her at the very end.  WILL HE FIND HER AGAIN??

The Science:

• The Blood Sucking Tree Men of Mars:  Carter encounters these fiendish devils first in this book.  They are bipedal with wiggly arms that graze the top of the tall grass, and end in mouths hungry for blood.  Also, they sprout new tree men from their arm pits.  I’ve got to say, these creatures are pretty terrifying.  Because they will pursue you and suck out all your blood.  And, scientifically, I think there’s a basis for them.  Not the bipedalism, mind you, but vegetables evolving mechanisms to catch animal prey is not unknown.  Additionally, plants move all the time anyway, even if we don’t notice it: they bend toward a light source.  So to imagine a vegetable that evolved a way of moving across the landscape while still alive is not unfathomable.  But I doubt they would have two legs – more likely a root structure wherein the plant develops new roots in a particular direction, abandoning those at the rear.
• The Martian Year: In an important plot point of the book, Carter is positively giddy to remember that the Martian year is 687 earth days long.  And Burroughs did his homework, because that figure is correct.  Dull, yes, but accurate.

The Reaction: Pew pew pew.  Bang bang!   Biff pow whammo! Zzzzzz…  That’s what the book is: Fighting until you pass out from fighting.  And that’s fine by me!  Lots of fun, lots of action, a really quick read.  Burroughs was clearly feeling a little disillusioned with organized religion when he wrote this book; it shows.  And I really love how John Carter is straightforward about when he’s an idiot.  The one really tedious point was the “suspense” about who the young Martian was that turned out to be his son.  Burroughs was not so artful about that.  Carter: “Say, who’s your father?”  The boy: “My father is – ” They were interrupted by some ridiculous thing to draw out the suspense.  But it’s okay, I don’t mind too much with the rest of it being a rollicking good time.

The Cover: Art by Gino D’Achille.  Hey look at that!  Carter is hanging on the anchor of an airship wielding a gigantic sword while a black man wields a sword at him from above.  THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE BOOK.  Yes.  It did.  Really.  It happened at night, but I’ll forgive that.  It’s an exciting cover, except that Carter is posed like a 1940’s pin-up on the anchor, which is a tad ridiculous.

Next Up: Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs