The Keys To Irunium (Keys to the Dimensions, #2) / The Wandering Tellurian

Keys to the Dimensions

by Kenneth Bulmer, Alan Schwartz

Mission to another dimension. By Bulmer
Would his super-weapons help backward planets? By Schwartz

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

254 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Henry Kenneth Bulmer
aka:
Alan Burt Akers
Ken Blake
Ernest Corley
Arthur Frazier
Adam Hardy
Philip Kent
Bruno Krauss
Neil Langholm
Karl Maras
Manning Norvil
Charles R. Pike
Andrew Quiller
Richard Silver
Tully Zetford

Reviews

[Bruno Di Giandomenico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best know for the books for Kregen, Alan Burt Akers, which are quite better than this one, which has a good starting idea (men who can travel between dimensions in parallel universes, well it not so uncommon, but it could have been played better) but the whole concept and book is rather confused, what with all the character which we come to know only briefly and the change of scenario, from one Earth to Irunium, where there are jungkemind, and wild tres, and sort of roman civilisation, all too compressed in about a hundred pages. It is a quick romp from an old aircraft (it was new at the time of writing, but now Tristar are 50 years old now) to Rome and some shady character who are always in a hurry but do not explain anything, to another world of giant forest and medieval people and imported cars. Bah, not so good, not even for a juvenilia, today.

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 2 out of 5]

These Ace Double novels intrigue me. And this is the second double feature I've read. That one got the rare one-star review... luckily this one was better, even if it still doesn't inspire me.

I started with The Keys to Irunium by Kenneth Bulmer. Apparently this guy wrote a lot of books. Over 160. I'm hoping this was early in his career... it's about a man who inherently holds the key to inter-dimensional travel. Things have been disappearing his whole life. Suddenly a girl next to him on a flight disappears, and he's in the middle of a battle between human men and lizard people.

Eventually he falls into the other dimension and meets some random guy and eventually meets up with the big bad woman. It's pretty much uninspiring sci-fi pulp, which is a shame because the concept of inter-dimensional commerce is pretty cool to me. Wrote a story about it once. Like every other Ace Double, this book starts and finishes pretty choppily. It feels like it was written for a contract.

The Wandering Tellurian by Alan Schwartz is the best Ace Double so far. Not good because it still devolves into typical sword-and-planet pulp, but it has the coolest idea: groups of future humans who live on many different planets and have 'death-merchants'... people who sell advanced weapons to primitive people. The main character is a pacifist young man who wants to be a peaceful Ecologist and return to the homeworld, but his father makes him take a day as a death-merchant. Then he's instantly on other planets and it's very inconsequential, especially when this pacifist starts killing a bunch of people, one of which was a young woman some random alien told him to kill. Sorry for the spoiler, but... it was okay, and had an attempt at character growth, but I won't revisit it in the future. Hopefully you enjoy it more than I did, and if you didn't... well, I'm sure we'll try again soon.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Key to Irunium
First of all, the title should be A Key to Irunium because there are more than just one Porteur.

But whatever. In many ways, this book wasn't as good as I thought it would be. It's just so poorly written. The guy doesn't know how to write a sentence. All of the descriptions and character actions don't add anything to the story at all, so it's pretty much a disaster. But in some ways I enjoyed it despite these problems. It's the first of a series, so that's great. More fun to come.

This reminded me of Star Ocean: "Now that he had slaked his thirst he felt hungry. The risotto had worn off." It's like when you eat a hamburg steak and it only lasts five battles. So, in this way, the book is ahead of its time. Fabulous.

[Nora-adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It stinks that I can only get credit for reading one book when this is an ACE dbl. Both books were a fast read and brought back my early days reading classic sci-fi by Asimov, Clark and Rob Heinlein.

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Wandering Tellurian - 2.5 stars
Interesting idea. Atrocious writing. Outdated ideals concerning women. Bad ending.
The Key to Irunium - TBR

[Steven]

Kenneth Bulmer / Alan Schwartz