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Retief #1.1.2
Graylorn
Commander Greylorn leads humanity's last hope, one spaceship racing through the voids of the universe. The Red Tide has all but engulfed the Earth, just enough time to find planet Omega, colonized long ago and vanished. After four years, food stores are destroyed by meteor, crew set to mutiny, and alien ship with cargo of human bodies. 1 Greylorn 1959.
2 The Night of the Trolls (Bolo) 1963
3 The Other Sky 1968 aka The Further Sky
4 The King of the City 1961
2 The Night of the Trolls (Bolo) 1963
3 The Other Sky 1968 aka The Further Sky
4 The King of the City 1961
Nook
First published April 1, 1951
18 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Keith Laumer
498 books227 followersJohn Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."
Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.
During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.
In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.
In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:
Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.
-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)
His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.
Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 19, 2024
Greylorn is a novella that was originally published in the April 1959 issue of Amazing Stories, which was edited by Cele Goldsmith. Goodreads lists it as part of the Retief series, but I didn't see any real connection. It's set on a future Earth that's threatened by ecological disaster by the Red Tide. A spaceship commanded by the titular Captain Greylorn is dispatched to search for salvation, and the mission is plagued by troubles including a mutiny and a weird encounter with weird aliens. It's a pretty good adventure, if a bit too packed with obstacles, and then has a very oddly compacted ending when Greylorn summarizes the solution for a journalist's interview many years later. I listened to an excellent audio version offered via LibriVox.
July 10, 2017
This story would make for some very decent television. I figure you could get a pilot and probably 5-6 episodes out of it before you would have to expand the storyline and go off script. Being public domain, there wouldn't be any cost to acquire the rights for the story. Nevertheless, this was a different take on the standard space opera fare. I would have really liked to see Laumer carry on the story in a continuing saga.
January 25, 2012
I don't know if this is the same version or not. I read a work called Greylorn that I downloaded free from Amazon for the Kindle. It contained just this story, "Greylorn," which is the name of the main character. It was a quick read, very simple and with a kind of rushed ending, but was basically enjoyable. Not from among Laumer's best stuff.
June 12, 2017
A short story that, hidden in a sci-fi setting, sort of tells you how to look at the army or so. The story is told from the perspective of the captain. There is a mutiny on the rise, but why people are so dedicated to risk their life is not very convincing. Apparently, the captain has no clue what runs through the minds of his people. Further, the message of the story is, it may seem big, but although it frightens everyone, if you just follow your wise captain, you will discover that any threat turns out to be nothing compared to the greatness of America. Some vague references link to the Soviets, which is, of course, the real threat at the time of the writing.
Though the reasoning behind the story is not very strong and neither is the message, it's well written and you get through it very easy. It's an amusing story and it still deserves three stars.
Though the reasoning behind the story is not very strong and neither is the message, it's well written and you get through it very easy. It's an amusing story and it still deserves three stars.
August 16, 2021
Fantasy listening 🔰
A entertaining will written fantasy Sci-Fi space opera thriller adventure novella with interesting will developed characters. The story line is set in futuristic space where a ship is sent to a lost planet. While in route the ship takes damage from a asteroid and is helped by a strange ship and the fun begins. I would recommend this novella to readers of fantasy. Enjoy the adventure of reading or listening 🔰2021
Alexa reads to me due to eye damage and issues from shingles. I find listening very entertaining.
A entertaining will written fantasy Sci-Fi space opera thriller adventure novella with interesting will developed characters. The story line is set in futuristic space where a ship is sent to a lost planet. While in route the ship takes damage from a asteroid and is helped by a strange ship and the fun begins. I would recommend this novella to readers of fantasy. Enjoy the adventure of reading or listening 🔰2021
Alexa reads to me due to eye damage and issues from shingles. I find listening very entertaining.
November 15, 2024
Early Laumer. It shows in dated context (all-male crew for multi-year space mssion; denigrating "jungle" continents. And in the two-dimension characters. But it's in public domain, so cheap to acquire.
August 23, 2018
Read on LibriVox (free audio books in the public domain).
June 1, 2020
It’s like a Captain Kirk adventure.
August 15, 2021
So old
Was written before the invention of transistors and chips and still pure joy.
Was written before the invention of transistors and chips and still pure joy.
October 20, 2014
I have a hard time rating this one, because I know there are more Greylorn stories out there that I haven't read and I wonder if my reading experience would have been better had I had that background. Nonetheless, this single story is what I read, and so I must evaluate it on its own merits rather than as part of a collection. I actually sort of wish I could do two and a half stars; it's better than two, but not as good as three.
Other Goodreads reviewers have mentioned the ending, which is rather disappointing to a modern reader in its utter disregard for the "show, don't tell" rule, but I gather this approach was typical of its time. I feel I would be remiss if I did not also mention the beginning. Which is the middle, really. This is less like a self-contained story and more like a couple of chapters lifted from a larger novel with a prologue and an epilogue slapped on in an attempt to set up some kind of context. (This is why I wonder if greater familiarity with the adventures of the title character might not have helped.)
The situation, we're told, is that Earth is under siege from the "Red Tide", which appears to be some sort of organism that has taken over most of the planet. (It is not Communism, not literally, but this is a story from an American writer in 1951 referencing a "red" menace. Draw your own conclusions.) Help from the close and accessible colonies is not forthcoming, so the Terrans must go in search of the lost Omega Colony. It was sent out farther than any of the others and its destination was imprecise, but it was equipped with better technology and more likely to be able and willing to help. If, that is, Earth can establish contact. Frederick Greylorn is put in charge of the expedition, which is expected to take approximately a decade to complete.
That's the prologue. Cut to four years into the voyage. The crew is becoming mutinous. The story would have benefitted greatly from a little attention to those four years; without that background, the mutiny doesn't make sense. I never did understand what had initially sparked it other than that some of the crew seemed to be having second thoughts about being on such a long cruise and wanted to turn back. Which... What? You're bored and regretting your own fully-informed decision to sign away a decade of your prime years? And for this reason you attack your commanding officer and demand the end of a mission to save your planet? Who let you into the military, much less onto that ship?
But it's not just the mutineers; Captain Greylorn, to whom we are obviously meant to feel sympathetic, handles the situation in ways that make no sense either. When the fresh foodstuffs are spoiled as a result of an accident, the medical officer (also leader of the mutineers) asks him, actually very calmly and politely, what he plans to do about the resulting nutritional crisis. And, okay, the guy's got an agenda with that -- but it doesn't make the question invalid. The crew has every right to be a little concerned about how he's going to feed them now that this has happened. The medical officer certainly has the right to ask, mutiny or no mutiny; it's his job to know these sorts of things, since they have a direct effect on the health of the crew. But Greylorn ignores and dismisses the question as though it's completely unimportant, and essentially tells the medical officer to shut the hell up about it. I find myself sympathizing with the mutineers on this particular issue, and I really don't think I'm supposed to. Greylorn is otherwise made out to be Our Hero, the brave and determined captain who is determined to do whatever it takes to save his planet. Maybe he has good reasons for doing this based on what's happened in the four years we missed, but without that context his silence comes across as arrogance and possibly even tyranny.
Perhaps someday I'll hunt down the rest of the collection and try again. It was nice space opera in many respects; I just don't feel like I had the whole story. As a standalone, though, I just don't feel like I was given enough information to understand the plot or the characters. I really wish I could rate it higher and recommend it to others, because it's got promise, but... I just can't.
Other Goodreads reviewers have mentioned the ending, which is rather disappointing to a modern reader in its utter disregard for the "show, don't tell" rule, but I gather this approach was typical of its time. I feel I would be remiss if I did not also mention the beginning. Which is the middle, really. This is less like a self-contained story and more like a couple of chapters lifted from a larger novel with a prologue and an epilogue slapped on in an attempt to set up some kind of context. (This is why I wonder if greater familiarity with the adventures of the title character might not have helped.)
The situation, we're told, is that Earth is under siege from the "Red Tide", which appears to be some sort of organism that has taken over most of the planet. (It is not Communism, not literally, but this is a story from an American writer in 1951 referencing a "red" menace. Draw your own conclusions.) Help from the close and accessible colonies is not forthcoming, so the Terrans must go in search of the lost Omega Colony. It was sent out farther than any of the others and its destination was imprecise, but it was equipped with better technology and more likely to be able and willing to help. If, that is, Earth can establish contact. Frederick Greylorn is put in charge of the expedition, which is expected to take approximately a decade to complete.
That's the prologue. Cut to four years into the voyage. The crew is becoming mutinous. The story would have benefitted greatly from a little attention to those four years; without that background, the mutiny doesn't make sense. I never did understand what had initially sparked it other than that some of the crew seemed to be having second thoughts about being on such a long cruise and wanted to turn back. Which... What? You're bored and regretting your own fully-informed decision to sign away a decade of your prime years? And for this reason you attack your commanding officer and demand the end of a mission to save your planet? Who let you into the military, much less onto that ship?
But it's not just the mutineers; Captain Greylorn, to whom we are obviously meant to feel sympathetic, handles the situation in ways that make no sense either. When the fresh foodstuffs are spoiled as a result of an accident, the medical officer (also leader of the mutineers) asks him, actually very calmly and politely, what he plans to do about the resulting nutritional crisis. And, okay, the guy's got an agenda with that -- but it doesn't make the question invalid. The crew has every right to be a little concerned about how he's going to feed them now that this has happened. The medical officer certainly has the right to ask, mutiny or no mutiny; it's his job to know these sorts of things, since they have a direct effect on the health of the crew. But Greylorn ignores and dismisses the question as though it's completely unimportant, and essentially tells the medical officer to shut the hell up about it. I find myself sympathizing with the mutineers on this particular issue, and I really don't think I'm supposed to. Greylorn is otherwise made out to be Our Hero, the brave and determined captain who is determined to do whatever it takes to save his planet. Maybe he has good reasons for doing this based on what's happened in the four years we missed, but without that context his silence comes across as arrogance and possibly even tyranny.
Perhaps someday I'll hunt down the rest of the collection and try again. It was nice space opera in many respects; I just don't feel like I had the whole story. As a standalone, though, I just don't feel like I was given enough information to understand the plot or the characters. I really wish I could rate it higher and recommend it to others, because it's got promise, but... I just can't.
March 27, 2020
One of the most important parts of a short story is balance. Greylorn manages to balance a powerful main character complete with emotion and purpose with humanity's desperation and a plot that thrives in its own sci-fi environment. This could easily have been a longer book with the entire story being the first part. I deeply enjoyed the setup Laumer created.
November 4, 2013
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23028 Short story 1959, not collection 1968.
Commander Greylorn, smart heroic narrator, adopts various techniques: take 'initiative", "beat him to the punch", "get him mad", depend on others' "long habit" to foil mutiny led by med officer Kramer, resolving head-on confrontations, night approach, protected inside needle-resistant suit then shuttle vehicle. After four years chasing last Omega colony ships to help rid earth of Red plague, meteor strike on Galahad kills three, damages food freezer, spoils essential supplies. The steady offense as best defense is more believable than key reason Greylorn saw through alien ship.
The enemy Mancji send protein for DC electricity. Two-ton each molluscs under six gees transmit "amused" in low quality "antique" human dialect "early Interlingua". The "food" is stacked stripped corpses of "six families" frozen in bulk, "slaves .. tame cattle".
Commander Greylorn, smart heroic narrator, adopts various techniques: take 'initiative", "beat him to the punch", "get him mad", depend on others' "long habit" to foil mutiny led by med officer Kramer, resolving head-on confrontations, night approach, protected inside needle-resistant suit then shuttle vehicle. After four years chasing last Omega colony ships to help rid earth of Red plague, meteor strike on Galahad kills three, damages food freezer, spoils essential supplies. The steady offense as best defense is more believable than key reason Greylorn saw through alien ship.
The enemy Mancji send protein for DC electricity. Two-ton each molluscs under six gees transmit "amused" in low quality "antique" human dialect "early Interlingua". The "food" is stacked stripped corpses of "six families" frozen in bulk, "slaves .. tame cattle".
November 3, 2014
This is my first time reading/listening to a story by Keith Laumer. Not knowing anything about the story or author going in meant that I lacked any assumptions about either. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
To begin with we are introduced to the very determined Captain Greylorn, a man that has been given the task of commanding a ship that is considered the last hope in finding a solution for an organism that is taking over the Earth at a rapid rate. Four years into the journey, he is seeing obvious issues among his crew. The ship's doctor is organizing a mutiny in order to head back home, but the crew members involved are somewhat hesitant to enact it. And that is when they make what they believe to be first contact with an alien species. The crap hits the fan when a simple trade for food results in the mutiny going into full swing. How Greylorn deals with the situation, as told in first person, is wonderful to watch. He is a freaking awesome protagonist.
As for Mark F. Smith's reading of this story, the sound quality could have been slightly better, but he does an awesome job in spite of some small pops and crackles. There was a second LibriVox reading by Mark Nelson, another great narrator, but I am glad that I gave the first version a shot as it showed me Smith's skills as a narrator. He also does some solid character acting throughout, managing to hold each character together in his head.
Folks with a love of science fiction and/or military stories will absolutely love this novella.
To begin with we are introduced to the very determined Captain Greylorn, a man that has been given the task of commanding a ship that is considered the last hope in finding a solution for an organism that is taking over the Earth at a rapid rate. Four years into the journey, he is seeing obvious issues among his crew. The ship's doctor is organizing a mutiny in order to head back home, but the crew members involved are somewhat hesitant to enact it. And that is when they make what they believe to be first contact with an alien species. The crap hits the fan when a simple trade for food results in the mutiny going into full swing. How Greylorn deals with the situation, as told in first person, is wonderful to watch. He is a freaking awesome protagonist.
As for Mark F. Smith's reading of this story, the sound quality could have been slightly better, but he does an awesome job in spite of some small pops and crackles. There was a second LibriVox reading by Mark Nelson, another great narrator, but I am glad that I gave the first version a shot as it showed me Smith's skills as a narrator. He also does some solid character acting throughout, managing to hold each character together in his head.
Folks with a love of science fiction and/or military stories will absolutely love this novella.
March 15, 2014
Surprisingly good
If the front matter is to be believed, this is a very early work by Laumer. If so, it's surprisingly mature (and makes me wonder again how he got typecast as just the author of Retief).
The title character, Greylorn, an officer in Terra's space navy, commands a mission to find a lost colony. About the first 90% of the novella is space adventure, with Greylorn battling two problems at the same time. There's pretty good suspense along the way, but when Greylorn resolves one of the two problems we just think he got lucky. What makes the story is the brief Epilogue, where we find out that his seeming luck was actually the result of careful deduction. This story structure reminded me a lot of Poul Anderson.
I did waver between 3 and 4 stars, because the help that Greylorn gets with his other problem is a classic deus ex machina, too good to be believed. But I decided to go with 4 in hopes that others will try this story and see that, though the Retief stories are fun, there was a lot more to Keith Laumer.
If the front matter is to be believed, this is a very early work by Laumer. If so, it's surprisingly mature (and makes me wonder again how he got typecast as just the author of Retief).
The title character, Greylorn, an officer in Terra's space navy, commands a mission to find a lost colony. About the first 90% of the novella is space adventure, with Greylorn battling two problems at the same time. There's pretty good suspense along the way, but when Greylorn resolves one of the two problems we just think he got lucky. What makes the story is the brief Epilogue, where we find out that his seeming luck was actually the result of careful deduction. This story structure reminded me a lot of Poul Anderson.
I did waver between 3 and 4 stars, because the help that Greylorn gets with his other problem is a classic deus ex machina, too good to be believed. But I decided to go with 4 in hopes that others will try this story and see that, though the Retief stories are fun, there was a lot more to Keith Laumer.
January 21, 2014
The whole story was entertaining for me and held my interest to see how it would turn out. I was annoyed, though not surprised, that there werebno female characters, of course, abd then toward the end one character pops up with dialogue written in, um, dialect (sorry, can't think of the term to use here - all "y'all t'ain't gonna" kind of stuff) and I think he was meant to be black. Which then means that all the other characters I guess are meant to be white. Anyway, the real kicker for me was at the very end when he tells us that everything was wiped out by the red tide except some of north America and western Europe - that's right, mostly all the white people. And mention I sthen made of how it was. blessing in disguise because it wiped clean all that mess in Africa specifically so now they can grow crops there. Yay for them, hey? No regrets for all the non-white people, all the vegetable and animal species wiped out - nothing. :(
February 23, 2013
I don’t recall there being a single female in this tale, so major negative points for leaving out not only have of the human species, but also half of the alien species too (I’m making a biological assumption there). Other than that, I had fun listening to Greylorn try to thwart the various insubodinates, their half-assed attempts in the beginning, and final culmination. Also, I was not expecting there to be an alien race, and their joke had me laughing. If you read this, or eventually do read it, you will probably question my sense of humor. Overall, not a bad way to spend 2 hours. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more Keith Laumer tales.
September 30, 2008
A decent, not great, hard SF story from Keith Laumer. Mostly space opera, the story is really an extended novella with only a slightly twisty ending. The mutiny was the most interesting part of the story. I listened to an audio version from Librivox.
July 18, 2011
Great beginning, but the explanatory ending was extremely disappointing.
February 10, 2012
I liked this book more because it was a chance to see what early science fiction was like than because of the quality of the work itself.
July 18, 2015
Greylorn
Not bad at all. It is a tongue in cheek view of the future. Not on par with Bolo, but fans of Retief should enjoy this story.
Not bad at all. It is a tongue in cheek view of the future. Not on par with Bolo, but fans of Retief should enjoy this story.
October 8, 2015
"Greylorn" is a suspenseful interplanetary science fiction story written about 1951.
May 29, 2012
Short, but interesting.
September 28, 2013
A interest story that is recorded and narrated extremely well.
March 16, 2014
It was aight. Not bad, but nothing special...
April 27, 2017
First of all, this is a Librovox recording and if you aren't familiar with Librovox you should be. Volunteers record public domain works and the performers I have listened to thanks to librovox have all been excellent including this one.
Keith Laumer is generally hailed as one of the greats of science fiction and had I read this in 1968 perhaps I would feel different. Today all the themes of Greylorn have been done and done better. In Greylorn a bacteria is destroying earth. Earthlings, having fallen behind on education, is losing. Earth lost touch with it greatest attempt to colonize space about 200 years ago and so, in the hope that the colonists have surpassed earth sends out a mission to contact them. The mission is fraught with stupidity including an encounter with pretty much the most stupid aliens ever. However, only the captain can figure this out because the rest of his crew are too busy plotting mutiny, even before any actual difficulties are encountered. HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO MUTINY ABOARD THE ONLY SHIP THAT MIGHT SAVE EARTH ONLY TO RETURN TO EARTH TO DIE????? FYI, the trip to the lost colony and back was estimated to take 10 years and earth thinks it MAY be able to hold out that long against the bacteria for that long. Also mutiny is occurring right as the ship is getting to the vicinity of the lost colony. SO ESSENTIALLY THE MUTINEERS WERE TOO STUPID TO LIVE AND CERTAINLY TOO STUPID TO BE CHOSEN FOR SUCH AN IMPORTANT MISSION!!!!!!!
There is one Twilight Zone-esque twist in the story which, having seen Twilight Zone and many copycats thereof it was completely predictable, but hey, that probably doesn't go for everyone so I've at least left that out this review.
While not a fan, I didn't hate this book. It was an interesting reminder of where science fiction was in the 1960s. It was also short and too the point so I don't regret (completely) the time it took to listen to it.
Keith Laumer is generally hailed as one of the greats of science fiction and had I read this in 1968 perhaps I would feel different. Today all the themes of Greylorn have been done and done better. In Greylorn a bacteria is destroying earth. Earthlings, having fallen behind on education, is losing. Earth lost touch with it greatest attempt to colonize space about 200 years ago and so, in the hope that the colonists have surpassed earth sends out a mission to contact them. The mission is fraught with stupidity including an encounter with pretty much the most stupid aliens ever. However, only the captain can figure this out because the rest of his crew are too busy plotting mutiny, even before any actual difficulties are encountered. HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO MUTINY ABOARD THE ONLY SHIP THAT MIGHT SAVE EARTH ONLY TO RETURN TO EARTH TO DIE????? FYI, the trip to the lost colony and back was estimated to take 10 years and earth thinks it MAY be able to hold out that long against the bacteria for that long. Also mutiny is occurring right as the ship is getting to the vicinity of the lost colony. SO ESSENTIALLY THE MUTINEERS WERE TOO STUPID TO LIVE AND CERTAINLY TOO STUPID TO BE CHOSEN FOR SUCH AN IMPORTANT MISSION!!!!!!!
There is one Twilight Zone-esque twist in the story which, having seen Twilight Zone and many copycats thereof it was completely predictable, but hey, that probably doesn't go for everyone so I've at least left that out this review.
While not a fan, I didn't hate this book. It was an interesting reminder of where science fiction was in the 1960s. It was also short and too the point so I don't regret (completely) the time it took to listen to it.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews