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Flower of Doradil / A Promising Planet
ACE Double Novel 24100
- GenresScience Fiction
251 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 17, 2025
An Ace Double (“turn this book over for a second complete novel”) with two different authors telling two different stories on an alien world with pre-spaceflight, low tech societies. One is _Flower of Doradil_ by John Rackham, copyright 1970, with John Rackham a pen name for John T. Phillifent, (1916-1976), an English electrical engineer and science fiction and fantasy author who wrote mostly under the Rackham name. Apparently, most of his works were issued with the works of other authors with the Ace Doubles (I have read one other story of his, his 1965 _We, the Venusians_, which I also read as an Ace Double).
This story is set on the alien planet Safari, a world dominated by a single continent Adil, half the size of Africa. Offworld humans are allowed on the various islands around Adil as tourists to enjoy a tropical setting, deep sea fishing and big game hunting, with to continue the Africa analogue, hunters come from far away to hunt snow-leopard like caracal and vaguely-lion like bambar and sort of hippo-like enormous creatures called swamp hogs. The continent itself? A giant reservation, declared off limits by the Alien Contact Authority. Though its inhabitants are human, they are mainly stone age level, many hunter-gatherers, and only a few ACA agents are allowed on Adil.
Except there is a rare flower growing in the highlands of Adil, very far from the coast and in largely unexplored lands, and illicit smugglers are bringing it out. This flower can be used to produce tember juice, a virtual cure-all. Interplanetary Security lost four men trying to find out what was going on, so a woman named Claire Harper is sent to spy on the smugglers and if possible, stop them, enlisting famous hunter-guide Roger Lovell and ends up brining in Roger’s friend, Sam Coleman, a resident, retired from the Interplanetary Colonization Service. Together the three of them head hundreds mile inland through uncharted terrain, facing wild animals, not always friendly locals, and then dealing with the dangerous smugglers themselves.
Can be read as a simple adventure story with lots of intrigue and action at the end. Surprisingly progressive, with a lack of enthusiasm for trophy hunting and the cultures of Adil being woman dominated (though the offworlders still advocating for equal rights).
The other is _A Promising Planet_ by Jeremy Strike, copyright 1970. I could not find him on Wikipedia and Goodreads listed this as his only published work. Its main character is Bill Warden, a surveyor for Star Systems, Inc., who operates on the frontier looking for suitable planets to claim for colonization and mining. Operating all alone, barely beating a rival surveyor named Sara, a type of honorable frenemy, he finds a very nice unclaimed world, temperate-tropical, with an advanced stone age civilization (think Aztec) of somewhat snake-like bipeds. Ready to claim this world and move on, he finds he is soon wrapped up in the schemes of a high priest on this world named Zelnak and is unable to leave, has Sara offering to save him but Bill not wanting to cut her in on the profits from this world, her crew having goals of their own, and oh there is a powerful, unseen entity that claims to be a god, one who Zelnak answers to and like Zelnak, doesn’t want the offworlders to leave (though later Zelnak has his own thoughts on the matter). The story at times had a languid pace as the various players go about their schemes, could be funny at times, but the last third or so becomes a tense thriller.
Both were fun, if at times had slow pacing in a few sections. Good world building. Both have a major character that shares a name with a major character of the other book, I won’t say who (but they are different characters). Both end abruptly, one a happy abrupt ending, the other an unhappy abrupt ending. Both seem to hold up well, both have dynamic, interesting women characters with agency, though both really only have one woman character at all in one story, and only one major woman character in the other.
This story is set on the alien planet Safari, a world dominated by a single continent Adil, half the size of Africa. Offworld humans are allowed on the various islands around Adil as tourists to enjoy a tropical setting, deep sea fishing and big game hunting, with to continue the Africa analogue, hunters come from far away to hunt snow-leopard like caracal and vaguely-lion like bambar and sort of hippo-like enormous creatures called swamp hogs. The continent itself? A giant reservation, declared off limits by the Alien Contact Authority. Though its inhabitants are human, they are mainly stone age level, many hunter-gatherers, and only a few ACA agents are allowed on Adil.
Except there is a rare flower growing in the highlands of Adil, very far from the coast and in largely unexplored lands, and illicit smugglers are bringing it out. This flower can be used to produce tember juice, a virtual cure-all. Interplanetary Security lost four men trying to find out what was going on, so a woman named Claire Harper is sent to spy on the smugglers and if possible, stop them, enlisting famous hunter-guide Roger Lovell and ends up brining in Roger’s friend, Sam Coleman, a resident, retired from the Interplanetary Colonization Service. Together the three of them head hundreds mile inland through uncharted terrain, facing wild animals, not always friendly locals, and then dealing with the dangerous smugglers themselves.
Can be read as a simple adventure story with lots of intrigue and action at the end. Surprisingly progressive, with a lack of enthusiasm for trophy hunting and the cultures of Adil being woman dominated (though the offworlders still advocating for equal rights).
The other is _A Promising Planet_ by Jeremy Strike, copyright 1970. I could not find him on Wikipedia and Goodreads listed this as his only published work. Its main character is Bill Warden, a surveyor for Star Systems, Inc., who operates on the frontier looking for suitable planets to claim for colonization and mining. Operating all alone, barely beating a rival surveyor named Sara, a type of honorable frenemy, he finds a very nice unclaimed world, temperate-tropical, with an advanced stone age civilization (think Aztec) of somewhat snake-like bipeds. Ready to claim this world and move on, he finds he is soon wrapped up in the schemes of a high priest on this world named Zelnak and is unable to leave, has Sara offering to save him but Bill not wanting to cut her in on the profits from this world, her crew having goals of their own, and oh there is a powerful, unseen entity that claims to be a god, one who Zelnak answers to and like Zelnak, doesn’t want the offworlders to leave (though later Zelnak has his own thoughts on the matter). The story at times had a languid pace as the various players go about their schemes, could be funny at times, but the last third or so becomes a tense thriller.
Both were fun, if at times had slow pacing in a few sections. Good world building. Both have a major character that shares a name with a major character of the other book, I won’t say who (but they are different characters). Both end abruptly, one a happy abrupt ending, the other an unhappy abrupt ending. Both seem to hold up well, both have dynamic, interesting women characters with agency, though both really only have one woman character at all in one story, and only one major woman character in the other.
October 24, 2022
A promising planet was intertaining but I like the cover art more than the book itself.
December 7, 2012
Ace Double Novel 441-24100-075
Flower of Doradil, John Rackham, grade B+
Promising Planet, Jeremy Strike, grade B-
Flower of Doradil, John Rackham, grade B+
Promising Planet, Jeremy Strike, grade B-
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews