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Family d'Alembert #2
Stranglers' Moon
Gone from the galaxy...
A startling discovery has shaken Earth's galactic Empire: more than two hundred and fifty thousand people have vanished from the resort moon, Vesa, without a trace! Called to duty, SOTE's most daring secret agents, Jules and Yvette D'Alembert - the former aerialists from the triple-gravity planet Des Plaines, possessed of lightning-reflexes and super-strength - are faced with a lethal and baffling conspiracy. Together the D'Alemberts have conquered many of the Empire's most dangerous foes, but now the mighty pair must divide forces - each to challenge a deadly evil terror alone!
A startling discovery has shaken Earth's galactic Empire: more than two hundred and fifty thousand people have vanished from the resort moon, Vesa, without a trace! Called to duty, SOTE's most daring secret agents, Jules and Yvette D'Alembert - the former aerialists from the triple-gravity planet Des Plaines, possessed of lightning-reflexes and super-strength - are faced with a lethal and baffling conspiracy. Together the D'Alemberts have conquered many of the Empire's most dangerous foes, but now the mighty pair must divide forces - each to challenge a deadly evil terror alone!
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
14 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
About the author
E.E. "Doc" Smith
217 books325 followersEdward Elmer Smith (also E.E. Smith, E.E. Smith, Ph.D., E.E. “Doc” Smith, Doc Smith, “Skylark” Smith, or—to his family—Ted), was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and an early science fiction author, best known for the Lensman and Skylark series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 23, 2017
A perfect mix of science fiction and a spy / adventure novel from the elder statesman of the space opera (E. E. "Doc" Smith) and his co-author (Stephen Goldin). The d'Alembert siblings, Yvette and Jules, are super secret special agents for the intergalactic government who also happen to be seasoned circus performers from a home planet with a higher gravity level that gives them super strength pretty much anywhere else. That's bad news for a highly organized criminal conspiracy on the gambling pleasure moon of Vesa where rich tourists are being systematically strangled, robbed, and disposed of. This has been going on for decades, but because of the huge numbers of tourists on Vesa, no one noticed until the wrong couple got caught in the web. Lots of action, some cool descriptions of the planet and it's people, and just a slight tinge of racism (you'd think sci-fi could get over that by the 70s but, no).
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November 16, 2020Stranglers' Moon is the second in the Family D'Alembert series by Smith. When SOTE finally notices that tourists on the moon of Vesa are going missing in massive numbers, they decide to send in their top agents, Jules and Yvette, to investigate the matter. The pair decide to split up to be more effective, so Jules dresses down and becomes a common laborer, while Yvette resurrects her Carmen Velasquez personna, this time as a wealthy widow traveling to Vesa to gamble away her sorrows. On the way she meets and falls for a wealthy but mysterious stranger, Dak, and were it not for their irreconcilable differences - he would never survive on the three gee world of DesPlaines, and she would have health issues if she had to live at one gee all the time - she might have actually considered doing something about it (a No No for the censors when Smith was writing). But Dak disappears after arriving on Vesa, and Yvette is now personally motivated to find the person or persons responsible.
In the meantime, Jules is having plenty of fun being caught between a gang of men from the planet below (settled by refugees from the Indian subcontinent) and the rough and ready workers of Vesa. One would think if things were always as tense as they get when Jules signs up as a laborer, the companies would never get any work done, so the stress is a little manufactured, but it sets Jules up for a rather miraculous escape much later in the book when he acquires a life debt from one of the young gang members. Also, if I were Jules' foreman I'd be more than a little bit curious about his acrobatic abilities (remember, Jules & Yvette travel with the family Circus), and think that perhaps the background he'd put in his job application was spurious.
Semi-amusing, but not the most inspired of Smith's works in this series.
In the meantime, Jules is having plenty of fun being caught between a gang of men from the planet below (settled by refugees from the Indian subcontinent) and the rough and ready workers of Vesa. One would think if things were always as tense as they get when Jules signs up as a laborer, the companies would never get any work done, so the stress is a little manufactured, but it sets Jules up for a rather miraculous escape much later in the book when he acquires a life debt from one of the young gang members. Also, if I were Jules' foreman I'd be more than a little bit curious about his acrobatic abilities (remember, Jules & Yvette travel with the family Circus), and think that perhaps the background he'd put in his job application was spurious.
Semi-amusing, but not the most inspired of Smith's works in this series.
July 13, 2022
Non-spoiler review: you probably shouldn't bother.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2022
The second in the Family d'Alembert series. It's pretty cut and dried. The secret agency Jules and Yvette knows that there is a string of murders cleverly being hush upped and covered over on the luxury resort moon of Vesa. They just don't know who is behind it or why. Jules and Yvette decide to handle it on two fronts, with each operating independently to solve the case.
It's a fairly straight forward plot. There's not a lot of mystery involved in things its more of an action/adventure style read. For being super spies the two make some blunders. And Yvette's character interactions with a 'romantic' interest doesn't play too well.
It's a fairly straight forward plot. There's not a lot of mystery involved in things its more of an action/adventure style read. For being super spies the two make some blunders. And Yvette's character interactions with a 'romantic' interest doesn't play too well.
February 1, 2022
It feels so dated! Explorers looking for new planets to colonise. Setting big business deals; spying; scheming, car chases etc. Some things happen in space!
Chapter titles :>3 Locker room Brawl; 4 The Resurrection of Carmen Velasquez; 9 The Not-So-Great-Escape. 11 School for Stranglers.
So it's an exciting thriller with plenty of action, and possibly an excess of dialogue?
I liked it enough to finish reading. I considered finding more in the series but.... too many other books in my collection!
Chapter titles :>3 Locker room Brawl; 4 The Resurrection of Carmen Velasquez; 9 The Not-So-Great-Escape. 11 School for Stranglers.
So it's an exciting thriller with plenty of action, and possibly an excess of dialogue?
I liked it enough to finish reading. I considered finding more in the series but.... too many other books in my collection!
January 2, 2022
Second book of this fun SF spy/action series, this and the remainder of the book in the series are purely the work of Stephen Goldin - 'Doc Smith' had nothing to do with them.
Really fun stuff - with a couple of fairly grim passages and a little bit more of the incremental building of the overall series story that Goldin is developing.
Honestly, this series should be looked at pretty carefully by anyone looking for a good structure to build a TV series around.
Really fun stuff - with a couple of fairly grim passages and a little bit more of the incremental building of the overall series story that Goldin is developing.
Honestly, this series should be looked at pretty carefully by anyone looking for a good structure to build a TV series around.
August 7, 2025
This second book in the "Family d'Alembert" series diverges even further from the classic E. E. 'Doc' Smith style of pulp space opera storytelling. Not that it is a bad book, as such, it's just doesn't really feel like a Doc Smith book. It drags a bit in places, and also plays into some racial stereotypes that I'm not really comfortable with. Other than that I generally enjoyed it.
June 8, 2017
The second in the sci-fi spy series by E.E. Doc Smith. (My husband has asked me to mention that these books where written as a collaboration between Smith and another writer.) Still filled with lots of costume descriptions, but much more spy stuff to be done. Could have made a good 60's TV show.
October 28, 2022
Embarrassing to look back now but the first set of books as a teenager that got me into Sci Fi
July 22, 2024
Another classic tale of derring-do!
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October 23, 2025Slight edge wear. Name written on first page. Pages are perfect. Same day shipping.
August 22, 2019
This is the second in a 10 novel series which was mostly written by Stephen Goldin. Doc Smith wrote a novella called Imperial Stars which Goldin expanded into the first novel, and then Goldin wrote another 9 novels in a long story arc. But Smith is the famous one, so his name appears in large letters everywhere and Goldin is barely mentioned.
The setting is a universe where a Russian Feudal system has somehow become the dominant mode of government and of the language, so we see Russian words sprinkled throughout the conversations. Humanity has spread to a number of planets with varying characteristics. One of these is DesPlaines, a high gravity planet whose inhabitants have adapted by becoming shorter and stockier, and which has developed a unique attraction, The Circus of the Galaxy. What people don't know is that this circus is also a key part of the secret service SOTE, the Service Of The Empire. This allows for an interesting twist for space opera, a series where the heroes do not have secret weapons or super powers, merely acrobatic training.
In this novel the threat they deal with is a number of mysterious disappearances on the equivalent of Las Vegas, a moon devoted to gambling. Normally the idea is to just take people's money, not their lives. But Jules and Yvette d'Alembert, top agents of SOTE, must get to the bottom and stop this plot. The book is fast-paced and a good combination of space opera with spy thriller. But since this a 10-novel story arc, each novel builds on what went before, so do not read them out of order.
The setting is a universe where a Russian Feudal system has somehow become the dominant mode of government and of the language, so we see Russian words sprinkled throughout the conversations. Humanity has spread to a number of planets with varying characteristics. One of these is DesPlaines, a high gravity planet whose inhabitants have adapted by becoming shorter and stockier, and which has developed a unique attraction, The Circus of the Galaxy. What people don't know is that this circus is also a key part of the secret service SOTE, the Service Of The Empire. This allows for an interesting twist for space opera, a series where the heroes do not have secret weapons or super powers, merely acrobatic training.
In this novel the threat they deal with is a number of mysterious disappearances on the equivalent of Las Vegas, a moon devoted to gambling. Normally the idea is to just take people's money, not their lives. But Jules and Yvette d'Alembert, top agents of SOTE, must get to the bottom and stop this plot. The book is fast-paced and a good combination of space opera with spy thriller. But since this a 10-novel story arc, each novel builds on what went before, so do not read them out of order.
November 16, 2009
This series was the first true science fiction that I read. I made a comment to my father that science fiction was boring and too sciency after having tried to read some Isaac Asimov (who I later read with great pleasure) and so he challenged me to read the first chapter of this series and then put the books down and not finish. I lost the challenge. I have since read all the books in the series several times and am glad my dad took the time to pick out the perfect sci fi for a 10 year old girl.
October 25, 2009
Another in the series and the writing reminds me a lot of Andre Norton's.
May 12, 2012
Good old fashioned SF
April 29, 2015
A good, honest Sci-Fi fun read but I think I could soon get bored of these crime fighting siblings. I think the next two on my shelf will remain untouched for a while.
March 8, 2016
It's a classic from my childhood!
November 30, 2020
So much better than the first, but still a fair way to go.
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January 18, 2019Very good
A really very good space adventure series that I read many years ago and remember with great fondness and am enjoying over again.
A really very good space adventure series that I read many years ago and remember with great fondness and am enjoying over again.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews