Brain World

United Planets #7

by Mack Reynolds

MILK RUN. That's what they told Ronny Bronston this job would be. "Just like a vacation," his boss had said. All he and the giant Dorn Horsten would have to do is visit the planet Einstein and see if there was any reason not to admit them to United Planets. The planet was a paradise, where the people had bred themselves for intelligence and beauty, where everyone was completely free. Free, sometimes, to get into more trouble than they could handle. Only Ronny could get them out of that trouble; and that's how he wound up on Dawnworld, in a gladiator's arena!

Genres: Science Fiction

204 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1978

About the author

Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in "Galaxy Magazine" and "Worlds of If Magazine". He was quite popular in the 1960s, but most of his work subsequently went out of print.

He was an active supporter of the Socialist Labor Party; his father, Verne Reynolds, was twice the SLP's Presidential candidate, in 1928 and 1932. Many of MR's stories use SLP jargon such as 'Industrial Feudalism' and most deal with economic issues in some way

Many of Reynolds' stories took place in Utopian societies, and many of which fulfilled L. L. Zamenhof's dream of Esperanto used worldwide as a universal second language. His novels predicted much that has come to pass, including pocket computers and a world-wide computer network with information available at one's fingertips.

Many of his novels were written within the context of a highly mobile society in which few people maintained a fixed residence, leading to "mobile voting" laws which allowed someone living out of the equivalent of a motor home to vote when and where they chose.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brain World is the seventh and last novel in Reynolds' United Planets series. The previous six were published by Ace Books beginning in 1965, but this one came out from Leisure Books in 1978. Ace had released a tremendous number of Reynolds' titles, and it's been speculated that, after changes in editorship, they decided to cut back some. Several of the settings and situations from the former books are revisited, but it's not really a conclusion to the series. We have Section G, assassinations and espionage and interstellar intrigue, but it's not among the best of his work. I did like the talking dog, though. The cover is by Attila Hejja, a now almost-forgotten Hungarian who did a lot of good astronomical covers in the 1970s and '80s. It looks a lot like the style of Vincent di Fate, and Leisure curiously recycled it as the cover of another of their releases in 1981, Alien Encounter by Flanna Devin.

[The Bauchler]

Another Mack Reynold book I read and then lost to a flood.

I remember nothing whatsoever about it, even when reading the blurb, and looking at Craig's increasingly useful crib notes, hence no score.

Just including it from a sense dotting i's and crossing t's:)

I do remember the cover.

I reckon it was an early 90's read, but honestly it could be +/- 10 years either way.