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Anarchaos
"72% of off-world visitors to Anarchaos in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered," the guide told Rolf Malone. "Customs reports you're carrying a surprising assortment of weapons, for which you had no believable explanation. Don't try to beat these people, Malone - you're on their ground, playing by their rules."
"No," Malone said. "There are no rules here."
For Anarchaos was a planet where anarchy was the only law, where each man protected himself as best he could, and the weak were soon dead. Malone's brother had died that way, and Malone had come to Anarchaos to find the man who had killed him. He knew that he was facing an entire planet of enemies.
"No," Malone said. "There are no rules here."
For Anarchaos was a planet where anarchy was the only law, where each man protected himself as best he could, and the weak were soon dead. Malone's brother had died that way, and Malone had come to Anarchaos to find the man who had killed him. He knew that he was facing an entire planet of enemies.
143 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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October 5, 2025
Anarchaos, written by Westlake under one of his various pseudonyms, Curt Clark, is more science fiction than murder mystery. Rolf Malone, recently released from prison for killing a whole bunch of people (five) in a bit of anger because of a noisy party in the next apartment, was only sentenced for manslaughter and has been released. He is now en route to Anarchaos, a planet so savagely hostile that its sun is nicknamed Hell. He was originally going to join his brother, but now it’s a mission of investigation and vengeance.
The setting is appropriately in the depths of literal Hell: “Above us, Hell stood at its perpetual zenith, a swollen red sun, huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline. Its light was red, rust-red, tingeing everything it touched.”
But Hell doesn’t just describe the environment. It describes the experience. ‘It’s the planet that should be called Hell, because its citizens are devils. . . . According to the most recent report on the subject I’ve seen, seventy-two per cent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered”
Outside the corporate fortresses, it is pure savage chaos with every man for himself and no one safe. Rolf though fits in well as anyone could, nonchalantly strangling his driver, murdering the trapper who saved him from death only to try and enslave him, and living in the slave mines for four years.
Westlake quotes freely from anarchist philosopher Bukanin: “Our first work must be the annihilation of everything as it now exists. The old world must be destroyed and replaced by a new one. When you have freed your mind from the fear of God, and that childish respect for the fiction of right, then all the remaining chains that bind you—property, marriage, morality, and justice—will snap asunder like threads.”
Yet, Anarchaos is not the bottom-up local communities that Bakunin envisioned, but the Hobbesian world where life is nasty, brutish, and short, without some kind of order.
The narrator Rolf explains: “If a man is treated like an animal, he will become an animal. There is something inside every human being that craves mindlessness, that aches to give up the nagging responsibility of being a creature with a rational brain, that yearns to be merely instinct and appetite and blindness. Those who join a rioting mob have given in to this animality within themselves; alcoholics and drug addicts are perpetually in search of it. I became an animal. I became as stupid, as obedient, as unthinking, as placid as any plowhorse.”
Eventually, Rolf solved the riddle of what happened to his brother, exacts ultimate vengeance, and heads off into the sunset, but much of the novel is his desperate struggle just to survive.
The setting is appropriately in the depths of literal Hell: “Above us, Hell stood at its perpetual zenith, a swollen red sun, huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline. Its light was red, rust-red, tingeing everything it touched.”
But Hell doesn’t just describe the environment. It describes the experience. ‘It’s the planet that should be called Hell, because its citizens are devils. . . . According to the most recent report on the subject I’ve seen, seventy-two per cent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered”
Outside the corporate fortresses, it is pure savage chaos with every man for himself and no one safe. Rolf though fits in well as anyone could, nonchalantly strangling his driver, murdering the trapper who saved him from death only to try and enslave him, and living in the slave mines for four years.
Westlake quotes freely from anarchist philosopher Bukanin: “Our first work must be the annihilation of everything as it now exists. The old world must be destroyed and replaced by a new one. When you have freed your mind from the fear of God, and that childish respect for the fiction of right, then all the remaining chains that bind you—property, marriage, morality, and justice—will snap asunder like threads.”
Yet, Anarchaos is not the bottom-up local communities that Bakunin envisioned, but the Hobbesian world where life is nasty, brutish, and short, without some kind of order.
The narrator Rolf explains: “If a man is treated like an animal, he will become an animal. There is something inside every human being that craves mindlessness, that aches to give up the nagging responsibility of being a creature with a rational brain, that yearns to be merely instinct and appetite and blindness. Those who join a rioting mob have given in to this animality within themselves; alcoholics and drug addicts are perpetually in search of it. I became an animal. I became as stupid, as obedient, as unthinking, as placid as any plowhorse.”
Eventually, Rolf solved the riddle of what happened to his brother, exacts ultimate vengeance, and heads off into the sunset, but much of the novel is his desperate struggle just to survive.
May 23, 2015
This reads far more like a crime novel than a science fiction novel, which makes sense as "Clark" is Westlake, an author known for his crime novels. It is of interest in that it is the rare science fiction novel that does not espouse libertarianism but instead roundly condemns anarchist ideology.
April 6, 2019
This is a very peculiar book. It precedes the most famous SF book that considers anarchism, Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, but it’s incredibly peculiar since it misunderstands anarchism only to give what is actually a fairly anarchist critique of authoritarianism, colonialism, and capital. I found it strangely compelling, and I enjoyed having this 1967 printing!
April 9, 2021
“Start to say anarchy, and midway through switch and say chaos.”
“It is Hell,” said the steward.
Yup. Less than one visitor in three survives the planet Anarchaos. 72% of visitors in the previous 10 years have disappeared, and are presumed murdered. Cheating, stealing, and killing are not crimes there. And it is there that Rolf Malone is looking to find out the truth of what happened to his brother, and to "choose an appropriate vengeance." And choose he does!
“You murdered Gar Malone. I came to Anarchaos to find you and punish you.”
I liked the beginning of the book, and the ending. The middle part, especially his time as a slave, was pretty uneventful. I do like a good revenge story, even if it's of the science fiction genre.
And I've always been a Westlake/Stark/Clark fan! So, a good read overall!
“Violence done of duty weighs more heavily than violence done out of passion.”
“It is Hell,” said the steward.
Yup. Less than one visitor in three survives the planet Anarchaos. 72% of visitors in the previous 10 years have disappeared, and are presumed murdered. Cheating, stealing, and killing are not crimes there. And it is there that Rolf Malone is looking to find out the truth of what happened to his brother, and to "choose an appropriate vengeance." And choose he does!
“You murdered Gar Malone. I came to Anarchaos to find you and punish you.”
I liked the beginning of the book, and the ending. The middle part, especially his time as a slave, was pretty uneventful. I do like a good revenge story, even if it's of the science fiction genre.
And I've always been a Westlake/Stark/Clark fan! So, a good read overall!
“Violence done of duty weighs more heavily than violence done out of passion.”
January 29, 2023
“This book can’t be as nasty as it sounds. It’s an Ace paperback from ‘67. It can’t be as mean as Bester…”
I thought, before learning Curt Clark is a pen name for Donald Westlake, aka Richard Stark.
It’s mean and nasty, especially for its time. As one might expect from the author of the Parker novels writing SF. It’s barely SF, it’s a revenge novel soaked in blood and filth, because it’s Donald Westlake.
Compared with most of his immaculate crime novels this ain’t top tier, but it’s written by him and is well worth reading.
The cover is great.
I thought, before learning Curt Clark is a pen name for Donald Westlake, aka Richard Stark.
It’s mean and nasty, especially for its time. As one might expect from the author of the Parker novels writing SF. It’s barely SF, it’s a revenge novel soaked in blood and filth, because it’s Donald Westlake.
Compared with most of his immaculate crime novels this ain’t top tier, but it’s written by him and is well worth reading.
The cover is great.
June 15, 2016
Not the greatest, but not complete crap. The writing is ok, something you would expect from a quick read. I wish it explored more of the Sci-Fi aspects of the story. The main character's attitude got on my nerve, but it was still a cheap thrill, and I can't complain too much because it was a $.25 thrift store find!
August 24, 2025
Curt Clark's 1962 Anarchaos is a strange but interesting brief-ish novel of revenge and brutality, suffering and self-discovery and self-abasement...and, ultimately, further calm ruthlessness.
First-person narrator Rolf Malone has taken a five-day trip through hyperspace from Earth to Anarchaos, regarding which "Rohstock said...in his Voyages to Seven Planets" that "[t]hose who see by the light of Hell are blind to evil" (1967 Ace paperback, page 5). The "swollen red sun" of this tidally locked world, after all, "huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline" (page 7), is called, perhaps appropriately, "Hell." And pronunciation of the name of the planet itself? "Start to say anarchy," the steward explains to the "nervously smiling" missionary aboard the shuttle, "and midway through switch and say chaos" (page 6).
According to the rules of the interstellar Union Commission,
"colonies receiving UC assistance--without which colonization is impossible--have total freedom for self-determination of their own style of government, within the limitations of precedence. That is, colonies are not permitted to invent while new systems out of whole cloth, but are limited to those governments which have existed in the past, of any era, either in fact or in an extensive body of of philosophical and socio-political literature." (page 18)
Now, this seems gimmicky as all hell to me, but Clark waves away any objection by claiming that the Union Commission wished "to save future colonies from half-digested or harebrained new political theories like those which, in the first wave of stellar colonization, caused so much pain and bloodshed" (page 18). Of course, governments of the past also had been founded on dictatorship and slavery and genocide, but...oh, well, no need to have a rule against those, I guess.
The important thing here is that "the founders of Anarchaos" considered "Bakunin...their chief prophet, assisted by such other anarchist, nihilist or syndicalist writers as William Godwin, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Max Stirner, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, Georges Sorel and Sergius Nachaev" (page 19). Even with human occupation "in its eighty-seventh year" (page 20), "[t]he planet remains remains permanently on colony status, using UC money, with UC embassies in each city, with UC men staffing each spaceport," because "[o]nly when a colony is ready for self-government does the UC depart," and this planet of course never will have a government (page 19). And although the Union Commission "probably" wants to "do something about Anarchaos, even though it would be stretching legality," "the businessmen, the corporations, the off-worlders who have money and prestige and political power...profit hugely from Anarchaos as it now stands" (page 19), for it "is a rich world, a storehouse of valuable minerals and a significant exporter of furs" (page 20).
Rolf Malone claims to be a tourist, but of course "there are no tourists on Anarchaos" (page 11)--in fact, "[a]ccording to the most recent reports..., seventy-two percent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered" (page 9)--and Customs at the previous stopover world had confiscated from Malone "a surprising assortment of weapons, for which [he] had no believable explanation" (page 11). I don't believe it's until page 26 out of 143 that the text tells us that Rolf's brother, Gar Malone, "had been killed" while working for a big corporation on Anarchaos, but the back-office guys who wrote the back blurb already used that as a come-on to make us buy.
Gar was something of the opposite of the hot-tempered younger brother who had just gotten out of prison "for manslaughter, after [he] killed five people in an argument over a noisy party" (page 25). Gar may have been the "darling" of the family--unlike the youngster who with his "destructive frenzies" had "alienated [him]self from all of them"--but "he was fond of [Rolf], too, with a curious blend of normal brotherly affection combined with a goodhearted man's indulgence of a rambunctious pet" (page 25). The elder brother was "the one person" Rolf "never grew angry with," and "the only one in the world--any world--whose opinion mattered to" Rolf (page 25). Gar then had secured Rolf a position in the great corporation with him, making the man whose temper now is "in tight iron shackles" (page 25) believe that "[a]fter so many false starts, [he] at last had found [his] place" (page 26).
But now Gar is dead. Though the carefully restrained Rolf knows he will "never lose [his] temper again" because "[b]y now [he] was a little afraid of it [him]self" (page 25), still he burns to know "[t]he identity of Gar's killer, his motive, even his method" (page 27). The grim assertion of a UC official that "[i]t was the colony killed your brother" (page 26) just isn't enough. Rolf doesn't want sociological mumbo-jumbo; he wants answers. "Once I know what happened to Gar," he tells his brother's once-lover, "I'll know what to do about me" (page 32)...whatever that means, exactly.
So... This is a great start for a real film-noir-type of manhunt, eh? Rolf is mysterious, brooding, vengeful, determined. And yet, as the Union Commission official who first meets the shuttle passengers upon their debarkation asserts, in "anger, bafflement, defeat" in the face of the unmoved man, "You can't beat these people, Malone. You're on their ground, playing by their rules." Rolf, darkly confident, seems to maintain that things aren't truly that stacked against him because, really, "[t]here aren't any rules here" (page 11); the implication is that that's just fine for a hard-case tough-guy like him.
We have some suspicions about what can happen to hard-case tough-guys who don't want to listen, but I won't touch on any specifics of the plot, so as not to spoil any surprises, for there are plenty. Curt Clark's Anarchaos isn't particularly deep, and I don't necessarily buy it when it tries to be, but it is a grim, relentless, interesting, and ultimately surprising adventure story of around 3.5 stars or a bit more, which of course rounds up to 4.
First-person narrator Rolf Malone has taken a five-day trip through hyperspace from Earth to Anarchaos, regarding which "Rohstock said...in his Voyages to Seven Planets" that "[t]hose who see by the light of Hell are blind to evil" (1967 Ace paperback, page 5). The "swollen red sun" of this tidally locked world, after all, "huge and ancient, in the flushed fury of its long decline" (page 7), is called, perhaps appropriately, "Hell." And pronunciation of the name of the planet itself? "Start to say anarchy," the steward explains to the "nervously smiling" missionary aboard the shuttle, "and midway through switch and say chaos" (page 6).
According to the rules of the interstellar Union Commission,
"colonies receiving UC assistance--without which colonization is impossible--have total freedom for self-determination of their own style of government, within the limitations of precedence. That is, colonies are not permitted to invent while new systems out of whole cloth, but are limited to those governments which have existed in the past, of any era, either in fact or in an extensive body of of philosophical and socio-political literature." (page 18)
Now, this seems gimmicky as all hell to me, but Clark waves away any objection by claiming that the Union Commission wished "to save future colonies from half-digested or harebrained new political theories like those which, in the first wave of stellar colonization, caused so much pain and bloodshed" (page 18). Of course, governments of the past also had been founded on dictatorship and slavery and genocide, but...oh, well, no need to have a rule against those, I guess.
The important thing here is that "the founders of Anarchaos" considered "Bakunin...their chief prophet, assisted by such other anarchist, nihilist or syndicalist writers as William Godwin, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Max Stirner, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, Georges Sorel and Sergius Nachaev" (page 19). Even with human occupation "in its eighty-seventh year" (page 20), "[t]he planet remains remains permanently on colony status, using UC money, with UC embassies in each city, with UC men staffing each spaceport," because "[o]nly when a colony is ready for self-government does the UC depart," and this planet of course never will have a government (page 19). And although the Union Commission "probably" wants to "do something about Anarchaos, even though it would be stretching legality," "the businessmen, the corporations, the off-worlders who have money and prestige and political power...profit hugely from Anarchaos as it now stands" (page 19), for it "is a rich world, a storehouse of valuable minerals and a significant exporter of furs" (page 20).
Rolf Malone claims to be a tourist, but of course "there are no tourists on Anarchaos" (page 11)--in fact, "[a]ccording to the most recent reports..., seventy-two percent of off-world visitors here in the last ten years disappeared without trace and are presumed to have been murdered" (page 9)--and Customs at the previous stopover world had confiscated from Malone "a surprising assortment of weapons, for which [he] had no believable explanation" (page 11). I don't believe it's until page 26 out of 143 that the text tells us that Rolf's brother, Gar Malone, "had been killed" while working for a big corporation on Anarchaos, but the back-office guys who wrote the back blurb already used that as a come-on to make us buy.
Gar was something of the opposite of the hot-tempered younger brother who had just gotten out of prison "for manslaughter, after [he] killed five people in an argument over a noisy party" (page 25). Gar may have been the "darling" of the family--unlike the youngster who with his "destructive frenzies" had "alienated [him]self from all of them"--but "he was fond of [Rolf], too, with a curious blend of normal brotherly affection combined with a goodhearted man's indulgence of a rambunctious pet" (page 25). The elder brother was "the one person" Rolf "never grew angry with," and "the only one in the world--any world--whose opinion mattered to" Rolf (page 25). Gar then had secured Rolf a position in the great corporation with him, making the man whose temper now is "in tight iron shackles" (page 25) believe that "[a]fter so many false starts, [he] at last had found [his] place" (page 26).
But now Gar is dead. Though the carefully restrained Rolf knows he will "never lose [his] temper again" because "[b]y now [he] was a little afraid of it [him]self" (page 25), still he burns to know "[t]he identity of Gar's killer, his motive, even his method" (page 27). The grim assertion of a UC official that "[i]t was the colony killed your brother" (page 26) just isn't enough. Rolf doesn't want sociological mumbo-jumbo; he wants answers. "Once I know what happened to Gar," he tells his brother's once-lover, "I'll know what to do about me" (page 32)...whatever that means, exactly.
So... This is a great start for a real film-noir-type of manhunt, eh? Rolf is mysterious, brooding, vengeful, determined. And yet, as the Union Commission official who first meets the shuttle passengers upon their debarkation asserts, in "anger, bafflement, defeat" in the face of the unmoved man, "You can't beat these people, Malone. You're on their ground, playing by their rules." Rolf, darkly confident, seems to maintain that things aren't truly that stacked against him because, really, "[t]here aren't any rules here" (page 11); the implication is that that's just fine for a hard-case tough-guy like him.
We have some suspicions about what can happen to hard-case tough-guys who don't want to listen, but I won't touch on any specifics of the plot, so as not to spoil any surprises, for there are plenty. Curt Clark's Anarchaos isn't particularly deep, and I don't necessarily buy it when it tries to be, but it is a grim, relentless, interesting, and ultimately surprising adventure story of around 3.5 stars or a bit more, which of course rounds up to 4.
Read
August 13, 2024My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
August 10, 2024
Aptly dismissing the structure that makes the Parker and other novels so perfect, this is, remarkably, bleaker than any of those, leaning into sci-fi tropes not to imagine a superior world, but one even more fallen than Earth. My new favorite Westlake.
December 30, 2025
An absolutely fantastic unknown science fiction CLASSIC that throws its protagonist into the unmitigated hellscape of an unfortunately all too plausible hyper-Libertarian "society" in which no one is safe, slavery and murder are entirely normalized, and behind it all, -the secret rule of a few competing corporations.
The pacing in this tight, short book is absolutely relentless. It's a master class in throwing at your hero danger, obstacles, unpleasant turns--and the massive psychological damage that creates.
This book needs to be republished for contemporary audiences. Barring that--go search out a copy now!
More thoughts in “Catching Up With the 100-Book Challenge”
https://youtu.be/8hi5Xw3sqFo?si=LWPy8...
The pacing in this tight, short book is absolutely relentless. It's a master class in throwing at your hero danger, obstacles, unpleasant turns--and the massive psychological damage that creates.
This book needs to be republished for contemporary audiences. Barring that--go search out a copy now!
More thoughts in “Catching Up With the 100-Book Challenge”
https://youtu.be/8hi5Xw3sqFo?si=LWPy8...
March 1, 2013
This was an odd read. It sounded like the typical "trying to be different" classic SF book and if that was the goal it succeeded. But it was different in that it was more of a pulp action/adventure that just happened to get set in a futuristic world. I gave it a four because I wasn't really sure what else to give it. It's different. It's almost 180 degrees out of phase with say Heinlein or such. So in the end it was fresh and easy to read. Still very dated in some ways. And some chapters just left me scratching my head as to why they were put to print at all. Two in particular introduced an idea at the beginning of the chapter, giving the impression of a plot complication, and by the end of the same chapter had been totally squashed. The effect was that you could have skipped said chapters entirely, not missed beat in the story, and got done a little sooner. I strongly suspect these were added by the author just before publishing to get the word count up to a more reasonable level. Otherwise I just don't see any reason at all. Would I recommend it? If you have read everything in classic SF you can find and want something different, yeah, maybe. I would never suggest this someone wanting to sample the genre though. One other thing - Anarchaos. Looks great as a word until you have to try and read or say the darned thing very much.
November 17, 2012
I enjoyed reading this appalling book, which is badly done on every level, for one simple reason: though published in 1967 under the author name Curt Clark, it is actually an early work by Donald Westlake, who went on to pen the Dortmunder series of heist novels. In the late 80s/early 90s, Westlake was one of my favorite authors. Hollywood made "The Hot Rock" based on his novel of the same title.
Anarchaos is just plain ol' bad. The hero is unsympathetic and lacks any internal life; all characters are thinly-sketched stereotypes; and the action of the novel is random. Rolf Malone sets out to discover who murdered his brother on a distant planet. He barely begins his investigation when all kinds of random awfulness happens to him (for example, he is caught by slavers and works in a mine for years). None of it is detailed, nor convincing, and the story ends with a heavy dependence upon lucky coincidence. In short, it reads like a litany of everything you shouldn't do to create a page-turner.
There are days when I feel I suck at writing. I liked Anarchaos simply because it proved to me that even the successful genre masters started somewhere, so perhaps I can succeed, too. Other than that personal take-away, there is absolutely no reason to recommend this brief novel.
Anarchaos is just plain ol' bad. The hero is unsympathetic and lacks any internal life; all characters are thinly-sketched stereotypes; and the action of the novel is random. Rolf Malone sets out to discover who murdered his brother on a distant planet. He barely begins his investigation when all kinds of random awfulness happens to him (for example, he is caught by slavers and works in a mine for years). None of it is detailed, nor convincing, and the story ends with a heavy dependence upon lucky coincidence. In short, it reads like a litany of everything you shouldn't do to create a page-turner.
There are days when I feel I suck at writing. I liked Anarchaos simply because it proved to me that even the successful genre masters started somewhere, so perhaps I can succeed, too. Other than that personal take-away, there is absolutely no reason to recommend this brief novel.
November 29, 2011
On a world without order, a man hunts his brother's killer. Anarchaos was founded on the principles of anarchy, and that is its "governing" state; however, even on a planet without law there can be justice...
The book reads like a mashup of Westlake's gritty crime novels (particularly those written both during the original 1960s printing of this book, as well as his grim, pseudonymous heist novels from the 70s) and a science fiction book. The result is quite readable. One can feel the pulpmeister's keys punching away, adding some extra and extraneous scenes to fill out the word count, but the book is short enough that even these distractions aren't dealbreakers.
All told, an enjoyable romp with a proto-Parker (the character from the author's series under the Richard Stark pseudonym) and a colorful setting.
The book reads like a mashup of Westlake's gritty crime novels (particularly those written both during the original 1960s printing of this book, as well as his grim, pseudonymous heist novels from the 70s) and a science fiction book. The result is quite readable. One can feel the pulpmeister's keys punching away, adding some extra and extraneous scenes to fill out the word count, but the book is short enough that even these distractions aren't dealbreakers.
All told, an enjoyable romp with a proto-Parker (the character from the author's series under the Richard Stark pseudonym) and a colorful setting.
May 10, 2018
Westlake had been writing for years, when this was penned.
The book, I believe, should be read in the context of Van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher, 1984 or Heinlein's Starship Trooper.
Here, Westlake names actual historic economic and ideology touting figures he considers guilty of great harm to global civilization.
The story, as somewhat addressed by the afore mentioned works, concerns one man's/woman's responsibility to stand and fight evil, regardless of whether they would be considered a "good" person by most yardsticks.
Excellent historical reference, a very intentionally rough read and highly recommended!
I started loaning this book out, years ago. It has never come back, read by many. I know where it is!
The book, I believe, should be read in the context of Van Vogt's The Weapon Shops of Isher, 1984 or Heinlein's Starship Trooper.
Here, Westlake names actual historic economic and ideology touting figures he considers guilty of great harm to global civilization.
The story, as somewhat addressed by the afore mentioned works, concerns one man's/woman's responsibility to stand and fight evil, regardless of whether they would be considered a "good" person by most yardsticks.
Excellent historical reference, a very intentionally rough read and highly recommended!
I started loaning this book out, years ago. It has never come back, read by many. I know where it is!
July 27, 2019
Maybe four and a half stars! I was half expecting pulp sci-fi from Ace books, but acclaimed author Donald Westlake delivers a gritty thriller in a lawless future world. Clear and logical narrative. Compelling story and central character. Great shocks and solid world-building.
Westlake is known for his comedic thrillers and fun police stories, but humour would have lessened the hard edge of this take. Though he does sneak in one great in-joke.
I love sci-fi and horror, but finding well written stories in these genres can be hard. Trawling through the bibliographies of great writers and finding that they have occasionally dipped their toes into ‘pulp’ genres can sometimes turn up gold.
Westlake is known for his comedic thrillers and fun police stories, but humour would have lessened the hard edge of this take. Though he does sneak in one great in-joke.
I love sci-fi and horror, but finding well written stories in these genres can be hard. Trawling through the bibliographies of great writers and finding that they have occasionally dipped their toes into ‘pulp’ genres can sometimes turn up gold.
October 21, 2007
Kind of an odd one. Westlake usually writes humorous crime caper stories. Actually, I think this the outer-space version of Westlake's The Hunter, which he penned under the pseudonym Richard Stark. That one was made into a movie with Lee Marvin, and much more recently another movie with Mel Gibson (where it was titled Payback).
Want to read
September 14, 2009AKA: Alan Marshall, Alan Marsh, James Blue, Ben Christopher, Edwin West, John B. Allan, Curt Clark, Tucker Coe, P.N. Castor, Timothy J. Culver, J. Morgan Cunningham, Samuel Holt, Judson Jack Carmichael, Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake
May 25, 2009
Superb SF adventure novel with a mystery by the grandmaster himself, Donald Westlake.
August 7, 2012
I have a soft spot for this book, as I found a dog-eared copy that my mom had buried in the linen closet. An engaging story, an interesting political background, and a very satisfying conclusion.
Read
July 6, 2015Such a strange novel, engaging but so frustrating for the main character.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews