Return to the Lost Planet

Jeremy Grant #2

by Angus MacVicar

THEY HAVE RETURNED … AND THE DANGER WITH THEM.
Seventeen-year-old Jeremy Grant is worried. His uncle, Dr Lachlan McKinnon is marooned on the wandering ‘lost planet’ of Hesikos and there’s been no word from the spaceship that has gone to rescue him. When at last a message arrives, the news is as bad as it could possibly be: the rescue mission has crash-landed on the planet!
The only way to rescue Dr McKinnon and the other astronauts is to launch another atomic spacecraft that can reach Hesikos before food supplies run out. But first they have to find someone who can build one…
The new ship’s crew are no experts in spaceflight, but, against the odds, they manage to reach the planet. In spite of his misadventures, Dr MacKinnon isn’t ready to go home yet. He is convinced that he has seen signs that Hesikos was once inhabited, and he believes there may still be life here. He convinces Jeremy and the other crew members to set off to explore the planet…
In the adventures that follow, the explorers will face death more than once, will discover the answers to the mysterious signs of life on Hesikos, and will find that the future of the whole planet hangs in the balance…
‘Return to the Lost Planet’ is the second in MacVicar’s series of six thrilling science fiction adventure tales about Hesikos, filled with trials and tribulations, wonder and calamity.

Praise for Angus MacVicar:

‘Absorbing science fiction’ Kirkus Reviews

Angus MacVicar was an accomplished Scottish author, screenwriter and playwright who published work in a variety of genres. Earlier in his career he was known for his crime thrillers and autobiography, but his early writing was interrupted by his service as a captain in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, which meant that most of his juvenile science fiction was not published until after World War II. It was then that his ‘Lost Planet’ series became extremely popular, with MacVicar himself adapting the stories as TV and radio serials.

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Genres: Science Fiction

133 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Angus MacVicar was an accomplished Scottish author, screenwriter and playwright who published work in a variety of genres. Earlier in his career he was known for his crime thrillers and autobiographies, but his early writing was interrupted by his service as a captain in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. As a result, most of his juvenile science fiction was not published until after World War II. It was then that his Lost Planet series became extremely popular, with MacVicar himself adapting the stories as TV and radio serials.

Reviews

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

De verdere avonturen van het avontuurlijke clubje ruimtereizigers.
De tweede reis verloopt min of meer zonder incidenten (om niet in herhaling te vallen natuurlijk) wat des te meer tijd overlaat voor avonturen op de verdwenen planeet. Ook aan de terugreis wordt relatief weinig aandacht besteedt al wordt de aankomst terug thuis wel gevierd.
Op de verdwenen planeet wordt het verhaal verdeeld in twee stukken: de reis over het oppervlak en de verkenning binnenin de planeet.
Mooi voor wie houdt van ruimtereizen, vreemde planeten en hun bewoners. Een klassiek ruimteavontuur waarbij veel aandacht gaat naar de psychologie van de lokale bevolking. De auteur is realistisch een neemt dan ook het standpunt in dat vreedzaamheid zonder weerbaarheid gedoemd is om te mislukken. Lijdzaam wiliswaar.
Toch is het al bij al een vrolijk avontuur vol spanning en aktie met aandacht voor natuur en omgeving en met allemaal mensen van goede wil. Een letterlijke feelgood eigenlijk.

[Richard Larmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts slow, but speeds up at the ending.

[Alistair Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peopled by a cast of Scots, cockneys and Swedes, all speaking with snatches of phonetic dialogue, and flying off on an adventure in an 'atomic powered' backyard-built spaceship (with dodgy bevelled gears), this is wonderful stuff - if you can bite your tongue, place the tale in its correct historical perspective and run your suspension of disbelief subroutine at 110 percent! (Never you mind the dilithium crystals, laddie!) As a Scot, I'd have read this just because it was written by another Scot, one with a grandly Scottish name; Angus MacVicar. First published in 1954, over sixty years ago, who knows how naïve my writings will seem in another 60 years. This book earns its place on my bookshelf as a piece of Scots and SF history, written at a time when the UK's Nuclear deterrent, the Blue Streak atomic missile, was first proposed as a replacement for the Vulcan bomber, and all things seemed possible to a man with a good toolshed.

[Ziburan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Het blijft grappig, taart bakken in de ruimte en kopjes thee drinken.