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Alien Planet
Fletcher Pratt, a nationally famous writer and journalist, produced in ALIEN PLANET one of his most original works which at the same time is a most enthralling science-fiction adventure. What actually would be the effect of the arrival of a citizen of a super scientific planet on our own world?
In ALIEN PLANET, we visit two worlds -- Earth as seen through the eyes of a clever but desperate alien, and Murashema as seen by the Earth man who befriended that unearthly visitor. There is tension, adventure, and the excitement of interplanetary discovery in this classic novel of outer space.
In ALIEN PLANET, we visit two worlds -- Earth as seen through the eyes of a clever but desperate alien, and Murashema as seen by the Earth man who befriended that unearthly visitor. There is tension, adventure, and the excitement of interplanetary discovery in this classic novel of outer space.
192 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
56 people want to read
About the author
Fletcher Pratt
258 books34 followersMurray Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was a science fiction and fantasy writer; he was also well-known as a writer on naval history and on the American Civil War.
Pratt attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines. When a fire gutted his apartment in the 1930s he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.
Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of a set of rules for civilian naval wargaming before the Second World War. This was known as the "Naval War Game" and was based on a wargame developed by Fred T. Jane involving dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artist Jack Coggins was a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and L. Sprague de Camp met him through his wargaming group.
Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.
Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also highly regarded.
Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style of Bernard DeVoto. One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."
Pratt attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines. When a fire gutted his apartment in the 1930s he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.
Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of a set of rules for civilian naval wargaming before the Second World War. This was known as the "Naval War Game" and was based on a wargame developed by Fred T. Jane involving dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artist Jack Coggins was a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and L. Sprague de Camp met him through his wargaming group.
Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.
Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also highly regarded.
Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style of Bernard DeVoto. One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 4, 2019
I found this book to be an interesting mix of eras... in many ways it resembles the 'travelogue' style that Burroughs uses, with the author claiming to have 'found' the manuscript of the adventure, yet there's alot of elements of the later sci fi of the 50s and 60s.
The plot is pretty basic, and alien crash lands, and the two men that discover him decide to help him get home. One ends up going home with him to give us a glimpse of his planet.
There's a fair amount at the attempt of scientific explanations of how a star ship might work, but many things that would be essential and obvious to today's readers are ignored... food, water, gravity, the effects on the body of not moving for like 3 years, to name a few of the most blatant.
I'm not sure if the author intended the alien civilization to be a utopia or a warning.. it's basically socialist, with a rigid caste structure and overtones of government mind control. Not my idea of a great place, but the cover calls it Utopia. Of course, this was printed not only 30 years after appearing in the magazines, but after the author's death, so that doesn't mean much.
The main downside of the book was it seriously peters out at the end, as if the author was bored with it. With the excuse that 'the manuscript got more messy'.. the last couple chapters skip around alot and the ending is both vague and disappointing.
Worth reading if you're a old time sci-fi fan though as an interesting transition between the turn of the century writers and the 60s.
The plot is pretty basic, and alien crash lands, and the two men that discover him decide to help him get home. One ends up going home with him to give us a glimpse of his planet.
There's a fair amount at the attempt of scientific explanations of how a star ship might work, but many things that would be essential and obvious to today's readers are ignored... food, water, gravity, the effects on the body of not moving for like 3 years, to name a few of the most blatant.
I'm not sure if the author intended the alien civilization to be a utopia or a warning.. it's basically socialist, with a rigid caste structure and overtones of government mind control. Not my idea of a great place, but the cover calls it Utopia. Of course, this was printed not only 30 years after appearing in the magazines, but after the author's death, so that doesn't mean much.
The main downside of the book was it seriously peters out at the end, as if the author was bored with it. With the excuse that 'the manuscript got more messy'.. the last couple chapters skip around alot and the ending is both vague and disappointing.
Worth reading if you're a old time sci-fi fan though as an interesting transition between the turn of the century writers and the 60s.
June 30, 2017
I first picked up this book in out of a box full of damaged paperbacks to be returned from the drug store I worked for in high school in 1975. As an eighteen year old, I'm sure I was drawn by the beautiful backside of the green woman on the cover. I soon found out that there were no women in the book at all.
I haven't read it since and I don't remember everything that happened, but I do remember liking it a lot. I've read a lot of more sophisticate sci-fi and much more since then. After seeing some of the reviews, I thought I'd give it another go.
Now that I've finish I'll say that I did like. It is a fairly unsophisticated story but I believe that it was written as such, appearing to be a transcript. It was a nice quick read (3 hours) that I enjoyed. I'd recommend it as a book to read on a plane or a cruise, maybe at the beach.
I haven't read it since and I don't remember everything that happened, but I do remember liking it a lot. I've read a lot of more sophisticate sci-fi and much more since then. After seeing some of the reviews, I thought I'd give it another go.
Now that I've finish I'll say that I did like. It is a fairly unsophisticated story but I believe that it was written as such, appearing to be a transcript. It was a nice quick read (3 hours) that I enjoyed. I'd recommend it as a book to read on a plane or a cruise, maybe at the beach.
February 8, 2018
3.5 out of 5. Lots of imaginative material here which rambles along as a travel journal from space. Pratt's alien civilization is detailed and modern. The plot takes a decidedly Orwellian tone in the end and is concluded abruptly as if the writer lost interest.
January 27, 2021
A commendable effort for its time (90 years ago), but today this novel reads as dry, slow, and unremarkable.
Alien Planet is a found-text story recounted by a man named Alvin Schierstedt explaining his journey with an alien to the alien’s homeworld.
The novel is frustrating in many ways. Alvin gets no character development what-so-ever and the alien, Ashembe, even less so. I believe that Pratt was convinced that the readers would be so blown away by the fantastical elements of the story that he didn’t need to include much character development. I can’t tell you a single thing about Alvin other than he’s a bondsman and likes taking his summer vacations on the lake. He has no personality, and there’s no mention of a family, his upbringing, or anything really.
Ashembe is laughably bland for an alien. He looks like a typical white dude but with a bald head. I mean, sure, convergent evolution is a thing, but this is ridiculous. On the cover, there are multi-legged aliens. These do not feature in the story. What a let-down.
Most of the novel involves scientifically dated (or implausible) descriptions of technology and way too much telling and not showing. We learn everything about the aliens’ social structure and culture from what Ashembe tells Alvin, not from Alvin’s experiences.
What I did like were the various planets albeit as improbable (and inaccurate) as they were. And Pratt clearly put a lot of effort into trying to be realistic; it’s not his fault he was born on the wrong side of the fin de siecle.
And the ending? In truth, I liked it, because it was unexpected. It did feel like the author wasn’t sure how to end it though.
While I didn’t dislike this novel, it was very dull with few redeemable qualities.
Check out my deeper dive into this novel on either my blog or my Booktube channel!
https://www.nostromopublications.com/...
https://youtu.be/Q4njn_7xQzE
Alien Planet is a found-text story recounted by a man named Alvin Schierstedt explaining his journey with an alien to the alien’s homeworld.
The novel is frustrating in many ways. Alvin gets no character development what-so-ever and the alien, Ashembe, even less so. I believe that Pratt was convinced that the readers would be so blown away by the fantastical elements of the story that he didn’t need to include much character development. I can’t tell you a single thing about Alvin other than he’s a bondsman and likes taking his summer vacations on the lake. He has no personality, and there’s no mention of a family, his upbringing, or anything really.
Ashembe is laughably bland for an alien. He looks like a typical white dude but with a bald head. I mean, sure, convergent evolution is a thing, but this is ridiculous. On the cover, there are multi-legged aliens. These do not feature in the story. What a let-down.
Most of the novel involves scientifically dated (or implausible) descriptions of technology and way too much telling and not showing. We learn everything about the aliens’ social structure and culture from what Ashembe tells Alvin, not from Alvin’s experiences.
What I did like were the various planets albeit as improbable (and inaccurate) as they were. And Pratt clearly put a lot of effort into trying to be realistic; it’s not his fault he was born on the wrong side of the fin de siecle.
And the ending? In truth, I liked it, because it was unexpected. It did feel like the author wasn’t sure how to end it though.
While I didn’t dislike this novel, it was very dull with few redeemable qualities.
Check out my deeper dive into this novel on either my blog or my Booktube channel!
https://www.nostromopublications.com/...
https://youtu.be/Q4njn_7xQzE
Read
January 4, 2022While it might have been a sci-fi page turner in 1932, this read was slow, and incredibly hard to get through at times. Some chapters were interesting, but others felt as if my mind was pushing through cold honey, then getting stuck. It was hard to understand which characters Pratt was talking about sometimes due to the dated diction and choice of words. I recognize that in 1932, this diction could have been the norm and Pratt would have no clue as to how things change. But that being said, it prevents this novel from being timeless. It clearly has a time period from the way Pratt talks about spaceships as "flying cars." All in all would not recommend.
January 13, 2022
I think I knew the name Fletcher Pratt as much from his military history (and wargaming) work as from his fiction - I'm really not sure which I discovered first. So it was a bit of fun to find this described as his best science fiction novel. It may well be that, I couldn't say that I've read enough to say one way or the other, but it is an excellent sampling of the works from that classic age of science fiction. I enjoyed reading this but even when I first started reading through the library's offerings, Fletcher Pratt did not rank among my favorites such as Asimov, Blish, Heinlein, Herbert, Clark, etc. By today's standards I think this is to be read as an example of how good science fiction has evolved and changed over the years.
January 25, 2009
Hated, hated, hated it.
It's a combination of a strange-visitor-from-space and a wondrous-journey-to-utopia novel, and this results in it being incredibly talky as the space visitor spends inordinate time explaining why human society is so incredibly backwards (Ah! Social satire! How nice!). I zipped through about 30 pages without a problem, then started skipping ahead, and saw that this kept going and going and going. Blech. About one hour from the first page to giving up.
It's a combination of a strange-visitor-from-space and a wondrous-journey-to-utopia novel, and this results in it being incredibly talky as the space visitor spends inordinate time explaining why human society is so incredibly backwards (Ah! Social satire! How nice!). I zipped through about 30 pages without a problem, then started skipping ahead, and saw that this kept going and going and going. Blech. About one hour from the first page to giving up.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews