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The Last Planet / A Man Obsessed
Early Ace Double book. "The Last Planet" was originally published in 1953 as "Star Rangers," and is Norton's second book. "A Man Obsessed" is an original novel, later retitled "The Mercy Men."
- GenresScience FictionFiction
319 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
About the author
Andre Norton
704 books1,411 followersAndre Norton, born Alice Mary Norton, was a pioneering American author of science fiction and fantasy, widely regarded as the Grande Dame of those genres. She also wrote historical and contemporary fiction, publishing under the pen names Andre Alice Norton, Andrew North, and Allen Weston. She launched her career in 1934 with The Prince Commands, adopting the name “Andre” to appeal to a male readership. After working for the Cleveland Library System and the Library of Congress, she began publishing science fiction under “Andrew North” and fantasy under her own name. She became a full-time writer in 1958 and was known for her prolific output, including Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Witch World, the latter spawning a long-running series and shared universe. Norton was a founding member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America and authored Quag Keep, the first novel based on the Dungeons & Dragons game. She influenced generations of writers, including Lois McMaster Bujold and Mercedes Lackey. Among her many honors were being the first woman named Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master. In her later years, she established the High Hallack Library to support research in genre fiction. Her legacy continues with the Andre Norton Award for young adult science fiction and fantasy.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 25, 2022
Our man obsessed, Jeff, hated all the frivolities of society around him. But the thing he hated most was Paul Conroe. So he had fixed to kill the man and was ever in hot pursuit. Blinkered and fettered by his fixation he follows his bounty into a madhouse that it is said nobody ever comes out of - A place where the patients are subjected to morbid experimentation.
"He ran across the room and struck the solid brick wall full face. He hit with a sickening thud, pounded at the wall with his fists, screaming out again and again. And then he collapsed to the floor, his nose broken, his face bleeding, his fingers raw with the nails broken."
You're wondering at this point... why wouldn't Jeff leave his prey to the terrible fate that is sure to become him inside that madhouse? Well, that would not a story make. Oh. And Jeff is convinced that Conroe would find a way to escape the place. So Jeff runs on in and finds himself a patient in no time at all. He bunks up with a woman who wields a knife and makes it clear that she won't take any of his shit, but she's a strange character who becomes more of a sad, helpless case as the story progresses. Some of the language that Jeff used towards her later in the story is regrettable.
Interestingly, Conroe is barely glimpsed for much of the story but does play an important part in the ending. The ending is, well, not surprising but still interesting. The main theme in this story is (obviously) obsession and how it affects a person's choices, but it also touched on a few other psychological ideas, many of which are less connected to reality than readers might have believed in the 1950s.
This is my second by Nourse and I thought the writing in this was much less thoughtful than in 'Star Surgeon'. One character is almost always referred to as the "Nasty Frenchman". A line near the start of the book - "Hysteric laughs of feminine noise" - also felt very dated.
I guess you could still plonk this in a pile of medical scifi stories because of the premise but I'd be more inclined to label it medical horror.
This is another one that I listened to in the Librivox app and the narration by Mark Nelson was very good.
"He ran across the room and struck the solid brick wall full face. He hit with a sickening thud, pounded at the wall with his fists, screaming out again and again. And then he collapsed to the floor, his nose broken, his face bleeding, his fingers raw with the nails broken."
You're wondering at this point... why wouldn't Jeff leave his prey to the terrible fate that is sure to become him inside that madhouse? Well, that would not a story make. Oh. And Jeff is convinced that Conroe would find a way to escape the place. So Jeff runs on in and finds himself a patient in no time at all. He bunks up with a woman who wields a knife and makes it clear that she won't take any of his shit, but she's a strange character who becomes more of a sad, helpless case as the story progresses. Some of the language that Jeff used towards her later in the story is regrettable.
Interestingly, Conroe is barely glimpsed for much of the story but does play an important part in the ending. The ending is, well, not surprising but still interesting. The main theme in this story is (obviously) obsession and how it affects a person's choices, but it also touched on a few other psychological ideas, many of which are less connected to reality than readers might have believed in the 1950s.
This is my second by Nourse and I thought the writing in this was much less thoughtful than in 'Star Surgeon'. One character is almost always referred to as the "Nasty Frenchman". A line near the start of the book - "Hysteric laughs of feminine noise" - also felt very dated.
I guess you could still plonk this in a pile of medical scifi stories because of the premise but I'd be more inclined to label it medical horror.
This is another one that I listened to in the Librivox app and the narration by Mark Nelson was very good.
May 15, 2021
A Sci-fi novel from 1955. The audiobook was rather short, just almost 5 hours. Eh this went over my head. I'm not sure quite what I was listening to. Might done better of i had read it or I'm just not enough well read in the Sci-fi genre as I've thought. It was alright but thought the actions and the plot was rather meh, didn't really get any bigger meaning to the story.
June 11, 2016
'HE HUNTED HORROR THROUGH A MANIAC WORLD!
Jeffrey Meyer had a killing on his mind. It meant nothing to him that his towering Twenty-first Century world was going mad. He shouldered aside the rising tide of narcotics-mania, the gambling fever, the insatiable lust for the irrational. Jeff had his own all-consuming obsession—Paul Conroe must die!
After a five-year frenzied chase, Jeff had his victim cornered; he'd driven him into the last hideaway of the world's most desperate men—the sealed vaults of the human-vivisectionists. And Jeff knew that to reach his final horrible objective, he must offer himself also as a guinea pig for the secret experiments of the world's most feared physicians!
Alan E. Nourse's new novel A MAN OBSESSED has the impact of Orwell's 1984 and the imaginative vigor of Huxley's Brave New World. '
Blurb from the 1955 D-96 Ace Doubles Paperback edition.
Jeff thinks he has set the perfect trap for Conroe, the man who murdered his father, in a bar where his mistress is performing. When Conroe arrives the mistress, in the midst of an erotic display, has a spotlight thrown on Jeff. Conroe sees him and escapes. Jeff's hired team cordoning off the area can find no trace of him. The only place he could have gone to would be a feared vivisection institute.
Jeff, desperate to track him down, signs himself into the institute, where big money can be earned by those willing to subject themselves to fiendish and dangerous medical experiments.
Some way into the narrative, Jeff discovers that both he and his room-mate at the institute, Blackie (who bears a suspicious resemblance to the dancer in the bar) possess psi-powers, which leads him on another journey to discover the truth about himself, his father and his death.
This is an odd, very noir-ish, piece set in a world where incidents of mental instability are increasing.
The phemomena of ESP seems hurriedly introduced and is awkwardly handled.
There are also some obvious plot holes, such as the fact that Blackie never reveals that she was, in fact, the dancer in the bar, but the denouement is both interesting and unexpected.
Nothing really out of the ordinary though.
Jeffrey Meyer had a killing on his mind. It meant nothing to him that his towering Twenty-first Century world was going mad. He shouldered aside the rising tide of narcotics-mania, the gambling fever, the insatiable lust for the irrational. Jeff had his own all-consuming obsession—Paul Conroe must die!
After a five-year frenzied chase, Jeff had his victim cornered; he'd driven him into the last hideaway of the world's most desperate men—the sealed vaults of the human-vivisectionists. And Jeff knew that to reach his final horrible objective, he must offer himself also as a guinea pig for the secret experiments of the world's most feared physicians!
Alan E. Nourse's new novel A MAN OBSESSED has the impact of Orwell's 1984 and the imaginative vigor of Huxley's Brave New World. '
Blurb from the 1955 D-96 Ace Doubles Paperback edition.
Jeff thinks he has set the perfect trap for Conroe, the man who murdered his father, in a bar where his mistress is performing. When Conroe arrives the mistress, in the midst of an erotic display, has a spotlight thrown on Jeff. Conroe sees him and escapes. Jeff's hired team cordoning off the area can find no trace of him. The only place he could have gone to would be a feared vivisection institute.
Jeff, desperate to track him down, signs himself into the institute, where big money can be earned by those willing to subject themselves to fiendish and dangerous medical experiments.
Some way into the narrative, Jeff discovers that both he and his room-mate at the institute, Blackie (who bears a suspicious resemblance to the dancer in the bar) possess psi-powers, which leads him on another journey to discover the truth about himself, his father and his death.
This is an odd, very noir-ish, piece set in a world where incidents of mental instability are increasing.
The phemomena of ESP seems hurriedly introduced and is awkwardly handled.
There are also some obvious plot holes, such as the fact that Blackie never reveals that she was, in fact, the dancer in the bar, but the denouement is both interesting and unexpected.
Nothing really out of the ordinary though.
December 3, 2012
I gave this (annoying) Ace double 4 stars, not so much as the stories are that good, but seeing this book brought back memories (good) of my youth (50/50). Norton's story is more appealing. I find the heavy handed anti-gov rhetoric of Nourse over the top.
July 8, 2022
The novel features a mystery with a stinger that is written in a style similar to a traditional thriller, though the premise is thoroughly positioned in science fiction. The institute is creepy and never quite loses the edge which keeps a reader on their toes.
January 28, 2025
Double sided old school book. Nothing more than a fun read. Found in a sick vintage shop. The nostalgia of it gave it an extra star
April 9, 2015
The following is only about 'A Man Obsessed' which I believe is expanded in The Mercy Men.
'A Man Obsessed' is true to the title, with a man obsessively hunting down another man, who (the hunted) we eventually learn killed his (the hunter's) father. When the hunted man apparently escapes into an experimental psychiatric institute, the crazed hunter follows--convincing himself he's just there for the hunt, and not for the treatment.
I thought this book was barbarically violent, with the title character attacking a waitress, shooting up a bar, slapping his roommate when she wouldn't answer questions fast enough, and then throwing himself mercilessly into a wall during his own questioning (among other events). I wonder if the first draft of this novel was a western? The protagonist's roommate, the story's one woman (also love interest) was called 'Blackie' diminutively by the him for her hair color, which everyone else then used (presumably she had a name of her own, but we'll never know).
I didn't think the book was good until the last 15 (of 130) pages... and really I didn't even like everything at the end (which was largely a mix of dream-sequence and 'hidden character narrates the reasoning behind the heretofore disconnected plot points'). But I'll give it a bonus star for having some interesting concepts to deal with: ESP, what society would do upon X-men like mutant arrival, the potential pleasures of lobotomy (!!). Again I don't agree with the author's conclusions, but I'm happy to mentally debate those ideas.
I read this in a day--it's one half of a two-in-one Ace Double, but I got it torn down the middle, and don't have Andre Norton's The Last Planet. Would not recommend (unless you like westerns and ESP), though I might search out this author's highest rated sci fi in the future.
'A Man Obsessed' is true to the title, with a man obsessively hunting down another man, who (the hunted) we eventually learn killed his (the hunter's) father. When the hunted man apparently escapes into an experimental psychiatric institute, the crazed hunter follows--convincing himself he's just there for the hunt, and not for the treatment.
I thought this book was barbarically violent, with the title character attacking a waitress, shooting up a bar, slapping his roommate when she wouldn't answer questions fast enough, and then throwing himself mercilessly into a wall during his own questioning (among other events). I wonder if the first draft of this novel was a western? The protagonist's roommate, the story's one woman (also love interest) was called 'Blackie' diminutively by the him for her hair color, which everyone else then used (presumably she had a name of her own, but we'll never know).
I didn't think the book was good until the last 15 (of 130) pages... and really I didn't even like everything at the end (which was largely a mix of dream-sequence and 'hidden character narrates the reasoning behind the heretofore disconnected plot points'). But I'll give it a bonus star for having some interesting concepts to deal with: ESP, what society would do upon X-men like mutant arrival, the potential pleasures of lobotomy (!!). Again I don't agree with the author's conclusions, but I'm happy to mentally debate those ideas.
I read this in a day--it's one half of a two-in-one Ace Double, but I got it torn down the middle, and don't have Andre Norton's The Last Planet. Would not recommend (unless you like westerns and ESP), though I might search out this author's highest rated sci fi in the future.
Want to Read
February 21, 2017Michael has Last Planet M-151 re-issue.
August 28, 2023
I listened to this as part of the 10th Science Fiction Megapack. it was an entertaining interesting read 2023
January 26, 2025
This book was so weird. Would def not read it again
May 22, 2015
Science-Fiction
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews