Trapped in Space

by Jack Williamson

Astronaut Ben is lost--a million miles from EArth! His last message: "Strange life forms here...we're under attack...!"

Jeff sets off to rescue him, but soon his own crippled starship is caught in the same eerie web of a monstrous creature from outer space!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

John Stewart Williamson who wrote as Jack Williamson (and occasionally under the pseudonym Will Stewart) was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction".

Reviews

[Jain · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved this book when I was younger, and on reread it's obvious why. A crew of four is sent on a rescue mission to an apparently hostile solar system where a previous exploratory team ran into trouble and lost contact with Earth. This rescue team includes a female astronaut raised by aliens though she's human herself, her alien adoptive brother-sister who's part of a collective consciousness and who loves eating all manner of oils including shaving cream and engine grease, and the protagonist: a male astronaut whose primary interest is saving his older brother, who was the leader of the previous team.

There's danger and adventure and science, and a fascinating alien solar system, and first contact with an even more fascinating alien species that lives in an atmosphereless solar ring rather than on a planet, and has detachable and reattachable tentacles.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of racial diversity among the characters. The leader of the rescue team is a Black man, the female astronaut is Puerto Rican, and a number of the book's minor characters are POC. (Of course, the protagonist is a white man, and combined with the fact that the team leader is unconscious for half the story and the female astronaut is relegated to a combination translator-and-support-staff role, the overall impact of this diversity is somewhat muted.)

But despite the above enticements, I'm afraid this book just doesn't have a natural audience anymore. It's too dated--both technologically and in its depiction of women--to appeal to children of today. And the prose, plot, and characterizations are too simplistic to appeal to most adults (even ones, like me, who are reading the book with a strong accompanying dose of nostalgia).

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this simple book as a young child. I also liked the retro-futurist art work.
Rereading it as an adult I was surprised at the high level of science in the story. Williamson talks about the relativistic nature of space time in depth beyond a Children’s book. He also vividly describes the many issues with space flight and the perils of humans travelling in such a hostile environment.
On a story level, the characters are quite one dimensional and there is little emotional depth or growth for them. The story has the flavour of the time it was written and has dated (the use of queer to mean strange is a neat anachronism) but the author was a progressive thinker for his time and included a female and a black guy as key characters at a time when sci fi was mostly populated by white men. The alien “Buzz” was an interesting character and the concept of a “hive mind” was advanced for the time this was written. Overall I’m not sure this book would hold interest for a contemporary child. But it was a blast of nostalgia for me and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would!

[Matthew Palmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was short so it didn't take me long to finish, but I found it suprisingly engaging. The mechanics of the story move along at a decent pace and the setup of the plot has you yearning to see how everything plays out.

The reason my score is a bit lower for this book is mainly due to me reading this for the first time as an adult. I've already read much better Sci-Fi novels such as Starship Troopers, and Star Wars, whereas this book was intended for young adults and has a much more watered down premise which I can see being used for a classic Star Trek episode (the book came out around the same time the original series was airing).

Still the book has its merits, and has some great original ideas which seem rather imaginative for the time with great examples being an alien who's mind is linked with the rest of his species to form one single hive mind, and the rock hoppers who gather food by spinning space webs to collect iron ore. I'm glad I've read this one, and I will be keeping it for my kids to read when they get older as I think it's an excellent entry into the realm of Science Fiction

[Green Jazz Blues · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book when I was about ten and never really forgot it. I was too young then to really take in the concept of a story set in the future and it may seem strange that I actually half believed that this had really already happened. Parts of the story then made me feel uncomfortable. However, after many years, I managed to buy this through Amazon and have reread and reread this many times and it doesn't lose its appeal.
Copyright in 1968, it has dated a little and this line of sci-fi has been hackneyed a lot since to the point that it would be probably classified as "sci-fi pulp". It's also rather "American" in its sentiments. However, it still poses thought-provoking questions and character building qualities. Aimed at around the age of 10 but all ages would love this easy read if you're into sci-fi.

[John JJJJJJJJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little favorite of mine. We follow Ben, an astronaut lost in space. Jeff, his little brother, will assemble a crack team to go find his brother trapped in space. The novel is short and reads quickly. In the end, unsurprisingly, all's well that ends well.

[Hannah Irving · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read- a little misogynistic but was written in the 60s so what can we expect?

I loved the little alien companion

[Edward Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of this review is from memory. The last time I actually read this novel I was in fifth grade. I will quickly add that it was also the tenth time I had read it since third grade. I simply loved this book when I was a kid. The cover drew me in. It was a young man in a Golden Age of Sci-Fi style space suit drifting in space. The image was something I loved as much as the book. Its one that has stayed with me through the years and left an indelible impression upon my psyche.

The book dealt with a space academy, and one young man attending in particular. It is a coming of age story wherein the cadet finds himself in the most frightening of situations - he is left drifting in space alone following an emergency situation and left to cope through all the training he had received thus far in the academy. It is the only thing that will keep him alive. The isolation was something that spoke to me as a kid, the way the main character had to overcome his own horror at his situation so that he might survive. I remember imagining what that might be like as a kid...to be alone in the vastness of space with the odds against your survival.

What ultimately saves the young man, if I remember correctly, was an asteroid field. I might be wrong, and very sketchy on the details surrounding the plot and subsequent events and how they are resolved. Whatever I loved about this book that kept me checking it out repeatedly was likely the isolation the main character endures during his ordeal. It is my goal to one day track down a copy of the book to rediscover it as an adult in an effort to understand what drew me to it in my youth. I find it fascinating that this novel still resonates with me on some level, at least, with what I remember of it.

My review of TRAPPED IN SPACE is currently lost in time at the moment, to be able to offer as objective a review I can. However, with the way it inspired me, my imagination and my thirst to read when I was much younger...I think I would be safe to say that it is a novel that is worth offering to younger readers. Three book reports for three different teachers in three subsequent years, all ending up with an A can't be the product of a completely lousy book.