MarkHodderAuthorI just read DRAY PRESCOT 1: TRANSIT TO SCORPIO by Alan Burt Akers (Kenneth Bulmer) (1972). Like the BLADE novels of Jeffrey Lord, this is a series that sat on my shelves throughout my teens but somehow never got read. In those days, this sort of thing was right up my street, so how and why it escaped me, I cannot fathom. Taking Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series as its template, it is standard "sword and planet" fare, and if that's the itch you want scratched, it does the job nicely. Certainly, it is of a better standard than Lin Carter's stuff, which always reads like fanfic, though it doesn't come close to Jack Vance's PLANET OF ADVENTURE books, which I rate as the gold standard of the genre. I'm starting the series as a replacement for John Norman's GOR, which I recently re-read up to vol.5 before abandoning it due to the author's bizarre obsession with female subjugation. Interestingly, in TRANSIT, Bulmer gives his planet a distant continent named "Gah" where females are enslaved—a clear dig at Norman. Good man, Bulmer! Nothing ground-breaking here but it was a fun read and I shall definitely continue with the series. #bookreviews#bookworm#booklover#bookbloggers
MarkHodderAuthor I just read DRAY PRESCOT 1: TRANSIT TO SCORPIO by Alan Burt Akers (Kenneth Bulmer) (1972). Like the BLADE novels of Jeffrey Lord, this is a series that sat on my shelves throughout my teens but somehow never got read. In those days, this sort of thing was right up my street, so how and why it escaped me, I cannot fathom. Taking Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series as its template, it is standard "sword and planet" fare, and if that's the itch you want scratched, it does the job nicely. Certainly, it is of a better standard than Lin Carter's stuff, which always reads like fanfic, though it doesn't come close to Jack Vance's PLANET OF ADVENTURE books, which I rate as the gold standard of the genre. I'm starting the series as a replacement for John Norman's GOR, which I recently re-read up to vol.5 before abandoning it due to the author's bizarre obsession with female subjugation. Interestingly, in TRANSIT, Bulmer gives his planet a distant continent named "Gah" where females are enslaved—a clear dig at Norman. Good man, Bulmer! Nothing ground-breaking here but it was a fun read and I shall definitely continue with the series. #bookreviews #bookworm #booklover #bookbloggers
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