Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Planet Savers
March 18th, 2011 by Boudica
First published in the 1958 issue of Amazing Stories magazine, this short novel has seen a reincarnation over the years. A longer form was published in 1960, only to find out that some of the material was not written by Bradley.
Kindle has published an e-book of the original story as written by Ms. Bradley. I downloaded this from the Kindle Store for all of 99 cents. I did not find it at Amazon.co.uk, although there were other titles from the Darkover series available in Kindle format on the UK site. It is a brief book, but interesting to those who are avid readers of the original series. I remember getting every paperback in this series at one time, turning in my old paperbacks to the used book store to get the next one in the series. The ability to procure the series on Kindle restores an old favorite science fiction series for me.
This particular book is key to the series in many respects. It was the first in the series and it provides an introduction to key characters as well as an introduction to the planet and the general feel the rest of the novels take. We are introduced to Regis Hastur, who is in other Darkover books. We are introduced to the “Trailmen”, who are also mentioned in other adventures. The story is about a plague that has a 48 year cycle which has devastated the population repeatedly – except for the Trailmen. The story includes Dr. Jason Allison, who was brought up by the Trailmen. He was found by them after he and his dad were involved in an accident which left his father dead and Jason was a child alone. The Trailmen bring him up and finally send him back to his people as a young man.
Jason is now a doctor and a grown man. He also unknowingly suffers from a split personality – the boy of the Trailmen, and a stoic doctor who remembers nothing of his childhood. Jason is enlisted in the task of trying to find a cure for the plague before it ravishes the Darkover population again.
The story is about healing, both the plague and Dr. Allison. The story includes action as we trek across Darkover in search of the homelands of the Trailmen. And more than that, it is typical of Ms. Bradley’s style and storytelling.
I’ve seen the book available on Amazon. It is probably the 1960 book, which, as mentioned, was not altogether a singular work of Ms. Bradley. And it is now a collector’s item, making it pricy. So, this makes this version available in a digital format an important release for the followers of the series.
This is a delightful addition to in its original form. And for me, it brings back a series that I loved as a younger woman – and I am looking forward to acquiring the other books in this series on Kindle.
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