James Harvey (4)

This one started with promise. The hero was dropped on a barren world for a crime he didn't commit and then gets picked up by an elf-girl (she has pointed ears and is described throughout as "elfin"). From there he takes up with a notorious space pirate using the execution planet as his base of operations. The pirates occupy an underground hideout beneath the ruins of an ancient city packed with the relics of an ancient evil god. We also learn that the hero has an almost completely artificial body. Then the hero and the elf-girl steal a smugglers ship and from there it turns into a murder mystery in space.
The entire middle section of the story is concerned with the mystery of who killed the scientist who built the hero's body and why. It is not interesting at all. Eventually, a doorway to another dimension is found and the hero must battle the evil god creature, a being of pure white energy. The evil god creature was a point of interest and definitely reminded me of the white column of light from [b:The City of the Singing Flame|1914713|The City of the Singing Flame|Clark Ashton Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266096019l/1914713._SY75_.jpg|1916736] by Clark Ashton Smith. The hero wins, there was no suspense or doubt of the outcome at all. Then, at the end, after defeating a god, the mystery gets solved by the hero, and the bad guys punished in what amounts to a major anti-climax.
This story was predictable although it did hook me at the beginning. It also had major misspelling and typo issues that appeared every other page (not an exaggeration). It also introduced the love-interest, the elf-girl, in a way that seems to be disturbingly common in this era of adventure-fiction, she had lips that needed to be kissed. That phrase appears almost word-for-word in a few other stories from the '60s & '70s I've read before. Note that the hero was dying of thirst when he first caught sight of elf-girl and that was his first thought. I did get a little giggle out of "blip-guns" though, guess I was desperate.
Even though this book was an easy and quick read I cannot recommend it. The ideas and plot are nothing special aside from an interesting beginning.
Edit: I have just discovered that this is a plagiarized version of [b:Escape Across The Cosmos|131842|Escape Across The Cosmos|Gardner F. Fox|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1214234222l/131842._SY75_.jpg|126986] by Gardner Fox (also the author of Kothar hence the familiar sexism) through another review on this site. So, I did some sleuthing and found this blog entry at Peter David Writer of Stuff from a column in the Comics Buyer's Guide #1263.… (meer)

Dan Rogers ends up in Yuma prison after a foolish attempt to recover money from a gambler. After three years, he is bitter and angry. When he returns home, he finds his girl has married someone else and most people in town don't trust him and wish he would disappear. His mother has remarried and wants him gone. On old rancher friend, his foreman and the rancher's granddaughter are the only people who seem to want him around. Things get complicated when an acquaintance from prison shows up.

Despite a slow beginning as the background story is developed, this is a fast interesting story.… (meer)