review of
Lester Del Rey's The Mysterious Planet
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 3-6, 2019

It seems that when I think of Del Rey I think of him more as an SF editor than as a writer. Why, I don't know b/c most of what he edited was somewhat obscure & he was a prolific author.

"He later became an editor for several pulp magazines and then for book publishers. During 1952 and 1953, del Rey edited several magazines: Space SF, Fantasy Fiction, Science Fiction Adventures (as Philip St. John), Rocket Stories (as Wade Kaempfert), and Fantasy Fiction (as Cameron Hall). Also during 1952, his first two novels were published in the Winston juvenile series, one with an Italian-language edition in the same year.

"In 1957, del Rey and Damon Knight co-edited a small amateur magazine named Science Fiction Forum. During a debate about symbolism within the magazine, del Rey accepted Knight's challenge to write an analysis of the James Blish story "Common Time" that showed the story was about a man eating a ham sandwich. Del Rey was most successful editing with his fourth wife, Judy-Lynn del Rey, at Ballantine Books (as a Random House property, post-Ballantine) where they established the fantasy and science fiction imprint Del Rey Books in 1977."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_del_Rey

At any rate, I barely know his writing at all, having only previously read a short story collection called The Best of Lester Del Rey. I begin my review of that w/ this:

"Lester del Rey's the kind of writer I might've read in my early teens (but didn't) & then decided that he represented the kind of SF that all SF seemed to me to be at the time: sortof interesting but not that well written or experimental. I wd've then moved on - remembering him w/ some affection but not in any hurry to read more.

"Now that I'm 44 yrs past my early teens, del Rey still strikes me that way but I've read so many other things by now that I can respect del Rey just for being what he was: a somewhat generic, but still inspired, SF writer."

- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/127559685

The Mysterious Planet is, as far as I can remember, the 1st novel I've read by him. It's about time. The 1st paragraph:

"It was a fine morning on Mars, clear, crisp and cold. In a little over a hundred years the great air factories had increased the oxygen content until it could be breathed without a mask, and had added enough carbon-dioxide gas to let the air collect and hold the faint heat of the sun. Now it was like a morning high in the mountains of Earth." - p 1

Ok, I'm always interested in the details of terraforming. I don't let conerns about the negative effects on the local eco-system spoil my fun. But did Mars get mad?!

""Took just four days to get here from Earth," Simon went on. "Like a dream. You come on the Mars Maid? Yeah, I thought so. Boy, I wouldn't travel on a liner after riding this! The minute Dad got my unlimited pilot's license fixed—took plenty of greasing to do it—the very minute, off I took. And here I am!"

""Yeah, here you are," Bob agreed, without enthusiasm. He wondered if Jakes had any idea of how sickening the idea of bribing officials for an unlimited license was." - p 3

The "Mars Maid" part is presumably a reference to Edgar Rice Burroughs:

"Thuvia, Maid of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth of the Barsoom series. The principal characters are Carthoris (the son of John Carter of Mars) and Thuvia of Ptarth, each of whom appeared in the previous two novels." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuvia,_Maid_of_Mars

As for the immediate class conflict w/ the main character's being repulsed by the secondary character's privilege? I like it. This awkwardness continues when the privileged one gives t'other a present.

""Whew! Thought I'd missed you. Here!" He shoved a box into Bob's hands awkwardly. Bob turned it over and finally opened it. Inside was an officer's pocket-knife, a marvel of compactness that held twelve tools, from scissors to tiny pliers, as well as standard blades. Beside it lay one of the tiny, expensive little personal radios issued to the higher officers." - p 14

I took it for granted that it was probably rigged somehow. Things become mysterious.

"They went back silently. It was completely impossible for the pirates to have taken all the freight and every man on board the ship off in no more than the single minute they had been locked together. Yet it had happened. Everything was beginning to come out the same—the events were impossible, but the black ship had done them, all the same." - p 28

"The shock was worse than any monster could have given them. The alien from Planet X looked almost exactly like a human!

"He was a short man, and his knee joints looked a little wrong; there wasn't the usual knobbiness. The hand that held some kind of a weapon had four normal fingers, but there was a thumb opposite the regular one, giving him a double palm. Yet even the fingernails were there. Generally, his body seemed almost completely normal. His ears were a bit too large, and there was no hair on his head, while his eyes had a vaguely Asiatic slant to them. His skin was an orange shade, not too different from some jaundiced people, but still unmatchable on Earth.

"Yet even on Earth, he would hardly have attracted a second glance. He was dressed in something like a Scotch ceremonial kilt of solid blue, with a soft T shirt and a brief cape. On a wide belt at his waist, several pouches were sewn. The costume was no odder than the man." - p 111

But did he speak English?

Perhaps my favorite part of all this is the description of the Thule music.

"It came while they were out. They got back to hear something that was a cross between an anguished cat and a tin can being battered around by a stumble-footed mule. In between sections, for no reason, a female voice would come on in a high, nasal singsong.

"If there was any rhythm to it, it couldn't be found, except for a few sections where there was obviously srudied effort to make a pattern.

"When they threw the door open and rushed in to shut off the racket, Juan was lying there with a smile of sheer pleasure on his face, beating his hand up and down as crazily as the beat of the so-called music. He let out a squawk when they cut it off.

""Hey, I want to hear all of how it goes," he cried, "This is interesting music."" - pp 140-141

Been there. The people who know & understand music the least are always the ones to oppress those of us who understand & know it the best. Of course, this makes Juan a suspicious character. I just hope his side wins.

My initial impression was that this was like Heinlein, perhaps like his Space Cadet (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3220256-space-cadet ) insofar as it has good clean American characters in outer space still representing those good clean American values as put forth in propaganda of the 1950s. While I may have an imaginary wry grin to inflect my writing of that it doesn't mean that I didn't like it. ( )

It takes about half a chapter to figure out that this book was published in 1953. Mysterious Planet is almost stereotypical of the juvenile space camp genre from the early days of the Cold War. This book has not aged well. Its original audience has grown up and newer generations will not appreciate its campy plot and conclusion. Definitely an average effort by Del Rey. ( )

A short, well written novel about a newly found planet beyond Pluto. ( )