L Sprague de Camp was a prolific author of over a 100 books, many in conjunction with his wife Catherine Crook. He made his name as one of the leading American authors of science fiction and fantasy in the late 1930's and 1940's, but perhaps he is best known today for his sword and sorcery novels that he turned to later in life. The Rogue Queen is one of his most highly regarded science fiction titles although it is helped by some excellent adventure/fantasy writing that keeps the story moving on towards its conclusion.

The story is set on a planet inhabited by a humanoid species whose civilisation has developed along the lines of bees in a hive; in as much as individual colonies have a Queen who is served by male drones who live alongside neutered workers. The male drones are subject to a periodic cull while the worker neutrals run the colony in support of the queen. The books point of view is one of the worker neutrals "Iroedh" who is part of a working party sent out to meet a human detachment who have landed on the planet as part of an information gathering expedition. The bee people's civilisation is stuck in the bronze age, but the meeting with 20th century type humans causes a violent change in their culture, despite the humans attempts not to interfere. Iroedh's curiosity and need of the human's help in her own nascent feeling of love for a condemned drone drives the story, which becomes a story about how a more civilised culture can have a long lasting effect on a more primitive and differently organised culture.

The writing and general drive of the story telling is akin to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series books. The adventure story is very well handled with some tension, suspense and sword play, but with the added theme of the help given to the protagonists by the humans who have problems and issues of their own. There is romance and the world building of the bee peoples culture gives a background to an exotic science fiction adventure story. Light entertainment it might be, but there was enough here to hold my interest and it never became too corny. Three stars. ( )

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A planet where human beings, for some reason, have started to behave like bees (as far as this is convenient for what the author wants to do with the plot): rival queens duel to the death in naked single combat, non-working males are brutally killed off, and the female workers who really keep things going are kept on a low-protein diet to prevent them from becoming fertile. Our subversive and intelligent heroine meets an expedition from Earth, eats meat for the first time and thus becomes a Real Woman; and society collapses into monogamy and nuclear families. I think there is some great analysis waiting to be done here. ( )

Pulpy campy fun. Bee-like alien matriarchy discovers aliens from Earth landing on their planet. Forward-minded natives discover heterosexual monogamy, and start manipulating humans into meddling in favor of their revolution. ( )

This is actually the third book in a series but I had no idea that was the case when I bought the book and it stands on its own. Terrans come to a planet Ormazd where the humanoid Avtini are organized along the lines of a bee hive, with a fertile queen bee reigning over the clan with its harem of male drones and neuter female workers. When a drone and worker are drawn to each other, with the help of the Terrans among them, they spark a social revolution. This is counted as groundbreaking; published in 1951, this broke the taboo on sexual themes and was among the first to treat anthropological and gender issues. The book is a very slim volume and a quick, entertaining read, and though I wouldn't put it up there with one of the classics of the genre, I found it tremendous fun. ( )

Purchased March 2004 with Tryon Funds