One of the more engaging entries in the Dumarest of Terra saga. There are some interesting ideas at play here as our hero finds himself stranded on a planet run on hyper-capitalist lines in which a ruling clique hold power over others through a punitive system of life debt and escalating interest rates.

The book really picks up when Dumarest leads a team out into the desert to find a cash of rare stones deposited by a species of aggressive sand worms. The action in the tunnels is very effective and claustrophobic which contrasts well with their subsequent escape across a barren landscape and harsh sand storms.

The interaction with a wider cast of characters helps add some depth to Dumarest not seen in the previous stories I’ve read. ( )

Blueprint Dumarest. ( )

A typical entry in the Dumarest of Terra series. Tubb sticks to his formula.

Dumarest = Hard,
Girl = Hot for Dumarest,
Cyclan = Villains,

Dumarest 1 Cyclan 0

No Nearer Earth. The End.

It's candy. 13 more to go after this one. ( )

For my money, the Dumarest Saga of E.C. Tubb ranks up there as one of the best science fiction series written in English.

Set in the far distant future, when mankind has spread across the galaxy, they feature the inimitable Earl Dumarest, a man with lightning fast reflexes who is forever trying to find the home world he fled as a child and has long since lost: Earth.

The galaxy he travels through is a hard, deadly place for a man with no affiliations and little money. Tubb pulls no punches in his depictions of the many harsh, hellish worlds and people whom Dumarest encounters, and invariably survives, if only just, during his quest.

Perhaps one of the best things about this series (which consists of some 32 books) is that each book is short, with no unnecessary padding; they're generally between 150 and 190 pages long. So they're a reasonably quick read, too.

I recommend reading all books in the series, preferably in the intended order. If you can, though, avoid the Arrow Books editions - the cover illustrations are, to put it simply, the pits. The artists clearly had never read the books, or if they did, didn't bother to note down a lot of details about the scenes they chose to portray in these illustrations, e.g. clothing, weaponry, etc. Shame on Arrow Books for using such second-class amateurs.

Did I mention? Unlike the seemingly interminable Wheel of Time series of Robert Jordan, or the never-ending Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson - both of which I find way too verbose, i.e. a lot of words pass by without very much happening - the Dumarest Saga has an actual ending - in volume 32, The Return, Dumarest finds his way home! ( )