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Title: The Stars Are Ours by Andre Norton ISBN: 0-441-78434-8 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: September, 1981 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $1.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Early Norton I wish she'd written later
Comment: I can't guess how many Andre Norton books I've read during the past half-century. Most were good reads, while a good many ho-hums along the way made following her work unpredictable, at best.
The Stars are Ours and Star Born were among the first science fiction books I ever read. Just as a number of other, later reviewers began their SF voyage with these two, so did I. I've read them a number of times since and still enjoy them.
I really wouldn't call this 'juveniles', though young adults will enjoy them too. These books were early in the SF genre and were intended for a general readership. The typify what was going on in SF during the 1950s. In my view it hasn't particulary improved.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ad Astra Post Apocalypse
Comment: The Stars Are Ours is the first novel in the Astra duology. Mankind had reached the Moon, Mars and Venus, but found little to justify terraforming, so interplanetary flight was used only for scientific research. However, the three space stations provided a number of services, including astronomical and meteorological observations and refueling interplanetary flights. One of these stations was invaded by unidentified armed men who turned certain installations into weapons which they unleashed against the planet. A major portion of the planet was completely devastated and the loss of life was incalculable.
Among the survivors was Arturo Renzi, who had lost his entire family. He began to preach the evils of science and was welcomed as a great leader throughout the world. However, his message was too liberal for some of his followers and he was assassinated, apparently by a Free Scientist. For three days after the assassination, Renzi's followers engaged in a furious purge against scientists and techneers, hunting them down and killing them. Then Saxon Bort, one of Renzi's chief lieutenants, assumed command of the leader's forces and established the tight dictatorship of the Company of Pax.
In this novel, a decade or so later, Dard Nordis is the son of a Scientific family, living with his older brother, Lars, and his niece, Dessie. Lars and Dard, together with Lars' pregnant wife, Kathia, had fled the purge, but the escape had left Lars a twisted cripple and his wife an amnesiac. After Dessie was born, Kathia retreated into her own dream world until her death. Now Dard, Lars, and Dessie live on a farm far from any population center and the only nearby farm is Hew Folley's place. Dard doesn't trust Folley, for he wants their farm. Then one night, a Pax 'copter lands in the snow just before the house and armed Peacemen surround the building. Dard has the others gather food and supplies and sends them down into the cellar, then torches the house. Moving aside some rotting bins, he uncovers a tunnel, sends Dessie ahead, and helps Lars struggle down the passage.
After the Peacemen leave, Lars sends Dard out to leave a packet for his Scientific underground contact, but Dard hears a shot shortly after he drops the packet and runs back to find Folley clutching a squirming Dessie. Dard throws his knife and fatally injures Folley, then discovers that Lars is dead. With no other recourse remaining, Dard and Dessie return to the contact point to wait. Lotta Folley finds them there and gives them food and a scarf for Dessie; Lotta knows that her father is dead, but she recognizes that he was a man full of hate and who liked to hurt people. Besides, Lotta likes Dessie and liked her mother even more; they were the only people that ever treated her as a real person instead of an object. Lotta takes the rifle back to the barn to fool the Peacemen.
When Lars' contact arrives, Dard convinces him to take Dessie and himself back to safety. They spend the night in a cave, but a Pax 'copter is circling the area when they awake. The contact, Sach, leads the Peacemen away so Dard and Dessie can proceed to the next point in their journey. They move away from the cave along a bare ledge as far as they can and then jump into a snow drift on the edge of the woods. Their journey is fairly easy until they reach the river; the ice is too thin to support even Dessie's weight. After looking up and down river, Dard finds only one place that may support them, an arch of ice covered with snow. Dard carries Dessie across, slowly and carefully, then rests for a count of hundred on the other side. Again heading to the peak that marks their goal, Dard hears the 'copter return and throws Dessie and himself into a tangle of bushes. The men in the 'copter rake the bushes with fire. He and Dessie scoot out the other side, but find it to be a wide sweep of open ground.
This novel is another of the author's post-apocalyptic stories, but the emphasis herein is on spaceflight. Mankind had achieved interplanetary flight and was working on interstellar flight when some irrational terrorists destroyed civilization. Other fanatics then ripped up civilization into even smaller pieces and tried to ensure that ignorance would reign forever. The Scientific community, however, was working on a stardrive and that work was continued in hiding.
This story contains several of the characteristic signatures of the author's space adventures, including special talents and aliens, but does not include mutations nor symbiotic animals. This novel shows the beginning of galactic-wide human civilization and Star Rangers shows the ending of that civilization. Of course, some of the other stories may be set in a successor society. This story is definitely a little dated, but it is still a pleasure to read, as is the sequel, Star Born.
Highly recommended for Norton fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of desperate spaceflights to planets around other suns.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Stars Are Ours!
Comment: The Stars are Ours! Was the very first book I purchased with my Babysitting money waaaaay back in the sixth grade. If you read only one Andre Norton Book this is the one..but if you are like me you'll get hooked on anything that Ms. Norton has or will write! I lost my original copy,but found a copy in a used book store...it was as exciting reading it again at 50 something as it was at 12!
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Title: Star Born by Andre Norton ISBN: 0441780172 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 List Price(USD): $2.50 |
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Title: Star Man's Son by Andre Norton ISBN: 0345325885 Publisher: Del Rey Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1985 List Price(USD): $2.95 |
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Title: Star Gate by Andre Norton ISBN: 0152787100 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: June, 1958 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Star Rangers by Andre Norton ISBN: 0345323084 Publisher: Del Rey Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1985 List Price(USD): $2.50 |
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Title: Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton ISBN: 0451452321 Publisher: New Amer Library (Mm) Pub. Date: 01 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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