What do you think?
Rate this book
Verschwörung gegen die Erde
Alarm auf den von Humanoiden bewohnten Planeten der erforschten Galaxis! Unbekannten war es gelungen, auf dunklen Kanälen die gefürchteten Hypno-Juwelen einzuschmuggeln, deren schädliche Strahlung in der Lage war, das Gehirn zu beeinflussen. Auch auf der Erde, die erst vor kurzem in die Völkergemeinschaft der galaktischen Welten aufgenommen worden war, wächst die Besorgnis. Lloyd Catton, von seiner Regierung mit den Ermittlungen beauftragt und mit allen Vollmachten ausgestattet, reist nach Morilar, dem Sitz der Interplanetaren Polizeiorganisation, um sich über den Stand der Ermittlungen zu informieren. Viel hat man inzwischen nicht herausbekommen, aber als Catton auf Morilar eintrifft, beginnen sich die Vorfälle zu häufen. Denn Catton hat schon bald durchschaut, daß der illegale Schmuggel mit den Hypno-Juwelen nur Teil eines umfassenden Planes war, die Erde von der übrigen Welt zu isolieren und ihre Zivilisation in die Barbarei zurückzuwerfen.
- GenresScience Fiction
122 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1959
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 6, 2020
Lloyd Catton is assigned as a delegate to the Interworld Commission on Crime, ostensibly to help curtail the illegal trafficking of addictive hypnojewels. His real mission, however, is to investigate rumors that the three most powerful races in the galaxy--Morilaru, Arenaddin, and Skorg--are secretly plotting against Earth to stop its rapidly growing economic influence.
The unexpected disappearance of a Terran ambassador's beautiful but naïve daughter, who has fallen in love with a Morilaru smuggler, provides a crack in the case that threatens to undermine the political stability of the cosmos.
The central conceit of this story never really makes sense--how would assigning a diplomat to what is essentially a police vice squad lead to exposing high level government conspiracies? However, if you can swallow this premise (and, after all, it is no more ridiculous than most of James Bond's undercover assignments in the Ian Fleming books), then you are rewarded with a fun fast-paced potboiler that is part science fiction adventure, part spy novel, and part pulp crime noir.
Femme fatales, fisticuff brawls, double crosses, and plenty of smugglers of ill repute abound in the story, which Silverberg says in his introduction was inspired by the madcap narratives of A. E. van Vogt (a well-known sci-fi writer whom I have not yet read).
This novel was written in August 1958 and published the following year as half of an Ace Double, paired with Milton Lesser's Recruit for Andromeda. It lacks the emerging maturity of some of Silverberg's 1958 books--for instance, the political satire of Invaders from Earth or the subtle characterizations of Collision Course. However, I am a fan of the pulp noir style. Lloyd Catton could easily be Ben Gates from Kill Now, Pay Later or Mike Shane from Murder is My Business in these passages:
"She was no longer the demure, blushing eighteen-year-old of a few months ago. Catton saw that the moment he saw her eyes. They were woman's eyes. She looked as though she had found out what misery meant."
"Catton had his doubts about joining forces with a woman who had spied on him and attempted to murder him. But at this stage of the conflict he needed any ally he could get, even a risky one."
"I don't belong in there. And I don't want to be around when the weeping and wailing starts. I don't like to watch a man the size of your father cry."
About half-way through, Lloyd gets stranded on a small planet looking for a rescue beacon after his nullspace ship is attacked. This is a plotline borrowed from Silverberg's own 1957 short story "Three Survived".
Silverberg's hypnojewels worked in a similar fashion to the narcotics, called Jewels of Sound, in Harlan Ellison's original screenplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". I would not be surprised if Ellison borrowed this idea intentionally to pay homage to his long-time friend.
The unexpected disappearance of a Terran ambassador's beautiful but naïve daughter, who has fallen in love with a Morilaru smuggler, provides a crack in the case that threatens to undermine the political stability of the cosmos.
The central conceit of this story never really makes sense--how would assigning a diplomat to what is essentially a police vice squad lead to exposing high level government conspiracies? However, if you can swallow this premise (and, after all, it is no more ridiculous than most of James Bond's undercover assignments in the Ian Fleming books), then you are rewarded with a fun fast-paced potboiler that is part science fiction adventure, part spy novel, and part pulp crime noir.
Femme fatales, fisticuff brawls, double crosses, and plenty of smugglers of ill repute abound in the story, which Silverberg says in his introduction was inspired by the madcap narratives of A. E. van Vogt (a well-known sci-fi writer whom I have not yet read).
This novel was written in August 1958 and published the following year as half of an Ace Double, paired with Milton Lesser's Recruit for Andromeda. It lacks the emerging maturity of some of Silverberg's 1958 books--for instance, the political satire of Invaders from Earth or the subtle characterizations of Collision Course. However, I am a fan of the pulp noir style. Lloyd Catton could easily be Ben Gates from Kill Now, Pay Later or Mike Shane from Murder is My Business in these passages:
"She was no longer the demure, blushing eighteen-year-old of a few months ago. Catton saw that the moment he saw her eyes. They were woman's eyes. She looked as though she had found out what misery meant."
"Catton had his doubts about joining forces with a woman who had spied on him and attempted to murder him. But at this stage of the conflict he needed any ally he could get, even a risky one."
"I don't belong in there. And I don't want to be around when the weeping and wailing starts. I don't like to watch a man the size of your father cry."
About half-way through, Lloyd gets stranded on a small planet looking for a rescue beacon after his nullspace ship is attacked. This is a plotline borrowed from Silverberg's own 1957 short story "Three Survived".
Silverberg's hypnojewels worked in a similar fashion to the narcotics, called Jewels of Sound, in Harlan Ellison's original screenplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". I would not be surprised if Ellison borrowed this idea intentionally to pay homage to his long-time friend.
March 5, 2026
Lloyd Catton gets the task to represent Earth at a meeting of the Interplanetary Police Organization. Superficially, it is about fighting the spreading of the dangerous Hypno-Jewels in cooperation with the police chiefs of the other 4 humanoid races. But he has a secret mission: to find out if there is a conspiracy against Earth.
A fast paced adventure story. The fact that Robert Silverberg wrote the novel under a pseudonym has its reasons, however. You won't find any depth or things that are worth thinking about. What you will find are many convenient coincidences, implausibility and hair-raising decisions of the main protagonist.
However, it is not completely badly written, so that I have read it to the end and still give 2 stars.
A fast paced adventure story. The fact that Robert Silverberg wrote the novel under a pseudonym has its reasons, however. You won't find any depth or things that are worth thinking about. What you will find are many convenient coincidences, implausibility and hair-raising decisions of the main protagonist.
However, it is not completely badly written, so that I have read it to the end and still give 2 stars.
backlog
August 25, 2024This is one of three short Ace Double novels by Robert Silverberg published under the title, The Planet Killers
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews