Planets Three

by Frederik Pohl

An alien creature holds the inhabitants of Earth captive, an intergalactic explorer is hired to find the reason why a lunar mining operation is plagued by suspicious accidents, and a band of rebels plots to overthrow the rulers of Venus

Genres: Pulp, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction

236 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Reviews

[Denis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This, I companion or as, "Part Two" of the 1976 compilation, "The Early Pohl", which was a collection of short works written by Pohl between 1940 and 1944, during the time he was a member of the "Futurians" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurians). "Planets Three" (1982) consists of three novellas of about 40 000 words each, written before and or completed after Pohl's enlistment into the second World War. To a completest and ultimate Pohl fan, these would be a great treasure as they were never before reprinted after their initial magazine publication under the pseudonym of James MacCreigh.
Each of these three stories is set on a different world: "Figurehead" is set on Ganymede, "Red Moon of Danger" set on the Moon, while "Donovan Had a Dream" is set on Venus. These are rather mediocre adventure/mystery yarns, typical of the times, and likely the sort Pohl himself (and associates) would have sped-read through from the slush pile in the offices of Galaxy or If magazine a decade or two later as chief editor of those pulp mags. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see the early efforts of one who would become a leading force and veteran, with a consecutive seventy year career, in the field of speculative fiction.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of three World War Two-era novellas that Pohl wrote under his James MacCreigh pseudonym. This book is actually more of a second volume of The Early Pohl than anything, and most likely this book wouldn't have been published had not Pohl been a hot commodity at the time after his award-winning Gateway, Man Plus, etc. They're space opera pulp adventure at its most fun and frenetic, one each set on The Moon, Ganymede, and Venus. Not too memorable, but enjoyable... set your blaster on ZAP!

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pohl is dismissive of his own novellas in a "well here they are" introduction, and after that rousing endorsement it is hard to get enthusiastic. In hindsight I'm not sure why I sought this out.

They're okay, I guess. Nothing much to them. "Red Moon of Danger" is transparently imported from some Western, and "Figurehead" is more about the chase scenes than it is about the implications of the big-idea concept.

"Donovan Had a Dream"--what a dreadful title--is also not very good but has an interesting kernel to it that deserved better treatment: a ruling cult performing medical experimentation for purposes that are barely touched on and the secret resistance organization beneath it.

[Rafeeq O. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Planets Three is a collection of three Frederik Pohl novellas originally published in the early postwar period under his "James MacCreigh" pseudonym: Figurehead, wherein three humans are taken by aliens to their native Ganymede for study and experimentation; Red Moon of Danger, set in a mysteriously accident-plagued uranium mine on the Moon; and Donovan Had a Dream, which shows political and military intrigue on a Venus dominated by a quasi-religious/scientific sect of human women.

All of the novellas are decent, though I confess that sometimes--especially in Figurehead--I caught myself forgetting that these works came not from the mid-Thirties but from significantly later. This first piece, while still entertaining, is perhaps the weakest of the three; the first-person narrative is glib and rather wisecracking, but it seems a little superficial, as if, despite a very nice "sense of wonder" moment when enormous Jupiter is first seen rising on the sky, the characters are simply running through an escape story that could have taken place in a pulp crime magazine instead of SF. By POV and predicament I was reminded somewhat of Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica," anthologized in Healy and MacComas's 1946 Adventures in Time and Space, but I found Figurehead half a notch inferior.

Red Moon of Danger is simple but decently fun bare-knuckled adventure, and although the source of the cave-ins and accidents is nicely played, I wish the villain directing them were not so damned transparent and obvious in his villainy. The rather unfortunately titled Donovan Had a Dream is likely the best of these three, and while even it may creak just a little bit here and there, we must remember that it was written comparatively early in the history of modern SF, and that we have seen 60-odd years of succeeding print, film, and television schlock make cliches of things that once were new. Like the other works, this one ends with a man of action getting "his girl"; none of these females, however, needs rescuing by someone in lace-up engineer's boots and jodhpurs--all have some spunkiness and bravery of their own.

Is this the best that Fred Pohl has written? No... But, at least for someone interested in revisiting the earlier, simpler days of the genre, these novellas are still worth the read.

[Denise Spicer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Includes pg intro by author and 3 short novels written in late 40s.
1. Figurehead takes place on Ganymeade
2. Red Moon of Danger is about mining on Mars.
3. Donovan Had a Dream The Donovans who live in caves in the jungle Their Venusian overlords (ladies), called the Hags and their robots perform really gruesome experiments on people. Yee-uck!!