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Delian Cycle #2
The Suns of Scorpio (Dray Prescot, #2)
Helpless as the phantom forces of the Savanti and the Star Lords clash, Dray Prescot is swept once more from Earth to fulfil another gruesome task beneath the twin suns of Kregan.
Will he be sent to Zair, where the red-sun deity reigns or to Grodno, land of the green-sun god where the evil overlords of Magdag rule a nation of slaves?
As Prescot waits in limbo for the outcome of the battle, his one hope is that the task will take him nearer to his Princess, the lovely Delia, from whom the Star Lords snatched him so long ago...
Will he be sent to Zair, where the red-sun deity reigns or to Grodno, land of the green-sun god where the evil overlords of Magdag rule a nation of slaves?
As Prescot waits in limbo for the outcome of the battle, his one hope is that the task will take him nearer to his Princess, the lovely Delia, from whom the Star Lords snatched him so long ago...
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 8, 2020
Karl Updated 6/7/2020
DAW Collectors #49
Cover Artist: Tim Kirk
Legal Name: Bulmer, Henry Kenneth, Birthplace: London, England, UK. (14 January 1921 - 16 December 2005
Alternate Names: Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, H. Ken Bulmer, H. K. Bulmer, Ken Bulmer, H. Kenneth Bulmer, Henry K. Bulmer, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Arthur Frazier, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Kenneth Johns, Philip Kent, Neil Langholm, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Dray Prescot, Andrew Quiller, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, Tully Zetford.
Slave of the colossus builders or scourge of the Inland Sea? Both roles await Dray Prescot on his return to Kregen. Torn between two contending forces, the Star Lords and the Savanti, Prescot himself wants only to find his beloved, the Princess Delia of the Blue Mountains. But the powers that had drawn him across interstellar space to the world that orbit the red and green suns in the Constellation Scorpio have set him a task, the nature of which even he cannot fully comprehend...
Dray Prescot's saga has been a claimed as the best planetary adventure series since Burroughs stopped writing about Barsoom.
The Suns of Scorpio is the second book in the epic saga of Dray Prescot of Earth and of Kregen.
Ken Bulmer, who has died aged 84, was the author of 170 novels and more than 200 short stories and articles. But the fact that they were written under a dizzying variety of pen-names meant that his achievements remained known only to a limited number of fans, who would seek out his work, whether science fiction, historical adventure or novelisations of TV shows.
For all his output, Bulmer was no hack. He once said: "A hack can turn his hand to anything and bang it off. I can't. I have to be involved with what I do and want to do it." The durability of those characters he particularly enjoyed - the planet-spanning Dray Prescot and the maritime adventurer George Abercrombie Fox - proved his ability to sustain an audience over a long series.
Dray Prescot, the star of 53 fantasy novels (1972-98), as by Alan Burt Ackers), was a hero in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter; transported to the twin-sunned Scorpio system 400 light-years from Earth, he helps rebuild an empire before discovering he is the pawn in a galactic battle between the Star Lords and the Savanti.
Although Bulmer's early novels were entertainingly written, they were typical space operas about galactic invasions, space piracy and space wars, though with a political edge and darker tone than most SF of the time. In the late 1960's, he changed style with such novels as "The Ulcer Culture" and "On the Symb-Socket Circuit", which satirized the culture of hedonism, though they met with mixed reaction.
Cover artist: Tim Kirk
DAW Collectors #49
Cover Artist: Tim Kirk
Legal Name: Bulmer, Henry Kenneth, Birthplace: London, England, UK. (14 January 1921 - 16 December 2005
Alternate Names: Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, H. Ken Bulmer, H. K. Bulmer, Ken Bulmer, H. Kenneth Bulmer, Henry K. Bulmer, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Arthur Frazier, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Kenneth Johns, Philip Kent, Neil Langholm, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Dray Prescot, Andrew Quiller, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, Tully Zetford.
Slave of the colossus builders or scourge of the Inland Sea? Both roles await Dray Prescot on his return to Kregen. Torn between two contending forces, the Star Lords and the Savanti, Prescot himself wants only to find his beloved, the Princess Delia of the Blue Mountains. But the powers that had drawn him across interstellar space to the world that orbit the red and green suns in the Constellation Scorpio have set him a task, the nature of which even he cannot fully comprehend...
Dray Prescot's saga has been a claimed as the best planetary adventure series since Burroughs stopped writing about Barsoom.
The Suns of Scorpio is the second book in the epic saga of Dray Prescot of Earth and of Kregen.
Ken Bulmer, who has died aged 84, was the author of 170 novels and more than 200 short stories and articles. But the fact that they were written under a dizzying variety of pen-names meant that his achievements remained known only to a limited number of fans, who would seek out his work, whether science fiction, historical adventure or novelisations of TV shows.
For all his output, Bulmer was no hack. He once said: "A hack can turn his hand to anything and bang it off. I can't. I have to be involved with what I do and want to do it." The durability of those characters he particularly enjoyed - the planet-spanning Dray Prescot and the maritime adventurer George Abercrombie Fox - proved his ability to sustain an audience over a long series.
Dray Prescot, the star of 53 fantasy novels (1972-98), as by Alan Burt Ackers), was a hero in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter; transported to the twin-sunned Scorpio system 400 light-years from Earth, he helps rebuild an empire before discovering he is the pawn in a galactic battle between the Star Lords and the Savanti.
Although Bulmer's early novels were entertainingly written, they were typical space operas about galactic invasions, space piracy and space wars, though with a political edge and darker tone than most SF of the time. In the late 1960's, he changed style with such novels as "The Ulcer Culture" and "On the Symb-Socket Circuit", which satirized the culture of hedonism, though they met with mixed reaction.
Cover artist: Tim Kirk
January 11, 2026
Another exciting sword and planet book in Dray Prescot Series. At this stage I’m trying to figure out the pull of the Star Lords and the Savanti and their use of Prescot. No one on Kregen seems to have a clue about the existence of these two advanced groups. Although, many on Kregen don’t know a lot about various parts of the world, anyway. Unfortunately for Dray, he never gets to see his beloved Princess Delia of the Blue Mountains in this book. Her envoys are searching the world for him, but the powers that be keep pulling him from Earth, and sending him back at ill opportune times. In this book he is enslaved a couple of times, becomes a famous pirate captain, earns a couple of more noble and warrior titles, and ultimately leads a slave revolt before he is pulled back to Earth. Good stuff.
January 25, 2016
I read the first book in this series a little over 2 years ago, and while it didn't live up to all my standards or expectations it was (in parts) the book I wanted to be reading. The second entry achieves this a lot less often and in much shorter bursts. In short: I'm disappointed.
A lot goes on in this book: our hero Dray Prescot returns to planet Kregen, he winds up on an inland sea, he gets involved with two opposed kingdoms, has sword fights, gets captured a few times, joins a sacred order, makes and loses friends, is lusted after by women, takes up a cause, etc. Sounds like the standard “sword & planet” bit, right? It is and it isn't. Somehow all the right ingredients made it into this stew, we just can't taste them. Either by the design of Bulmer/Akers or the will of our narrator, Prescot, all the best stuff is missing.
Sword fights are truncated, in fact one is virtually reduced to the line “The fight did not last long”, intrigues, battles, etc. are kept vague and our narrator deliberately omits a whole year of time because he swore to keep it a secret. It's not as if the adventure isn't happening, but the focus of Prescot's narration is constantly on background details of world building. The reader is “shown” nothing, but rather gradually told.
The sword and planet genre is classically the hero re-telling his experiences after the fact, but the hero's telling usually brings the reader into the events and the past tense is vivid enough to make us feel as if we went through it too... Dray Prescot's recollections here are a pattern of omission and re-cap that diminishes suspense. If John Carter got knocked out, we'd read about him waking up confused, in as much suspense as he was. Dray Prescot is a Non-Carter, when he gets knocked out we rejoin him a week later when the danger has passed. There are villains and there is conflict, but Dray Prescot is always sure of himself except in rare moments when he has an attack of modesty (which is usually about his appearance or his worthiness to be betrothed to Delia of the Blue Mountains).
For a short short burst towards the end (no spoilers) “The Suns of Scorpio” became the book I wanted to be reading, but the setup took too long. Too little, too late.
This is a long and well liked series, of which I've already collected the first six books. I love DAW paperbacks, I love Josh Kirby cover art, and I liked the other two Bulmer books I read well-enough. I really wanted to like this book, it came highly recommended, but at this point I'm not sure whether I'll ever continue with the series.
...Oh! And while I'm thinking about it: why have all those animal people if they're always way in the background? I saw those covers and I was like “Oh crap! Check out those animal people!” Well, Dray always seems to roll his eyes and go “Oh, sure. That's animal people again. But never mind that, on Kregen they have a form of checkers...” ...and that's all we get.
A lot goes on in this book: our hero Dray Prescot returns to planet Kregen, he winds up on an inland sea, he gets involved with two opposed kingdoms, has sword fights, gets captured a few times, joins a sacred order, makes and loses friends, is lusted after by women, takes up a cause, etc. Sounds like the standard “sword & planet” bit, right? It is and it isn't. Somehow all the right ingredients made it into this stew, we just can't taste them. Either by the design of Bulmer/Akers or the will of our narrator, Prescot, all the best stuff is missing.
Sword fights are truncated, in fact one is virtually reduced to the line “The fight did not last long”, intrigues, battles, etc. are kept vague and our narrator deliberately omits a whole year of time because he swore to keep it a secret. It's not as if the adventure isn't happening, but the focus of Prescot's narration is constantly on background details of world building. The reader is “shown” nothing, but rather gradually told.
The sword and planet genre is classically the hero re-telling his experiences after the fact, but the hero's telling usually brings the reader into the events and the past tense is vivid enough to make us feel as if we went through it too... Dray Prescot's recollections here are a pattern of omission and re-cap that diminishes suspense. If John Carter got knocked out, we'd read about him waking up confused, in as much suspense as he was. Dray Prescot is a Non-Carter, when he gets knocked out we rejoin him a week later when the danger has passed. There are villains and there is conflict, but Dray Prescot is always sure of himself except in rare moments when he has an attack of modesty (which is usually about his appearance or his worthiness to be betrothed to Delia of the Blue Mountains).
For a short short burst towards the end (no spoilers) “The Suns of Scorpio” became the book I wanted to be reading, but the setup took too long. Too little, too late.
This is a long and well liked series, of which I've already collected the first six books. I love DAW paperbacks, I love Josh Kirby cover art, and I liked the other two Bulmer books I read well-enough. I really wanted to like this book, it came highly recommended, but at this point I'm not sure whether I'll ever continue with the series.
...Oh! And while I'm thinking about it: why have all those animal people if they're always way in the background? I saw those covers and I was like “Oh crap! Check out those animal people!” Well, Dray always seems to roll his eyes and go “Oh, sure. That's animal people again. But never mind that, on Kregen they have a form of checkers...” ...and that's all we get.
August 3, 2014
This wasn't a very satisfying book for me. The author spent a lot of time on what I considered trivial details and not enough time on fleshing out aspects of the plot. The characters were caricatures. He used a plot device to leave the story hanging. Many years ago I read the John Carter, Warlord of Mars series and my recollection is this author tried to emulate Edgar Rice Burroughs to some extent. My recollection of the Carter novels was they were much better.
December 8, 2024
I barely read this. The first one wasn't very good, but I'd read it as part of an ebook omnibus and forgot how bored I'd been, so I gave the second one a shot. Still bored, so I'm moving on to other books. It's one of those books where it feels like stuff just happens, like settings and characters and activities are written on index cards, shuffled, and then described as if it's an actual plot.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
December 14, 2018
This book is right on par for the period in which it was written, but I find myself abused at how women are portrayed within. The constant surprise expressed by the charter written a women is capable, and most in this world are not. However, for a sword and stars book of the 70s, I think this is somewhat traditional and doesn't take away from the other world, distant star, story of swashbuckling and exploration.
September 16, 2022
The descriptions of the setting are very well done. Extra star for the main character being pretty based and starting a working class rebellion on this planet he's on. Hope he eventually finds his Delia of the Blue Mountains, his Delia of Delphon again, lol. He seriously uses that whole title for her in almost every reference to her in the text. Gave me a chuckle. I would continue reading this series but there are like literally 75 of them.
August 6, 2018
Some of the prose was really excellent, but it reads like the author dropped half the pages on the way to the publishers. He’s abolishing slavery! He’s whipping a huge crew of slaves! He’s never going to give up looking for Delia! He’s copping off with his dead friend’s wife! The whole thing made me feel like I’d been hit on the head and was drifting in and out of consciousness.
May 18, 2020
Dray Precot is over the top crazy. He spends years in some terrible situations but doesn't look for his girlfriend. I know! The star lords. They pick this guy to solve problems? With a whole universe to mind, why him? Why this planet?
May 28, 2010
From my blog pulpaweek.blogspot.com
'Helpless as the phantom forces of the Savanti and the Star Lords clash, Dray Prescot is swept once more from Earth to fulfil another gruesome task beneath the twin suns of Kregan.
Will he be sent to Zair, where the red-sun deity reigns or to Grodno, land of the green-sun god where the evil overlords of Magdag rule a nation of slaves?
As Prescot waits in limbo for the outcome of the battle, his one hope is that the task will take him nearer to his Princess, the lovely Delia, from whom the Star Lords snatched him so long ago...' From the back cover
1973. 192 pages 40p UK cover price
The second book of the 'Dray Prescot Series' (there are thirty-seven in all!), Suns of Scorpio is a quick and bloody affair with tons of swordplay, seafaring, and a few naked ladies thrown in for good measure. Cinemax should option this book series for an ongoing late night affair. Suns of Scorpio is well written, but heavily referential to its predecessor Transit to Scorpio, so a bit of editing or maybe even a glossary would help to make it more cohesive. All in all, though, I enjoyed this bad boy.
Protagonist Dray Prescot is your prototypical pulp sci-fi hero—whisked away from Earth by the capricious 'Star Lords' to the world of Kregan (Two suns! Beast people!) and given no direction, Dray quickly finds himself enslaved by the Magdag, an evil northern island empire that worships the green sun of Grondo. The Magdag are endlessly building shrines to their brutal deity, which is where our main man finds himself at work. Eventually, Dray's mercurial temperament finds him at odds with some fristles (half cat people) who ambush him and leave him for dead where the slave galleys are kept. Mistaken for a Galley slave, Dray is press ganged onto the crew of the 'Grace of Grondo' and nearly worked to death. He creates a bond with his fellow oar mates, and they watch out for each other, as many around them are worked or beaten to death on the Galley. One of Dray's oar mates is flogged to death right next to him, which enrages our hero to the point where he frees himself and begins killing crew of the galley. Just as things seem to be taking a turn for the worse, a ship from Sanurkazz, bitter enemies of Magdag, overtakes the vessel and joins the fight—eventually freeing the slaves and enslaving the captives. Dray joins the Sanurkazz Navy, and even begins worshipping their benevolent god Zair (of the red sun) while amassing power and fortune. Oh yeah, he also bangs his buddy Zorg's hot widow.
So, this is the basic formula for this book—Dray is captured, faces insurmountable odds, chops off a bunch of limbs, is rescued by the enemies of his enemies, then flourishes in their culture for a time. Mr. Prescot also has sex with, or at least has the opportunity to have sex with, whatever beautiful royal women happen to be around. This all sounds very shallow and ridiculous, but the pacing of Suns of Scorpio has a very serial feel, which lends itself well to an action sci-fi novel.
My main gripe is that Akers basically assumes that you have read the previous entry in the series, which I haven’t. Character names from the previously novel are dropped piecemeal with almost no explanation or relevance throughout the book. Hell, we don’t find out until three quarters into this novel that in Transit to Scorpio Dray had bathed in a sacred pool, rendering him immortal.
But, these are small gripes for a fun novel that, less than two hundred pages, is full of gore and boobs.
'Helpless as the phantom forces of the Savanti and the Star Lords clash, Dray Prescot is swept once more from Earth to fulfil another gruesome task beneath the twin suns of Kregan.
Will he be sent to Zair, where the red-sun deity reigns or to Grodno, land of the green-sun god where the evil overlords of Magdag rule a nation of slaves?
As Prescot waits in limbo for the outcome of the battle, his one hope is that the task will take him nearer to his Princess, the lovely Delia, from whom the Star Lords snatched him so long ago...' From the back cover
1973. 192 pages 40p UK cover price
The second book of the 'Dray Prescot Series' (there are thirty-seven in all!), Suns of Scorpio is a quick and bloody affair with tons of swordplay, seafaring, and a few naked ladies thrown in for good measure. Cinemax should option this book series for an ongoing late night affair. Suns of Scorpio is well written, but heavily referential to its predecessor Transit to Scorpio, so a bit of editing or maybe even a glossary would help to make it more cohesive. All in all, though, I enjoyed this bad boy.
Protagonist Dray Prescot is your prototypical pulp sci-fi hero—whisked away from Earth by the capricious 'Star Lords' to the world of Kregan (Two suns! Beast people!) and given no direction, Dray quickly finds himself enslaved by the Magdag, an evil northern island empire that worships the green sun of Grondo. The Magdag are endlessly building shrines to their brutal deity, which is where our main man finds himself at work. Eventually, Dray's mercurial temperament finds him at odds with some fristles (half cat people) who ambush him and leave him for dead where the slave galleys are kept. Mistaken for a Galley slave, Dray is press ganged onto the crew of the 'Grace of Grondo' and nearly worked to death. He creates a bond with his fellow oar mates, and they watch out for each other, as many around them are worked or beaten to death on the Galley. One of Dray's oar mates is flogged to death right next to him, which enrages our hero to the point where he frees himself and begins killing crew of the galley. Just as things seem to be taking a turn for the worse, a ship from Sanurkazz, bitter enemies of Magdag, overtakes the vessel and joins the fight—eventually freeing the slaves and enslaving the captives. Dray joins the Sanurkazz Navy, and even begins worshipping their benevolent god Zair (of the red sun) while amassing power and fortune. Oh yeah, he also bangs his buddy Zorg's hot widow.
So, this is the basic formula for this book—Dray is captured, faces insurmountable odds, chops off a bunch of limbs, is rescued by the enemies of his enemies, then flourishes in their culture for a time. Mr. Prescot also has sex with, or at least has the opportunity to have sex with, whatever beautiful royal women happen to be around. This all sounds very shallow and ridiculous, but the pacing of Suns of Scorpio has a very serial feel, which lends itself well to an action sci-fi novel.
My main gripe is that Akers basically assumes that you have read the previous entry in the series, which I haven’t. Character names from the previously novel are dropped piecemeal with almost no explanation or relevance throughout the book. Hell, we don’t find out until three quarters into this novel that in Transit to Scorpio Dray had bathed in a sacred pool, rendering him immortal.
But, these are small gripes for a fun novel that, less than two hundred pages, is full of gore and boobs.
June 12, 2011
An interesting, worthy successor to Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's a sword-and-planet adventure, with all the good and bad this implies, yet Akers/Bulmer innovates in intriguing ways.
There is clearly a larger cycle of story going on, with a behind-the-scenes conflict between the Star Lords and the Savanti, two superhuman groups that oversee matters on the planet of Kregan and who seem to have competing goals, especially in regards to Dray Prescot. Unfortunately, at this time these forces are keeping their cards close to their chest and do not let Prescot in on what he is intended to accomplish. This creates an unfortunate vacuum at the heart of the novel, as Prescot finds himself wandering without a clear goal, and it is only in the last third of the book that Prescot decides why the Savanti have retrieved him from Earth.
Akers/Bulmer is more explicit about the story being the transcription of Prescot's own words (in true Burroughsian fashion), with the additional innovation that the A/B occasionally conveniently "loses" various documents and tapes that bridge the set pieces of the story. While this is occasionally jarring, it provides a workable device to skip any amount of boring details that would otherwise bog the story (Why is he suddenly a pirate captain, and how did he get there? For very good reasons that we don't have access to! Moving on!)
The writing was stilted in an odd way, and it was never clear to me if this is an intentional stylistic approach or an awkward imitation of Burroughs's grand style.
Loved the set piece of the city of Magdag, a madly constructed city of megaliths, the slave laborers clustered in warrens around the megabuildings under construction. He did quite a bit with this, and with the inevitable rough conflict between laborer and overseer.
Fun and interesting, but I wonder how the author could possibly maintain the entertainment level over some fifty (!) books in the series. So I'm not planning on charging in to read them all, and may just cherry pick according to premise.
There is clearly a larger cycle of story going on, with a behind-the-scenes conflict between the Star Lords and the Savanti, two superhuman groups that oversee matters on the planet of Kregan and who seem to have competing goals, especially in regards to Dray Prescot. Unfortunately, at this time these forces are keeping their cards close to their chest and do not let Prescot in on what he is intended to accomplish. This creates an unfortunate vacuum at the heart of the novel, as Prescot finds himself wandering without a clear goal, and it is only in the last third of the book that Prescot decides why the Savanti have retrieved him from Earth.
Akers/Bulmer is more explicit about the story being the transcription of Prescot's own words (in true Burroughsian fashion), with the additional innovation that the A/B occasionally conveniently "loses" various documents and tapes that bridge the set pieces of the story. While this is occasionally jarring, it provides a workable device to skip any amount of boring details that would otherwise bog the story (Why is he suddenly a pirate captain, and how did he get there? For very good reasons that we don't have access to! Moving on!)
The writing was stilted in an odd way, and it was never clear to me if this is an intentional stylistic approach or an awkward imitation of Burroughs's grand style.
Loved the set piece of the city of Magdag, a madly constructed city of megaliths, the slave laborers clustered in warrens around the megabuildings under construction. He did quite a bit with this, and with the inevitable rough conflict between laborer and overseer.
Fun and interesting, but I wonder how the author could possibly maintain the entertainment level over some fifty (!) books in the series. So I'm not planning on charging in to read them all, and may just cherry pick according to premise.
August 6, 2016
I can say that without a doubt this series is going to continue to kick ass in the highest fashion possible. Book 2, The Suns of Scorpio retained a lot of the same themes as Transit [Book 1] with a greater emphasis on that most hated theme, Slavery. Dray once again finds himself alive, stark and laying on the beach without a notion as to what is laid before him. He has finally accepted that he is a pawn of the Star Lords / Savanti to bend at their very whim, however in this book he aims to do it with some class and style.
Once again Dray has risen from the very bottom of the barrel to be a notorious and highly praised individual and granted titles and privileges for them to be stripped away at the most paramount moments. Poor Dray cannot catch a break at all. I eagerly look forward to the third installment in this epic series.
Once again Dray has risen from the very bottom of the barrel to be a notorious and highly praised individual and granted titles and privileges for them to be stripped away at the most paramount moments. Poor Dray cannot catch a break at all. I eagerly look forward to the third installment in this epic series.
March 6, 2016
Imagine being thrust to another planet against your will, arriving naked and unarmed. Imagine discovering your heart's desire and being ripped away upon attaining it, only to wake naked on a beach on Earth again. Suns of Scorpio finds Dray putting the pieces of his life on Earth back together again. All the while vainly yearning to return to his beloved Dalia. Once again he is plucked and placed back on Kregen only to discover that his love is many miles and a continent away. Not knowing his purpose this time it doesn't take long for Dray to go from slave to lord yet again. In the midst of a slave revolt Dray once again is transported away against his every wish. Great action packed story.
May 17, 2013
Dray Prescot is called to the planet Kregen once again for unknown purposes by the mysterious Star Lords. There he becomes involved in conflict between two religious groups that are committed to each other's destruction. As always, he pines for his beloved Delia.
Kenneth Bulmer (Alan Burt Akers's real name) writes a lively Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, though it tends to be rather unfocused. There are plenty of action-packed adventures, but it suffers from the lack of narrative drive. However, it's still a fun, quick read and Bulmer is good at world-building.
Kenneth Bulmer (Alan Burt Akers's real name) writes a lively Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, though it tends to be rather unfocused. There are plenty of action-packed adventures, but it suffers from the lack of narrative drive. However, it's still a fun, quick read and Bulmer is good at world-building.
November 10, 2013
Dray Prescot is called to the planet Kregen once again for unknown purposes by the mysterious Star Lords. There he becomes involved in conflict between two religious groups that are committed to each other's destruction. As always, he pines for his beloved Delia.
Kenneth Bulmer (Alan Burt Akers's real name) writes a lively Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, though it tends to be rather unfocused. There are plenty of action-packed adventures, but it suffers from the lack of narrative drive. However, it's still a fun, quick read and Bulmer is good at world-building.
Kenneth Bulmer (Alan Burt Akers's real name) writes a lively Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, though it tends to be rather unfocused. There are plenty of action-packed adventures, but it suffers from the lack of narrative drive. However, it's still a fun, quick read and Bulmer is good at world-building.
May 4, 2012
I'm almost (but not *quite*) ashamed to add Akers to my list of authors. I'm also almost ashamed of aggravating all and sundry with alliteration.
End confession.
I loved this stuff when I was fourteen, and I'd be lying if I claimed otherwise. Granted, it was (to these hoary eyes, at any rate) a third-rate Burroughs knockoff -- but high school freshmen aren't noted for their discernment.
Three stars for the sake of fond memories. :-)
End confession.
I loved this stuff when I was fourteen, and I'd be lying if I claimed otherwise. Granted, it was (to these hoary eyes, at any rate) a third-rate Burroughs knockoff -- but high school freshmen aren't noted for their discernment.
Three stars for the sake of fond memories. :-)
March 15, 2016
If you are a John Carter of Mars fan or enjoy the "displaced person on another world" then this series is for you. The books run in long story arcs so you can read just a few to complete a plot line or go for the whole set. Akers creates a very complex world for the hero to adventure in. Recommended
June 28, 2011
The second Dray Prescot book is better than the first (had to get the taste of the earlier review out of my mouth). There still are growing pains, but this is a step in the right direction.
August 5, 2011
The best piece in a wonderful quintet, The character really comes into his own, some of the best Navel Action I have ever read.
January 30, 2016
Another really good book. Definitely action packed all the way through. One of Dray's big pet peeves, slavery, figures predominately in this volume. This is shaping up to be a really good series.
July 26, 2010
Excellent. Sheer fun and adventure.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews