The Castaways of Tanagar

by Brian M. Stableford

Get more than one book in this category for no extra shipping charge.

Genres: Science Fiction

319 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 7, 1981

About the author

Brian Michael Stableford was a British science fiction writer who published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything is recycled, nothing is original? Written in 1981, this book begins a little Matrix, moves to Divergent. We have some classic exploration by a team and then it gets a bit Brave New World meets Dreamscape. All in all, not a terrible book but definitely a lot of big ideas shoved into a mere three hundred-ish page novel.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been devoted to Stableford since THE BLIND WORM, and this did not disappoint. An enjoyable yarn of intrigue on post-Collapse Earth, with mad (for certain values of mad) scientists from a colony picking it to see what will happen when they drop some of their own dissidents into the milieu. Stableford chooses to delay the big expository dump until later in the novel, so that by then the reader will have an idea of what is implied by the contrast of the Tanagarian society with the rebuilding Earth, and may want a more straightforward explanation.

The characters, sadly, never really develop as personalities rather than types. You will likely find Baya-Undi as irritating as the other characters do, and be relieved when we find out what he is really up to.

[Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the idea of the Intels, Prags, and Hedonists as a stable society.

[SciFiOne · Rating 2 out of 5]

1982 grade D+