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Come, Hunt an Earthman
If you're a human, the deadliest game.
You may consider yourselves experienced hunters. You have hunted on many planets. But here things are different.
For there are no mindless monsters or charging carnivores, but a devious, intelligent and dangerous prey.
A prey who is out to get you before you get him.
Man!
You may consider yourselves experienced hunters. You have hunted on many planets. But here things are different.
For there are no mindless monsters or charging carnivores, but a devious, intelligent and dangerous prey.
A prey who is out to get you before you get him.
Man!
- GenresScience FictionFiction
176 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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73 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 27, 2011
Come Hunt an Earthman starts with 15 foot aliens using theEarth as their own private hunting grounds (What you thought Predator came up with that idea?) and ends with self-repairing giant cubes attacking the planet (hello Borg cube). In between is a rip-snorting pulp sci fi tale that revels in the technology and doesn't even think of coming up with believeable characters. It then cheekily slips in some high philosophy about the universe and our place within it before getting back to the hi-tech destruction.
Certainly not to all tastes, it's a great period sci fi romp.
Certainly not to all tastes, it's a great period sci fi romp.
March 26, 2020
42 WORD REVIEW:
Told in straightforward language, with pulp optimism and unambiguous views on right and wrong, High’s coming-of-age novel (humanity, that is, after first being preserved as game for alien hunters) has both reread value and more ideas crammed in than an Asimov trilogy.
Told in straightforward language, with pulp optimism and unambiguous views on right and wrong, High’s coming-of-age novel (humanity, that is, after first being preserved as game for alien hunters) has both reread value and more ideas crammed in than an Asimov trilogy.
December 22, 2023
Review from darrengoossens.wordpress.com.
In the 1970s English publisher Robert Hale put out a series of smallish-format hard cover SF novels aimed at libraries. They were not all bad -- World of Shadows by Australia's Lee Harding certainly aimed to be something interesting -- but they were not, typically, good. I believe they may have been constrained to all be the same 192 page length, for example, to keep costs down.
Philip High had been publishing novels and short fiction for 20 years when he wrote small cluster of books for Hale. This is one of them. When Venture SF started up in the 80s, their mission was to put out SF adventure stories, and they were to be novels and to have not been published in the UK in paperback before. Hence, the series consists of old UK hardback titles that never made it into paperback (like this one), US fiction had not yet had a UK paperback edition, and a few omnibuses, in which they could combine things that had been out in paperback, on the grounds that the omnibus was new. By volume 3 they had already published a collection of stories, albeit as a kind of fixup. The best of them are good examples of the kind -- early works by Roger MacBride Allen, for example. The worst of them ... are not good. But, then, they can't all be gems.
This book begins with a premise that could have been well-suited to a successful action-adventure story in a Deathworld kind of way -- a jaded, decadent galactic empire has discovered Earth and set it aside as a game hunting reserve (Predator, anyone?). Hence the title. One could imagine it being one of those 1950s-type US stories in which humans turn out to be superior to the aliens because we can whistle, or something. In such a story, the alien overlords get more than they expected when they tangle with us ingenious Earthfolk, and we end up running their empire.
There's a bit of that here, but the superscience silliness and unlikeliness of almost all the action, the complete lack of characterisation and humour and the stiffness of much of the dialogue combine to make the story quite a slog after the somewhat intriguing set-up is complete. The further you get into the story, the worse it gets. The last few pages went by slowly, even though the book is only 170 pages long.
I think there is a kind of attempt at the sort of story in which the scope keeps widening. You think it's about Earth -- no, it's about a local confederation of worlds. No, it's about the whole galaxy ... no! It's about the whole universe ... no! ... and so on.
High clearly had plenty of ideas. The book amply demonstrates that ideas are one thing, an interesting narrative peopled with interesting people quite another.
Also, and not the author's fault, the book is woefully badly produced. Quite a lot of explicative paragraphs end with closing quote marks, as if the typesetter got to the end and thought it was dialogue (perhaps they had tried to avoid actually reading the text). I noticed 'in' instead of 'it' (or the converse) now and again, and a few other things.
The Venture SF series begins rather promisingly with We All Died at Breakaway Station , and the next book is the competent military space adventure of Hammer's Slammers, but if the series editors wanted punters to 'start collecting them now' as the little blurb inside the front cover suggests, they ought to have placed this story a little later in the series.
Maybe Philip High was a mate of theirs.
High
In the 1970s English publisher Robert Hale put out a series of smallish-format hard cover SF novels aimed at libraries. They were not all bad -- World of Shadows by Australia's Lee Harding certainly aimed to be something interesting -- but they were not, typically, good. I believe they may have been constrained to all be the same 192 page length, for example, to keep costs down.
Philip High had been publishing novels and short fiction for 20 years when he wrote small cluster of books for Hale. This is one of them. When Venture SF started up in the 80s, their mission was to put out SF adventure stories, and they were to be novels and to have not been published in the UK in paperback before. Hence, the series consists of old UK hardback titles that never made it into paperback (like this one), US fiction had not yet had a UK paperback edition, and a few omnibuses, in which they could combine things that had been out in paperback, on the grounds that the omnibus was new. By volume 3 they had already published a collection of stories, albeit as a kind of fixup. The best of them are good examples of the kind -- early works by Roger MacBride Allen, for example. The worst of them ... are not good. But, then, they can't all be gems.
This book begins with a premise that could have been well-suited to a successful action-adventure story in a Deathworld kind of way -- a jaded, decadent galactic empire has discovered Earth and set it aside as a game hunting reserve (Predator, anyone?). Hence the title. One could imagine it being one of those 1950s-type US stories in which humans turn out to be superior to the aliens because we can whistle, or something. In such a story, the alien overlords get more than they expected when they tangle with us ingenious Earthfolk, and we end up running their empire.
There's a bit of that here, but the superscience silliness and unlikeliness of almost all the action, the complete lack of characterisation and humour and the stiffness of much of the dialogue combine to make the story quite a slog after the somewhat intriguing set-up is complete. The further you get into the story, the worse it gets. The last few pages went by slowly, even though the book is only 170 pages long.
I think there is a kind of attempt at the sort of story in which the scope keeps widening. You think it's about Earth -- no, it's about a local confederation of worlds. No, it's about the whole galaxy ... no! It's about the whole universe ... no! ... and so on.
High clearly had plenty of ideas. The book amply demonstrates that ideas are one thing, an interesting narrative peopled with interesting people quite another.
Also, and not the author's fault, the book is woefully badly produced. Quite a lot of explicative paragraphs end with closing quote marks, as if the typesetter got to the end and thought it was dialogue (perhaps they had tried to avoid actually reading the text). I noticed 'in' instead of 'it' (or the converse) now and again, and a few other things.
The Venture SF series begins rather promisingly with We All Died at Breakaway Station , and the next book is the competent military space adventure of Hammer's Slammers, but if the series editors wanted punters to 'start collecting them now' as the little blurb inside the front cover suggests, they ought to have placed this story a little later in the series.
Maybe Philip High was a mate of theirs.
High
December 31, 2020
Come, Hunt an Earthman by Philip E. High
This is a 1970s pulp science fiction romp with an engaging premise but less-than-believable characters. It is told in plain language and presents unambiguous views on morality through stereotypical heroes and villains, focusing on a seemingly endless series of conflicts between alien and human military technology in which the underdog predictably comes out on top in the end.
Somewhere along the way it makes a strained foray into the philosophy of our place in the universe, but to the end remains incautiously optimistic about the capabilities, ingenuity, and integrity of humankind.
Although the book is reasonably well written and may be of interest to readers who revel in imaginatively destructive fictitious technologies, those who prefer character-driven novels and more contemplative content could find it becoming tedious before they are halfway through.
This is a 1970s pulp science fiction romp with an engaging premise but less-than-believable characters. It is told in plain language and presents unambiguous views on morality through stereotypical heroes and villains, focusing on a seemingly endless series of conflicts between alien and human military technology in which the underdog predictably comes out on top in the end.
Somewhere along the way it makes a strained foray into the philosophy of our place in the universe, but to the end remains incautiously optimistic about the capabilities, ingenuity, and integrity of humankind.
Although the book is reasonably well written and may be of interest to readers who revel in imaginatively destructive fictitious technologies, those who prefer character-driven novels and more contemplative content could find it becoming tedious before they are halfway through.
November 22, 2017
I think the novel tried to be philosophical? But got itself confused with too many analogies.
Typical 80's pulp genre sci-fi, an easy waste of a few hours.
Good vs Bad. The Hunted becomes the Hunter. Technology of the Future. Aliens.
All the good stuff.
Typical 80's pulp genre sci-fi, an easy waste of a few hours.
Good vs Bad. The Hunted becomes the Hunter. Technology of the Future. Aliens.
All the good stuff.
March 11, 2019
It read as a very rushed piece of work, like he was trying to write for the end almost immediately. The important developments were easily anticipated in advance also. Saying this though the ideas were entertaining and created a rather exciting world to wade through.
July 31, 2023
Interesting ideas with utterly no character development, motivation, or depth of any kind.
December 2, 2023
I can't quite put my finger on why I loved this one so much but I did.
October 5, 2011
British pulp fiction from the 80s - a good futuristic. Like most pulps the heroes are good, the villains are bad, and the ideals noble. If you want subtle plots filled with shades-of-grey - don't stop here. Enjoyable read!
May 25, 2012
Pulp from my childhood, comfort reading :)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews