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Hooded Swan #3
Promised Land
In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds like new Rome to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, the Star-Pilots are the great heroes of the day, and Grainger has become a legend in his own time, flying the revolutionary ship, Hooded Swan. The rain forest of Chao Phrya seems a more hospitable place than the Halcyon Drift or the underground world of Rhapsody, scenes of Grainger's previous adventures. But the colonists of the jungle planet are crazed and the indigenous population enigmatic; and Grainger must must undertake a mission that requires a lengthy journey on foot through the dense forest. His quest seems awkward, hazardous, and doomed to failure--and that's before the giant spiders make their appearance!
170 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
7 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Brian M. Stableford
882 books136 followersBrian 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.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 14, 2020
DAW Collectors #92
Cover Artist: Kelly Freas
Name: Stableford, Brian Michael, Birthplace: Shipley, Yorkshire, England, UK, 25 July 1948
Alternate Name: Francis Amery, Olympe Chambrionne, Brian Craig.
They had set out from Earth in search of the promised land - and after centuries of flight they believed they had found it. It was already inhabited, but by a primitive and peaceful humanoid race that gave them no opposition. This was the situation when the Hooded Swan landed on its information-seeking mission for the vast interstellar libraries of New Alexandria. Grainger, man of the double-mind, realized early that there was something odd about the truce between the xenophobic colonists and the docile natives. It took a fleeing wide-eyed native child to bring 'the Promised Land' suddenly to critical mass. What was there about this little girl that could so take an entire planet to the edge of Kingdom Come? That was what Grainger's minds had to find out and quickly.
The Hooded Swan:
1. The Halcyon Drift (1972)
2. Rhapsody in Black (1973)
3. Promised Land (1974)
4. The Paradise Game (1974)
5. The Fenris Device (1974)
6. Swan Song (1975)
Swan Songs (2002)
Cover Artist: Kelly Freas
Name: Stableford, Brian Michael, Birthplace: Shipley, Yorkshire, England, UK, 25 July 1948
Alternate Name: Francis Amery, Olympe Chambrionne, Brian Craig.
They had set out from Earth in search of the promised land - and after centuries of flight they believed they had found it. It was already inhabited, but by a primitive and peaceful humanoid race that gave them no opposition. This was the situation when the Hooded Swan landed on its information-seeking mission for the vast interstellar libraries of New Alexandria. Grainger, man of the double-mind, realized early that there was something odd about the truce between the xenophobic colonists and the docile natives. It took a fleeing wide-eyed native child to bring 'the Promised Land' suddenly to critical mass. What was there about this little girl that could so take an entire planet to the edge of Kingdom Come? That was what Grainger's minds had to find out and quickly.
The Hooded Swan:
1. The Halcyon Drift (1972)
2. Rhapsody in Black (1973)
3. Promised Land (1974)
4. The Paradise Game (1974)
5. The Fenris Device (1974)
6. Swan Song (1975)
Swan Songs (2002)
October 8, 2024
While Brian M. Stableford keeps keeping space opera fun here in the third installment of his Star-Pilot Grainger/Hooded Swan series, the unshakable strengths and flaws that each of the book shows is starting to get a little tedious; I know just what I'm getting into when I pick up one of these books, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Now, that doesn't mean that *Promised Land* isn't a good book - far from it. It's still an exciting and interesting read. But as for how long Stableford can keep it up, well... let's get through this review first, shall we?
Grainger was never good at staying out of trouble, even with the parasite nicknamed "the wind" in his head, so when he ends up sitting around his boss' world of New Alexandria for a few too many days, he steals an airspeeder and goes on a countryside joyride with it. All goes well until he stumbles across a little alien girl being chased by two men. The men insist that they work for the same man as Grainger - Charlot - and demand he give the girl back, but Grainger doesn't particularly like authority, so he whisks the girl away after promising he'll have her back at the research city they say she came from... later. Before he can make it, though, he's stopped by the police and the girl is returned to Charlot's research facility. It's very soon after this that the girl goes missing, initially throwing suspicion on Grainger, but Charlot seems convinced this isn't his style of mischief-making and has Grainger fly him, Eve (who's almost ready to become captain of the *Hooded Swan*'s sister ship), and the *Hooded Swan* to the girl's planet of origin where a smuggler ship brought her: Chao Phyra, where a group of colonists landed after a four-hundred-and-some-year flight from Earth back in the days before easy space travel. The people had left in search of some Promised Land, and when they landed, they figured the land was their divine right, including everything on it - such as the native Anacaona, who quite willingly let themselves be subjugated by the new colonists. The descendants of these colonists - the crew - are pretty hesitant to let Charlot's force come to the surface to take back the girl, but Charlot is able to .
Before I try to understand what the author has deliberately written so that neither his readers nor his characters - or possibly even him himself - could possibly understand it, let's discuss Stableford's prose and plotting. I'm sure I've said similar things in my reviews of *The Halcyon Drift* and *Rhapsody in Black*, but Stableford really can write. Not only is his prose a cut above the rest when it comes to turn of phrase and sliding from one area to another, but he balances which areas he plays in really well. A Hooded Swan novel involves lessons in xenobiology (like the transparent-ish canopies of Chao Phyra), intergalactic human history (in the case of the original settlers of Chaso Phyra), sociology (how the crew evolved into its current iteration), action (high speed chases and fights with ), and a healthy dose of inter-species cooperation. There's very little space opera that can ebb and flow out of all these areas like a Stableford story can go, which leads me to picture him as a pretty worldly guy.
The worldliness - that well-roundedness - may be part of the reason why these stories tend to wind up talking about how different species can work together or enhance each other. It was a big theme in the first book (between the *Hooded Swan* being a fusion of human and Khormon engineering), and even though the only sentient alien being in the second book was the wind, it made good on the sense of unease existing between Grainger and the wind from *The Halcyon Drift*. *Promised Land* does keep changing up the relationship between Grainger and his symbiote, but its big contribution to the concept of alienness is the creation of the Anacaona, an alien race that thinks so differently from us that . It makes things that seem understandable on the surface look very impenetrable underneath the surface, and this blatant admitting of alienness is pretty bold, since - as Stableford loves to point out in our cast's reaction to the Anacaona news - people don't like admit that there are things we can't understand, and whether you'd believe it or not, alien psychology falls into that category. What Stableford does with these concepts is not exactly earth-shattering, but when you reflect upon it, it makes you think about the reality of alien nature and what your reaction to it might be more than your average, say, Alastair Reynolds novel. Seeing something so alien you can't understand it is not a unique thing for science fiction, but seeing it in humanoid form is; that's Stableford's greatest strength in this novel, and I think it's recommendable to SF fans for that alone.
There are other things to recommend this book for, though; it is exciting, and a couple characters do get some nice development. That being said, I do remember writing in an earlier review that I thought this series would become a comfort one for me if Stableford kept his focus on the crew of the *Hooded Swan* and developed all of them like he did Grainger; that prophecy still hasn't come true, and with Eve training to take over another ship, I doubt that one group of characters will stick together long enough for that to happen. I wanted to read more about delArco and Johnny, but building upon those people doesn't seem to be Stableford's vision. I don't even think that Eve got a fair shake in this story, really, despite being one of the principal characters. She exists to contrast Grainger (sometimes Max, Linda, or the Anacaona), and doesn't move mountains, or herself, on her own. That's okay, but I think I'll have to adjust my previous expectations in order to keep getting the most out of these books...
Still, despite all my dour predictions, these books are good fun and I couldn't let myself rate such a flavorful (if too short, as always) space opera story at anything lower than an 8/10. These are still above average and display better craft and attention to details than a lot, if not most, of its brethren. I do hope that somewhere between books four and six we can get back to the level of *The Halcyon Drift* or maybe even catapult right past it, but... we'll see what ol' Darnoc Leadburger thinks then, as it remains to be seen. Thanks for reading the review, and with a little bit of look, I'll be seeing you to play some games in Paradise...
Grainger was never good at staying out of trouble, even with the parasite nicknamed "the wind" in his head, so when he ends up sitting around his boss' world of New Alexandria for a few too many days, he steals an airspeeder and goes on a countryside joyride with it. All goes well until he stumbles across a little alien girl being chased by two men. The men insist that they work for the same man as Grainger - Charlot - and demand he give the girl back, but Grainger doesn't particularly like authority, so he whisks the girl away after promising he'll have her back at the research city they say she came from... later. Before he can make it, though, he's stopped by the police and the girl is returned to Charlot's research facility. It's very soon after this that the girl goes missing, initially throwing suspicion on Grainger, but Charlot seems convinced this isn't his style of mischief-making and has Grainger fly him, Eve (who's almost ready to become captain of the *Hooded Swan*'s sister ship), and the *Hooded Swan* to the girl's planet of origin where a smuggler ship brought her: Chao Phyra, where a group of colonists landed after a four-hundred-and-some-year flight from Earth back in the days before easy space travel. The people had left in search of some Promised Land, and when they landed, they figured the land was their divine right, including everything on it - such as the native Anacaona, who quite willingly let themselves be subjugated by the new colonists. The descendants of these colonists - the crew - are pretty hesitant to let Charlot's force come to the surface to take back the girl, but Charlot is able to .
Before I try to understand what the author has deliberately written so that neither his readers nor his characters - or possibly even him himself - could possibly understand it, let's discuss Stableford's prose and plotting. I'm sure I've said similar things in my reviews of *The Halcyon Drift* and *Rhapsody in Black*, but Stableford really can write. Not only is his prose a cut above the rest when it comes to turn of phrase and sliding from one area to another, but he balances which areas he plays in really well. A Hooded Swan novel involves lessons in xenobiology (like the transparent-ish canopies of Chao Phyra), intergalactic human history (in the case of the original settlers of Chaso Phyra), sociology (how the crew evolved into its current iteration), action (high speed chases and fights with ), and a healthy dose of inter-species cooperation. There's very little space opera that can ebb and flow out of all these areas like a Stableford story can go, which leads me to picture him as a pretty worldly guy.
The worldliness - that well-roundedness - may be part of the reason why these stories tend to wind up talking about how different species can work together or enhance each other. It was a big theme in the first book (between the *Hooded Swan* being a fusion of human and Khormon engineering), and even though the only sentient alien being in the second book was the wind, it made good on the sense of unease existing between Grainger and the wind from *The Halcyon Drift*. *Promised Land* does keep changing up the relationship between Grainger and his symbiote, but its big contribution to the concept of alienness is the creation of the Anacaona, an alien race that thinks so differently from us that . It makes things that seem understandable on the surface look very impenetrable underneath the surface, and this blatant admitting of alienness is pretty bold, since - as Stableford loves to point out in our cast's reaction to the Anacaona news - people don't like admit that there are things we can't understand, and whether you'd believe it or not, alien psychology falls into that category. What Stableford does with these concepts is not exactly earth-shattering, but when you reflect upon it, it makes you think about the reality of alien nature and what your reaction to it might be more than your average, say, Alastair Reynolds novel. Seeing something so alien you can't understand it is not a unique thing for science fiction, but seeing it in humanoid form is; that's Stableford's greatest strength in this novel, and I think it's recommendable to SF fans for that alone.
There are other things to recommend this book for, though; it is exciting, and a couple characters do get some nice development. That being said, I do remember writing in an earlier review that I thought this series would become a comfort one for me if Stableford kept his focus on the crew of the *Hooded Swan* and developed all of them like he did Grainger; that prophecy still hasn't come true, and with Eve training to take over another ship, I doubt that one group of characters will stick together long enough for that to happen. I wanted to read more about delArco and Johnny, but building upon those people doesn't seem to be Stableford's vision. I don't even think that Eve got a fair shake in this story, really, despite being one of the principal characters. She exists to contrast Grainger (sometimes Max, Linda, or the Anacaona), and doesn't move mountains, or herself, on her own. That's okay, but I think I'll have to adjust my previous expectations in order to keep getting the most out of these books...
Still, despite all my dour predictions, these books are good fun and I couldn't let myself rate such a flavorful (if too short, as always) space opera story at anything lower than an 8/10. These are still above average and display better craft and attention to details than a lot, if not most, of its brethren. I do hope that somewhere between books four and six we can get back to the level of *The Halcyon Drift* or maybe even catapult right past it, but... we'll see what ol' Darnoc Leadburger thinks then, as it remains to be seen. Thanks for reading the review, and with a little bit of look, I'll be seeing you to play some games in Paradise...
February 11, 2024
Started with as much fascination as the prior two books in the series but then the story seemed to meander into a few disparate threads and became more philosophical rather than adventurous. Just okay really.
May 3, 2015
3 1/2 stars
February 26, 2019
Book 3 of Hooded Swan series! Another delightful book in this series. Once again, Grainger the star-pilot is placed in a tight spot and given a task that may seem easy at the outset...but oh no, it's really not. This book has delightfully alien aliens and a very puzzling mystery to solve. I enjoyed the whole rollicking ride and was satisfied by the conclusion. Gotta say, for some reason, Stableford's sci-fi is really hitting the spot for me right now.
February 14, 2025
There is a bit of philosophical speculation in this about communication and language and "alienness" that elevates it above what is otherwise a pleasant entry in an adventure series. Stableford was a thoughtful writer. He later produced some rather excellent SF that was fully realized. Fun stuff.
July 20, 2022
A bit too much ideological ranting in this book to give it 4 stars, but not a complete waste of time
June 2, 2012
The next book "Promise Land" starts with Grainger "borrows" a car and accidentally runs into a little girl who's escaped from a colony of alien Anacaona on New Alexandria. He learns things about her and her kind. Aftewards she his kidnapped and the Hooded Swan flies to Chao Phrya, a world settled by a human generation ship, the Zodiac, whose descendants now believe it is their promised land, despite the presence of the Anacaona. The kidnappers manage to land illegally in the jungle before Charlot can get permission from the uncooperative locals, who eventually agree to let the Hooded Swan land. Charlot chooses Grainger and Eve to join the local search party, which consists of two humans, Max and Linda, and three Anacaona, Danel, Michael, and Merce. As they travel, Grainger discovers that the Anacaona have minds adaptable to an almost absurd degree, and create completely human personalities simply to interact with humans. He also learns the rumor that the kidnapped girl is an Idris, a false god of Anacaona mythology, which Grainger suspects means an earlier starfaring race that created the Anacaona. The Anacaona on the search team start to take sick in the jungle, and through a series of mishaps, the group is quickly separated. After some adventures they meet the kidnapper, who reveals that the girl is in fact an Idris, artificially created by Charlot who wanted a bridge to help him understand the Anacaona. The Anacaona felt they needed to expose the Anacaona people to Idris-ness, before she became polluted with human ideas. Now that that has been accomplished, Grainger and Eve are free to take the child back to the colony. The Anacaona remain far from understandable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 14, 2014
Third in the series of Stableford's Graigner series, about an abrasive but intelligent pilot and expert in alien environment, who shares his head with an alien mind symbiot. In this story, he's tasked to hunt down an alien kidnapped from an experiment run by his employer, kidnapped by one of her own people and taken to her home planet. That home planet is also home to a human colony, reached there by long slow generation ship before the development of FTL, and because of how long the journey took, they think of it as their Promised Land, despite the presence of an alien race. To find the kidnapped girl, he and Eve must hike through the jungle with some of these colonists and some of the alien Anacoana, and in the process discover how alien they really are.
This is the story that I liked least in the series, for no good reason. It actually says far more interesting things, about what gets destroyed when cultures assimilate into the dominant, and about the nature of alien... and it's a turning point in the relationship between Grainger and the wind. Yet somehow it doesn't do as much for me as the others. I still like it, mind you, just not as much as the others.
This is the story that I liked least in the series, for no good reason. It actually says far more interesting things, about what gets destroyed when cultures assimilate into the dominant, and about the nature of alien... and it's a turning point in the relationship between Grainger and the wind. Yet somehow it doesn't do as much for me as the others. I still like it, mind you, just not as much as the others.
March 30, 2012
I am really enjoying this series - a nice 70's sci-fi story. Not an epic to slog through, all nice and tight, and done and dusted and all wrapped up in just over 200 pages.
Grainger is the pilot of the Hooded Swan (the first in the series). Rescued from a desolate planet out on the rim, he finds himself 'indentured' for the next two years to Titus Charlot in payment for his rescue fees. His piloting takes him to reluctant adventures where his heroism is based on self-preservation and an ability to admit he's scared. All the while he carries an interferring parasite/symbiote that he picked up on the rim world.
Grainger is the pilot of the Hooded Swan (the first in the series). Rescued from a desolate planet out on the rim, he finds himself 'indentured' for the next two years to Titus Charlot in payment for his rescue fees. His piloting takes him to reluctant adventures where his heroism is based on self-preservation and an ability to admit he's scared. All the while he carries an interferring parasite/symbiote that he picked up on the rim world.
December 8, 2008
One of the problems with purchasing science fiction or fantasy books at junk stores is that sometimes you get mid-range volume of a series you've never read. This is the third of the Hooded Swan (aka Grainger) series. I didn't like it, but may have felt differently if I'd read the prior two books.
July 5, 2012
Nice continuation of the series, especially in the relationship of Grainger and his Wind. The theme this time is playing god with another species with a good bit of criticicm in it. Recommended reading, nice and fluently as it goes.
February 25, 2016
A slack and dull second act undermines an otherwise fine tale. Grainger continues to appeal, though his voice seems to have changed, and Stableford's background in biology and sociology shines through more than ever. Unusual but pleasant science fiction.
November 29, 2014
Third in the Hooded Swan series. Excellent, thought-provoking adventure packed into under 200 pages. Imagine a book being only as long as it needs to be in this day and age!
May 8, 2015
1979 grade B-
series book G3
series book G3
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