Planet of the Voles

by Charles Platt, Paul Lehr (Illustrator)

Their warship destroyed by the hostile Voles, two men emerge on the jungle world. Lost to Earth, they swear revenge on the whole planet.

Genres: Science Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published October 6, 1972

About the author

From wikipedia:

Charles Platt (born in London, England, 1945) is the author of 41 fiction and nonfiction books, including science-fiction novels such as The Silicon Man and Protektor (published in paperback by Avon Books). He has also written non-fiction, particularly on the subjects of computer technology and cryonics, as well as teaching and working in these fields. Platt relocated from England to the United States in 1970 and is a naturalized U. S. citizen.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

See:

Charles Platt, born 1869

Reviews

[Denis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very disappointing. I honestly thought Platt would do better than this. I loved his sci-fi author interview books and believed he himself would have an aptitude for writing great sci-fi. This came off as very amateurish. I will give him another try, perhaps a later work, as this particular novel might just be a poor example of his earlier work - at least that is my hope.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grabbed three novels by Platt because I saw him listed as a Prometheus Award nominee--for Free World and Silicon Man--one of the novels I own but haven't yet tried. I did just read his Twilight of the City and found it lacking--in fact didn't even finish that one, although the writing and characterizations are if anything stronger than in Planet of the Voles. What kept me reading Planet of the Voles was an intriguing concept I hoped might have a good payoff. Tomas is on a ship filled with his artificially conceived brethren. They're genetically designed to be warriors with two exceptions--Tomas, who is supposed to be an artist for the sake of their morale, and Jon, a lowly technician designed--literally--to take care of the ship. This ship has been engineered and sent this way by what was once a pacifistic Earth because their colonies have been invaded by the Voles--humanoids supposedly from another galaxy who wipe out their entire ship--except for Tomas and Jon--leaving them to somehow get to the planet below and survive and find a way to prevail against the occupation force that was supposed to be liberated by a thousand warriors.

All that is the setup you can read in the back of the book and in the first 19 pages. The problem is that by the time I got to the end of the book at page 192 I was left feeling, is that all? I expected there to be more to the Voles than it first appeared, and more to Tomas, and there wasn't really quite enough. Never mind it was fairly open-ended and crying for a sequel, while I was left inclined to read one. Mind you, I love a good space opera: Lois McMaster Bujold, David Weber, let alone Star Trek and Firefly are shameless pleasures of mine. But whatever makes those worlds and characters come alive for me are absent here.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Charles Platt’s Planet of the Voles (1971) has a similar feel to one of the more atrocious episodes of Stargate SG-1. In place of all the horridly butchered Egyptian mythology is a weird pseudo-mythology about the inevitability of a battle between the sexes uneasily pasted on an archetypal military sci-fi plot. The work is filled with alien landscapes which look like Earth, soldier/scientists who can do anything and everything with anything anywhere, random bits of hokey technology [...]"

[Apocryphal Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Planet of the Voles* is a pure SF pulp adventure of the 'humans are caught behind alien enemy lines and must McGuyver their way back out' type. It's not very deep. Sometimes it's rather silly. It was fun, for the most part, but falls down a bit at the ending.
(* contains no actual voles)

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in November. A reread; I had first read this book as a teenager, a century or two ago.

[Will Boncher · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Lois McMaster Bujold were to have early on written a young adult scifi book, this would be it. Enjoyable scifi adventure, with some interesting science going on, but could use some more development and a better ending.