The Guns of Terra 10

by Don Pendleton

The Earth is being invaded by treacherous aliens, and Terra 10, the earth's only hope , is in the enemy's power.

Genres: Science Fiction

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Don Pendleton was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 12, 1927 and died October 23, 1995 in Arizona.

He wrote mystery, action/adventure, science-fiction, crime fiction, suspense, short stories, nonfiction, and was a comic scriptwriter, poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. He published more than 125 books in his long career, and his books have been published in more than 25 foreign languages with close to two hundred million copies in print throughout the world.

After producing a number of science-fiction and mystery novels, Don launched in 1969 the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His successful paperback books inspired a new particularly American literary genre during the early 1970's, and Don became known as "the father of action/adventure."

"Although The Executioner Series is far and away my most significant contribution to world literature, I still do not perceive myself as 'belonging' to any particular literary niche. I am simply a storyteller, an entertainer who hopes to enthrall with visions of the reader's own incipient greatness."

Don Pendleton's original Executioner Series are now in ebooks, published by Open Road Media. 37 of the original novels.

Wikipedia: Don Pendleton

Reviews

[Tony Petry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very hard for me to finish. I like Don Pendleton, but this book was very disappointing for me.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good SiFi spaceship story. Recommended

[Matthew Smonskey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the least entertaining, and most frustrating books I've read in a very long time. The world-building is frankly terrible. It was impossible to get any sense of the universe. This is an issue throughout the book, but it comes to a head at the end during the climactic battle. How the science and technology work aren't explained until very late (if at all), and it rendered the final fight absolutely incomprehensible. No idea who the enemy was, why they were there, how they were defeated, how the hero's ship works, why we should care...

The writing style is another major issue. Portions are written in really lazy "future speak". Why did the language change resulting in "skronk" replacing "understand"? Big dialogue stretches are just irritating.

The icing on the crap cake are the characters and the incredible depiction of women. Let me provide an excerpt where the female lead is introduced. Her character doesn't progress much beyond the following:

"Most interesting to Whaleman were the fantastic breastworks, huge swollen globes of shiny flesh upon here chest, crowned with soft pink suckler tips - no doubt, the Gunner surmised - the mammary evidence of a runaway GPC maternal code. He realized that he was inspecting her with excessive interest but could no help himself. The mammala were exquisitely formed, curiously hard-soft in appearance, and jutting out from the chest in a manner that aroused Whaleman's engineering curiosity."

What to read more?

[John Peel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Earth hundreds of years from now is a logical, orderly world, where people are bred by DNA adjustments to fulfill specific jobs. But, of course, things don't always work out the way they should, and some are born Reevers - reversions to the old-style humans. They're treated like slaves, and a group of them have a plan: to take over Terra 10, the mightiest battleship ever built, and to train its guns on the Earth to demand their freedom... But (of course) things don't go quite according to plan...

I wasn't expecting much from this book, because the author is best known as the creator of the ultra-violent Executioner books. But I found it surprisingly thoughtful and entertaining, and well-worth the read.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tried to do too much with too few pages. Everything suffered by the lack of depth. It’s a short read, you can get through it easily, but you may not like how everything wraps up.

[Steven]

Correct biblio, cover wrong.