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Danger from Vega / Clash of Star-Kings
Clash of Star-Kings
by Avram Davidson
Set during the reign of the Aztecs in Mexico, two alien forces, dormant for centuries, enter a confrontation on a remote mountain that will decide Earth's fate. The Great Old Ones benevolently ruled before the cruel Aztecs were shaped by the Huitzil, who came from the Evil Stars and taught the Aztecs how to conquer and demanded endless human sacrifice.
Danger from Vega
by John Rackham
Flashing across his viewscreen, an iridescent image was Jeremy Thorpe's first glimpse of the Vegans, the mysterious infiltrators of Earth's galactic sector, bent upon a seemingly mindless determination to eliminate the men of Earth.
This first glimpse was very nearly his last when Jeremy's ship Quest was almost instantly plunged into the center of a holocaust of heat-beams and fragmentation bombs.
Jeremy and the two other survivors of Quest escaped with their lives only to find themselves stranded on the shores of a Vega-occupied planet. And in order to survive they had to discover that the key to Vega lay in the strange magic of a race that seemed to consist entirely of the opposite sex. Shocking stuff!
by Avram Davidson
Set during the reign of the Aztecs in Mexico, two alien forces, dormant for centuries, enter a confrontation on a remote mountain that will decide Earth's fate. The Great Old Ones benevolently ruled before the cruel Aztecs were shaped by the Huitzil, who came from the Evil Stars and taught the Aztecs how to conquer and demanded endless human sacrifice.
Danger from Vega
by John Rackham
Flashing across his viewscreen, an iridescent image was Jeremy Thorpe's first glimpse of the Vegans, the mysterious infiltrators of Earth's galactic sector, bent upon a seemingly mindless determination to eliminate the men of Earth.
This first glimpse was very nearly his last when Jeremy's ship Quest was almost instantly plunged into the center of a holocaust of heat-beams and fragmentation bombs.
Jeremy and the two other survivors of Quest escaped with their lives only to find themselves stranded on the shores of a Vega-occupied planet. And in order to survive they had to discover that the key to Vega lay in the strange magic of a race that seemed to consist entirely of the opposite sex. Shocking stuff!
- GenresScience Fiction
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 26, 2024
I have no idea how many of these I read as a kid. Ace Doubles were so cool at 10 or 11 or 12. Now? Well, the flip side of this one is a rather good Avram Davidson, but the Rackham...let's just say my tastes have evolved since way back then.
July 6, 2010
Clash of Star-Kings: 2/5
Danger from Vega: 4/5
Danger from Vega: 4/5
July 2, 2025
An Ace Double (“turn this book over for a second complete novel”), both stories copyright 1966, one story _Clash of Star-Kings_ by Avram Davidson (1923-1993), an American science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction author. The first story by this author I have read, I was unfamiliar with any of his works prior to reading up on him for this review though it turns out for a time I had one of the two novels of his Peregrine series but since lost it. He won a Hugo and three World Fantasy Awards but it does not seem his name comes up much today online.
From reading about his works Davidson was known for really researching the historical aspects of his books and it shone through in _Clash of Star-Kings_. The setting is Los Remedios, a small Mexican town connected by bus and narrow gauge railway to “Mexico” (what the locals call Mexico City), a town amidst jungle and loomed over by two massive volcanoes, “the splendid shining cone of Popocatapetl and the magnificent snowy sierra of Ixtaccihuatl” (generally called Popo and Ixta), the town’s biggest event the upcoming fiera of El Hermeito del Monte Sagrado (the Holy Hermit of the Sacred Mountain). The setting is rich and rings true, with locals viewing not only the Spanish settlers hundreds of years ago as new, but with their Moxtomi, Olmec, and Toltec roots, still viewing the Tenocha-Aztec peoples themselves as upstart newcomers.
Against this backdrop of a clash of civilizations, there is a clash of a different kind, of long-resident, long-hidden alien beings (as one might guess from the covert art) and their human allies, representing not indigenous versus Spanish, but Moxtomi-Olmec-Toltec versus Tenocha-Aztec, two very different cultural groups, their actions perhaps precipitated by something "Mexico" plans to do in these highlands.
I really loved the setting, the descriptions, the buildup to the aliens, but the scenes with the actual aliens felt rushed and at times a little confusing and the ending brings the novel down some in my eyes. The story is short for an Ace Double novel, at 105 pages, while the accompanying other book at 149 pages is lengthy for an Ace Double.
_Danger From Vega_ by John Rackham was brilliant, with John Rackham a pen name for John T. Phillifent, (1916-1976), an English electrical engineer and science fiction and fantasy author who wrote mostly under the Rackham name. Apparently, most of his works were issued with the works of other authors with the Ace Doubles (I have read his 1965 _We, the Venusians_ and his 1970 _ Flower of Doradil_).
The premise is humanity is engaging in a losing war with the Vegans, alien beings with superior ships and tactics, the beings themselves unseen by humans, only their ships, with a pretty much a “to see is to die” situation as again and again they triumph in battle with the humans, humans only rarely taking out a Vegan ship. So little is known about them that it is only thought they come from near the star Vega, as it is not definitely known.
The main character is Lieutenant Jeremy Thorpe on the warship S.S. Quest, who after engaging in battle with impossible odds against Vegans, manages against all odds to lead him and two crewmates to crash land on a nearby, unknown to Earth alien planet named by the inhabitants Lodor. As you can guess from the cover (“Shot down on an enemy-occupied planet”) the planet isn’t of the enemy but it is occupied by the Vegans and site of several important bases, and Jeremy and his two crewmates learn about Lodor, its inhabitants and the Vegans, and continue the fight.
A lot to like about the book, including the exciting space battle at the beginning, evocative descriptions of the daunting vastness of space, an exciting survival story after the battle, rich world building on Lodor, surprisingly interesting flashbacks on how Jeremey came to serve in the military, Jeremey and his men wrestling with calling in basically orbital bombardment of Lodor versus what they owe the natives to not devastate their enemy-occupied planet, the surprising nature of the Vegans, and the ingenious fight that is launched against the occupiers that is as much indigenous as Terran. Also, quite progressive in its view of women (and that’s an important plot element).
I wish _Clash of Star-Kings_ had been given more page count to develop the ending but if the result was how good _Danger From Vega_ was, it isn't a bad trade. The setting of _Clash of Star-Kings_ is so well done and wonder if there are other science fiction stories in such a setting that I can find.
From reading about his works Davidson was known for really researching the historical aspects of his books and it shone through in _Clash of Star-Kings_. The setting is Los Remedios, a small Mexican town connected by bus and narrow gauge railway to “Mexico” (what the locals call Mexico City), a town amidst jungle and loomed over by two massive volcanoes, “the splendid shining cone of Popocatapetl and the magnificent snowy sierra of Ixtaccihuatl” (generally called Popo and Ixta), the town’s biggest event the upcoming fiera of El Hermeito del Monte Sagrado (the Holy Hermit of the Sacred Mountain). The setting is rich and rings true, with locals viewing not only the Spanish settlers hundreds of years ago as new, but with their Moxtomi, Olmec, and Toltec roots, still viewing the Tenocha-Aztec peoples themselves as upstart newcomers.
Against this backdrop of a clash of civilizations, there is a clash of a different kind, of long-resident, long-hidden alien beings (as one might guess from the covert art) and their human allies, representing not indigenous versus Spanish, but Moxtomi-Olmec-Toltec versus Tenocha-Aztec, two very different cultural groups, their actions perhaps precipitated by something "Mexico" plans to do in these highlands.
I really loved the setting, the descriptions, the buildup to the aliens, but the scenes with the actual aliens felt rushed and at times a little confusing and the ending brings the novel down some in my eyes. The story is short for an Ace Double novel, at 105 pages, while the accompanying other book at 149 pages is lengthy for an Ace Double.
_Danger From Vega_ by John Rackham was brilliant, with John Rackham a pen name for John T. Phillifent, (1916-1976), an English electrical engineer and science fiction and fantasy author who wrote mostly under the Rackham name. Apparently, most of his works were issued with the works of other authors with the Ace Doubles (I have read his 1965 _We, the Venusians_ and his 1970 _ Flower of Doradil_).
The premise is humanity is engaging in a losing war with the Vegans, alien beings with superior ships and tactics, the beings themselves unseen by humans, only their ships, with a pretty much a “to see is to die” situation as again and again they triumph in battle with the humans, humans only rarely taking out a Vegan ship. So little is known about them that it is only thought they come from near the star Vega, as it is not definitely known.
The main character is Lieutenant Jeremy Thorpe on the warship S.S. Quest, who after engaging in battle with impossible odds against Vegans, manages against all odds to lead him and two crewmates to crash land on a nearby, unknown to Earth alien planet named by the inhabitants Lodor. As you can guess from the cover (“Shot down on an enemy-occupied planet”) the planet isn’t of the enemy but it is occupied by the Vegans and site of several important bases, and Jeremy and his two crewmates learn about Lodor, its inhabitants and the Vegans, and continue the fight.
A lot to like about the book, including the exciting space battle at the beginning, evocative descriptions of the daunting vastness of space, an exciting survival story after the battle, rich world building on Lodor, surprisingly interesting flashbacks on how Jeremey came to serve in the military, Jeremey and his men wrestling with calling in basically orbital bombardment of Lodor versus what they owe the natives to not devastate their enemy-occupied planet, the surprising nature of the Vegans, and the ingenious fight that is launched against the occupiers that is as much indigenous as Terran. Also, quite progressive in its view of women (and that’s an important plot element).
I wish _Clash of Star-Kings_ had been given more page count to develop the ending but if the result was how good _Danger From Vega_ was, it isn't a bad trade. The setting of _Clash of Star-Kings_ is so well done and wonder if there are other science fiction stories in such a setting that I can find.
March 9, 2017
Don't judge a book by its cover (and later maybe I'll update the cover to show both sides as per the other books in this series). "Vega" is much better than "Star-Kings" despite the cover being awesome.
Both are of course quite dated, and pulp, bit still enjoyable. If I rated them individually I'd give "Vega" 4 and "Star-Kings" 3 stars each.
Star-Kings took so damn long to get to the action, long stories of people in rural Mexico just doing rural stuff, but finally we get the satisfying finish of reptilian aliens battling it out with magic and the army and it is OK.
Vega keeps the action from the start. our war heroes are forced to crash land on an alien planet that has only (surprise) beautiful women. Turns out Ended too quick though.
Well, in the end I didn't hate this purchase. An entertaining read.
Both are of course quite dated, and pulp, bit still enjoyable. If I rated them individually I'd give "Vega" 4 and "Star-Kings" 3 stars each.
Star-Kings took so damn long to get to the action, long stories of people in rural Mexico just doing rural stuff, but finally we get the satisfying finish of reptilian aliens battling it out with magic and the army and it is OK.
Vega keeps the action from the start. our war heroes are forced to crash land on an alien planet that has only (surprise) beautiful women. Turns out Ended too quick though.
Well, in the end I didn't hate this purchase. An entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews