Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Riverdale, N.Y. : Baen Books, 2001.
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: Andre Norton-Grand Mistress of science fiction-presents a grand tapestry of the far-flung interstellar future, in which the first starships from Earth have burst out into the universe . . . only to run straight into the restraining grasp of the stagnant alien federation known as Central Control. Only as interstellar mercenaries can humans go to the stars; the aliens who already dominate the galaxy allow no other recourse. But when Swordsman Third Class Kana Karr and his comrades-in-arms are betrayed and abandoned on a hostile world by their alien masters, the warriors from Earth begin a desperate but glorious march across a planet whose every sword is against them. Their actions may doom humanity's future . . . or lead the way to an empire of their own! Four thousand years later, galactic civilization is collapsing, and the underfunded crew of an exploration starship is forced to set down on an uncharted planet: a mysterious, abandoned world that is achingly beautiful-and hauntingly familiar. Ranger Sergeant Kartr, telepath and stellar Patrolman, searches with his crewmates for the source of a beacon which may mean escape for them all. What he finds is far stranger: the first clue to what may become the greatest revelation in galactic history! The defining events of future historyas only Andre Norton could tell them! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management)..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member SunnySD
Two loosely linked tales of what happens when civilization reaches the starts... and then crumbles. In the first, after contact with aliens the more advanced races have deemed mankind suited to be mercenaries. For those who seek to explore the boundaries of space, the choice is simple: become a
In the second, civilization has moved on once again, and as the galactic empire crumbles, the Patrol struggles to maintain its course amid the shattered remains. At the edges of known space, one tiny crew makes an amazing discovery...
These lack a bit only in the absence, at least until the very end, of the opposite sex. Otherwise, fun to reread after all these years.
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Mech or an Arch, and battle for any and on any planet that can afford your fee.In the second, civilization has moved on once again, and as the galactic empire crumbles, the Patrol struggles to maintain its course amid the shattered remains. At the edges of known space, one tiny crew makes an amazing discovery...
These lack a bit only in the absence, at least until the very end, of the opposite sex. Otherwise, fun to reread after all these years.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DLMorrese
I read several Andre Norton books when I was a kid. She wrote well over a hundred, mostly pulp space operas that were just what kids in the ‘space age’ wanted. Her tales of human space exploration, discovering other worlds, and meeting with strange aliens were simple but inspirational. We
This Baen edition contains two of her earlier works: Star Guard (1955) and Star Rangers (1953).
Star Guard follows a platoon of “Archs,” human soldiers who serve as mercenaries in low-tech conflicts. They are hired to serve in a "police action" on a distant planet, which turns out to be much different than they expected, and they uncover secrets about humanity’s relationship with other galactic species and about human expansion to other worlds.
In Star Rangers (AKA The Last Planet), the multi-planet human empire is declining. Earth (Terra) is just a legend, its location forgotten. One of the last remaining Stellar Patrol ships crash lands on an unknown planet, and the survivors discover other castaways and the remnants of a lost civilization.
Although both stories were written over half a century ago, they stand up well. Some of the ‘high tech’ might seem antiquated to us now, but the characters remain believable and their adventures are still captivating (although serendipitous events do stretch one’s ability to suspend disbelief at times). With just a little rewriting, these would equal or surpass most of the popular science fiction adventure stories being published today.
What I tend to like about Norton’s books is that they often focus more on discovery than conflict, and they provide hopeful endings. These two stories do. Yes, things are bad, but there is hope for the future, and people can go on to do great things.
This is how many of us felt about the real world when these were written. The threat of nuclear annihilation hung over us, pollution clouded the skies of major cities, and there were fears of overpopulation and exhausting natural resources, but somehow we expected we’d overcome these challenges and go to the stars. Maybe we still will.
This free Baen edition for Kindle has some pretty sloppy editing, though. Both books have formatting issues and I noticed about half a dozen typos. There are so many well-written and well-edited free and low cost eBooks from indie authors, I find myself appalled when a traditional publisher cannot produce something with equally high quality.
Still, the stories are good, and I would recommend this compilation for all space opera fans. If you want to read more of Andre Norton’s books, several are available free from Project Gutenberg.
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expected such tales to become a reality in the Twenty-First Century. Alas, things did not turn out so.This Baen edition contains two of her earlier works: Star Guard (1955) and Star Rangers (1953).
Star Guard follows a platoon of “Archs,” human soldiers who serve as mercenaries in low-tech conflicts. They are hired to serve in a "police action" on a distant planet, which turns out to be much different than they expected, and they uncover secrets about humanity’s relationship with other galactic species and about human expansion to other worlds.
In Star Rangers (AKA The Last Planet), the multi-planet human empire is declining. Earth (Terra) is just a legend, its location forgotten. One of the last remaining Stellar Patrol ships crash lands on an unknown planet, and the survivors discover other castaways and the remnants of a lost civilization.
Although both stories were written over half a century ago, they stand up well. Some of the ‘high tech’ might seem antiquated to us now, but the characters remain believable and their adventures are still captivating (although serendipitous events do stretch one’s ability to suspend disbelief at times). With just a little rewriting, these would equal or surpass most of the popular science fiction adventure stories being published today.
What I tend to like about Norton’s books is that they often focus more on discovery than conflict, and they provide hopeful endings. These two stories do. Yes, things are bad, but there is hope for the future, and people can go on to do great things.
This is how many of us felt about the real world when these were written. The threat of nuclear annihilation hung over us, pollution clouded the skies of major cities, and there were fears of overpopulation and exhausting natural resources, but somehow we expected we’d overcome these challenges and go to the stars. Maybe we still will.
This free Baen edition for Kindle has some pretty sloppy editing, though. Both books have formatting issues and I noticed about half a dozen typos. There are so many well-written and well-edited free and low cost eBooks from indie authors, I find myself appalled when a traditional publisher cannot produce something with equally high quality.
Still, the stories are good, and I would recommend this compilation for all space opera fans. If you want to read more of Andre Norton’s books, several are available free from Project Gutenberg.
Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
This omnibus contains "Star Guard" and "Star Rangers" (aka "The Last Planet") - the 2 novels about Central Control.
"Star Guard" is set in 3956 A.D. (in Terran reckoning), about 300 years after man had achieved the stars only to find a Central Control of an alien empire.
"Star Rangers" is set in
Of the 2, I slightly preferred "Star Rangers" but both were very good space opera type sci fi.
"Star Guard" is set in 3956 A.D. (in Terran reckoning), about 300 years after man had achieved the stars only to find a Central Control of an alien empire.
"Star Rangers" is set in
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8054 A.D. during the final breakdown of that empire.Of the 2, I slightly preferred "Star Rangers" but both were very good space opera type sci fi.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LisCarey
This is an omnibus of two of Norton's science fiction adventure stories. They tell the stories of the start of human space travel and interaction with established, intelligent, alien civilization, in Star Guard (1953), and, four thousand years later, a story that reflects the spreading collapse of
In Star Guard, humans have achieved star flight, but found an exiting multispecies polity in which the government, "Central Control," deems humans too aggressive for full membership, and assigns them the role serving as mercenaries in the on-planet conflicts of other species. For more technologically advanced cultures, Terra provides "Mech" units, using things we'd recognize as really advanced tanks, airplanes, missiles, and energy weapons. For lower-tech cultures, they provide "Arch" units, using swords, spears, nothing more advanced than rifles, and some form of radio communication between units. Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, arrives at Prime to enlist for his first assignment off world. The first assignment offered him is allegedly a simple police action, a good way to get some basic experience without jumping in the deep end. It's on a planet called Fronn, and it's apparently his somewhat eccentric choice to take all the course he can on X-Tee, Alien Liaison service.
When he joins up with his unit, he soon learns that it includes an improbably high number of highly experienced, highly ranked Arch soldiers than there should ordinarily be any reason for on a simple police action. When Kana and his unit arrive on Fronn, at first things seem to be going fairly well, despite the fact that they've learned they're in fact supporting one side an dynastic struggle. Then strange things start to go wrong, and they find they are opposed not just by native troops or another Arch unit, but by a Mech unit, which legally shouldn't be on a planet like Fronn at all.
There's a dark conspiracy, or perhaps just a malicious plan, to slowly reduce the "problem" of these "aggressive" humans. That plan seems to be inside Central Control And perhaps there's a counter-conspiracy, if they can connect with it.
In Star Rangers, the previous great civilization is decaying. There have been sector wars, and some planets burnt to cinders, and the Galactic Patrol is underfunded and increasingly crippled. One particular Patrol ship is given the somewhat suspect order to go explore a particular, rather remote sector, with the supposed goal of reinvigorating the Patrol and its government. After the ship makes some rather challenging stops on its mission of reconnaissance, the reach a planet clearly habitable by humans and the few non-humans, or "Bemmys," who are part of the crew. They land, but part of their landing gear collapses, turning the landing into a crippling crash.
The ship's complement is composed of Patrol crewmen, and Patrol Rangers. The crew consider themselves the real Patrol, many of them from longtime Patrol families. They are the command staff, the pilots, engineers, other technical specialists, as well as the armed security. The Rangers, on the other hand, do their job when they reach a new planet that needs to be explored and assessed. They have different skills, on planet survival skills and related specialties, and one in particular, Ranger Sergeant Kartr, is a sensitive, a telepath. Kartr and Rolth, from a dimly lit planet where humans have developed exceptional night vision while being very vulnerable to the full daylight of most worlds, are human. The other two Rangers are "Bemmys," non-humans. Fyhl is of a species descended from birdlike ancestors, while Zinga is of reptilian ancestry.
We soon learn that there's real hostility among the Patrol crew toward Rangers in general, and Bemmys in particular.
They soon find that this planet is perfectly habitable for humans and their environmentally-compatible Bemmy Rangers, yet there are, at first, no signs of civilization. This doesn't last, of course, and they find themselves confronting an offshoot of the sector wars, and a stranded sector lord and the passengers and crew of the passenger ship that stranded him here. He's got plans of making himself the absolute ruler, with the hidden, surviving technology of this apparently abandoned plan et to make him powerful and his life comfortable.
In both stories, there's solid adventure and interesting characters, and also Norton's values of decency, honor, fairness, equality, and equity. She doesn't shun violence; she does dislike unnecessary violence, cruelty, and oppression. We don't see many women in her writing from this period, because she chose not to portray women in the way considered commercially viable in sf at the time. That changed later.
I love Norton's fiction, and have since I first discovered her in the local library. And in rereading her work recently, I'm finding that it still holds up.
Recommended.
I bought both the audiobook and the ebook, and flipped back and forth between the two based on convenience for this reread.
Show More
that same galactic civilization in Star Rangers (1953), later reprinted under the title The Last Planet (1955).In Star Guard, humans have achieved star flight, but found an exiting multispecies polity in which the government, "Central Control," deems humans too aggressive for full membership, and assigns them the role serving as mercenaries in the on-planet conflicts of other species. For more technologically advanced cultures, Terra provides "Mech" units, using things we'd recognize as really advanced tanks, airplanes, missiles, and energy weapons. For lower-tech cultures, they provide "Arch" units, using swords, spears, nothing more advanced than rifles, and some form of radio communication between units. Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, arrives at Prime to enlist for his first assignment off world. The first assignment offered him is allegedly a simple police action, a good way to get some basic experience without jumping in the deep end. It's on a planet called Fronn, and it's apparently his somewhat eccentric choice to take all the course he can on X-Tee, Alien Liaison service.
When he joins up with his unit, he soon learns that it includes an improbably high number of highly experienced, highly ranked Arch soldiers than there should ordinarily be any reason for on a simple police action. When Kana and his unit arrive on Fronn, at first things seem to be going fairly well, despite the fact that they've learned they're in fact supporting one side an dynastic struggle. Then strange things start to go wrong, and they find they are opposed not just by native troops or another Arch unit, but by a Mech unit, which legally shouldn't be on a planet like Fronn at all.
There's a dark conspiracy, or perhaps just a malicious plan, to slowly reduce the "problem" of these "aggressive" humans. That plan seems to be inside Central Control And perhaps there's a counter-conspiracy, if they can connect with it.
In Star Rangers, the previous great civilization is decaying. There have been sector wars, and some planets burnt to cinders, and the Galactic Patrol is underfunded and increasingly crippled. One particular Patrol ship is given the somewhat suspect order to go explore a particular, rather remote sector, with the supposed goal of reinvigorating the Patrol and its government. After the ship makes some rather challenging stops on its mission of reconnaissance, the reach a planet clearly habitable by humans and the few non-humans, or "Bemmys," who are part of the crew. They land, but part of their landing gear collapses, turning the landing into a crippling crash.
The ship's complement is composed of Patrol crewmen, and Patrol Rangers. The crew consider themselves the real Patrol, many of them from longtime Patrol families. They are the command staff, the pilots, engineers, other technical specialists, as well as the armed security. The Rangers, on the other hand, do their job when they reach a new planet that needs to be explored and assessed. They have different skills, on planet survival skills and related specialties, and one in particular, Ranger Sergeant Kartr, is a sensitive, a telepath. Kartr and Rolth, from a dimly lit planet where humans have developed exceptional night vision while being very vulnerable to the full daylight of most worlds, are human. The other two Rangers are "Bemmys," non-humans. Fyhl is of a species descended from birdlike ancestors, while Zinga is of reptilian ancestry.
We soon learn that there's real hostility among the Patrol crew toward Rangers in general, and Bemmys in particular.
They soon find that this planet is perfectly habitable for humans and their environmentally-compatible Bemmy Rangers, yet there are, at first, no signs of civilization. This doesn't last, of course, and they find themselves confronting an offshoot of the sector wars, and a stranded sector lord and the passengers and crew of the passenger ship that stranded him here. He's got plans of making himself the absolute ruler, with the hidden, surviving technology of this apparently abandoned plan et to make him powerful and his life comfortable.
In both stories, there's solid adventure and interesting characters, and also Norton's values of decency, honor, fairness, equality, and equity. She doesn't shun violence; she does dislike unnecessary violence, cruelty, and oppression. We don't see many women in her writing from this period, because she chose not to portray women in the way considered commercially viable in sf at the time. That changed later.
I love Norton's fiction, and have since I first discovered her in the local library. And in rereading her work recently, I'm finding that it still holds up.
Recommended.
I bought both the audiobook and the ebook, and flipped back and forth between the two based on convenience for this reread.
Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
This omnibus contains "Star Guard" and "Star Rangers" (aka "The Last Planet") - the 2 novels about Central Control.
"Star Guard" is set in 3956 A.D. (in Terran reckoning), about 300 years after man had achieved the stars only to find a Central Control of an alien empire.
"Star Rangers" is set in
Of the 2, I slightly preferred "Star Rangers" but both were very good space opera type sci fi.
"Star Guard" is set in 3956 A.D. (in Terran reckoning), about 300 years after man had achieved the stars only to find a Central Control of an alien empire.
"Star Rangers" is set in
Show More
8054 A.D. during the final breakdown of that empire.Of the 2, I slightly preferred "Star Rangers" but both were very good space opera type sci fi.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2001
Physical description
446 p.; 25 inches
ISBN
0671318276 / 9780671318277