This short novel is the first in Stableford's 'Asgard' trilogy. Nothing to do with Norse gods (in any form), this is a Big Dumb Object story, the object in question being the planet Asgard - an artificial world comprised of nested levels, like an onion - deserted by its inhabitants in the distant past. Or was it?

To this now frozen world come explorers and trophy hunters, looking for ancient alien relics that they can profit from. And so we meet Michael Rousseau, one such trophy hunter who comes into possession of information about penetrating deep into the centre of the planet instead of the four levels that has been the best people could do so far. But Rousseau gets caught up in an adventure involving a crime boss, an alien android on the run, and the ruthless star troopers sent to track the android down.

Rousseau is another of Stableford's cynical, hard-boiled, competent loner protagonists. He reads like Star Pilot Grainger in his earlier Hooded Swan novels and he seems to have a similar facility of getting into and out of trouble. Given the potential of the setting, the story here barely scrapes the surface (so to speak), the upper levels of this world providing the setting for this fairly conventional caper story. Only towards the end do we see hints of a deeper story. Partly this is the fault of the huge expository lumps where Rousseau spends a lot of time explaining stuff to the Earthling star troopers and their Commander.

This isn't entirely Stableford's fault: in the 1980s, US publishers were desperate for material because the sf paperback original novel was selling like mad and publishers could not get enough material to fill their schedules. A number of British writers first saw print in US editions at that time, and Stableford was one such. However, the format was fairly fixed; so the Asgard trilogy was sold to the US publisher Ace as just that - three 200-page novels. It was therefore inevitable that much of the first volume would be taken up with explanation. Nowadays, a story like this would be sold as a 600-page or more doorstopper of a novel, giving the writer a lot more space to show rather than tell.

But do not be misled; Stableford is an intelligent writer and he makes his protagonists intelligent and insightful as well. Yes, there is action, and an exotic setting, and strange aliens; but Mike Rousseau thinks first and shoots second, and that's refreshing. Worth finding. ( )

I think I read this many years ago, but under its UK title, which would be, er, Journey to the Centre. DAW never published books two and three of the trilogy, although they were published in the UK. And have been subsequently rewritten and published under new titles by a US small press and the SF Gateway (as ebooks). Throughout the 1970s to 1990s, Stableford reliably produced mid-list science fiction with UK sensibilities albeit mostly for, strangely, US publishers like DAW. This book is fairly typical. An adventurer makes his living hunting through the mysterious levels of the world Asgard – which may comprises levels of shells all the way to the centre, some of which could be occupied. It’s a great conceit, and Stableford makes good use of it. I’m reminded of the Kriakta Rift from Robert Holdstock’s Where Time Winds Blow (1981, a favourite sf novel) more than I am Iain M Banks’s much later Matter (2008). The novel is a standalone, but leaves many questions about the world unanswered. Hence the sequels. Which I want to read. I suspect I will have to go for the ebook versions. ( )

The title of this short novel reflects half of what Stableford is doing. The skeleton of his story is modeled on Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. But this is on another planet, settled by many races, including humans, and the planet is actually an artificial construct f nested shells, each basically a planetary surface. The concept is similar to NIven's Ringworld or Reed's more recent Great Ship. Like Verne's novel, Stableford takes his time getting his travelers (following someone's diary, of course) inside the planet, and there is a fair amount of sightseeing along the way. But that's only the latter half of this short book. The first half is more SF hard-boiled detective, as our hero, talking in classic tough guy narrative style, is framed for murder, and has to figure out why and make things come out his way eventually.

This is not typical of Stableford's other DAW SF series, which are more SF puzzle pieces. There is a little of that here, and several multi-page info-dumps, but basically it appears Stableford was just out to have fun. He dedicates the book to Lionel Fanthorpe, who was famous for churning out potboilers at a tremendous pace. Fun for what it was intended to be. ( )