Fun classic pulp. The primitive descendants of a forgotten crashed ship struggle to survive on a forgotten planet. There are fights with giant spiders and other giant insects. ( )

Murray Leinster’s “The Forgotten Planet” is as perfect an example of classic science fiction as one could hope to find. It’s a 1950s’ ”fix-up” novel of a few stories from the 1920s. In that sense, it is almost a century old.

On the surface it qualifies as pure adventure, and without the clunky sophomoric (as-if teen-imagined) view of romance that used to dominate pulp sf. (You know: pulchritudinous blonde daughter of a bespectacled scientist thrown together with a teen athlete boy or a nerd.) But it is rigorously worked out from a simple premise, and is as “hard science” as this sort of thing can be.

It is, in fact, the best example of a fix-up that I can think of, for it is seamless in its construction. Well, not exactly, I guess: the prologue and epilogue are the most obvious fix-up parts, a tad more elegantly written than the crisply narrated body of the text. But that’s apt, too.

It really is impressive.

And it is an apparent inspiration for Brian Aldiss’s masterwork, “Hothouse.”

A very few typos in this edition. I have another, early Ace edition of this book, but cannot find it. When I find it I’ll sell one of them. Or both? I hate to get rid of books I may need to refer to again. ( )

Indeholder kapitlerne: "1. Den skæbnesvangre forglemmelse", "2. Galskabens planet", "3. Flygtningen", "4. Purpurbjergene", "5. Den store dræber", "6. Mand jager kød", "7. Det røde støv", "8. Rejsen gennem døden", "9. På flugt igen", "10. En plads i solen", "11. Fra dyr til menneske", "12. Blodets bånd", "13. Den nye verden".

Planeten uden navn bliver glemt efter at menneskehedens rumskibe over nogle århundreder har været forbi og terraformet den ved at udsætte bakterier, planter og insekter. En dag nødlander de overlevende fra et forlist rumskib, Icarus, på planeten, men de har ikke nogen mulighed for at sende nødsignaler, så gradvist henfalder deres efterkommere i det rene barbari. 40 generationer senere har de glemt alting og gemmer sig frygtsomt for de kæmpeinsekter, der har udviklet sig, fordi der aldrig nåede at blive sat dyreliv ud på planeten. Burl på ca 20 år finder på at bruge hornet fra en kæmpebille som spyd. Han fanger en fisk, men bliver til gengæld ført af floden et godt stykke væk fra stammen og pigen Saya han er forelsket i. Han ryger i spindet fra en kæmpeedderkop, men får sig kæmpet fri mod alle odds ved at tænke sig om. Og så begynder han som den første i flere generationer at tænke sig om.
Han fører sin lille familiegruppe fra lavlandet op i højlandet, hvor svampe, dyr og planter er nede i normal størrelse i forhold til Jorden. De støder på en flok hunde, der stadig har en racehukommelse for samhørighed med mennesker og de finder ud af at leve sammen.
Nogle uger senere lander et rumfartøj ret tilfældigt på planeten og efter lidt tid med en indlæringsspole er Burl og de andre med i civilisationen igen.
Man optager handel mellem planeten og de øvrige beboede verdener og fx er mølpels i høj kurs. Jagtselskaber arrangeres også gerne og alle nyder at udrydde de modbydelige kæmpeedderkopper.

Det er en meget tynd science-fiction skal udenom en eventyrfortælling om mennesker, der skal klare sig i en verden, hvor de er meget små og planter og insekter er meget store. Andre bøger i samme genre er: Lewis Carroll: Alice i Eventyrland og Gordon Williams: Micronauts og Richard Matheson: Edderkoppen. Burl og hans gruppes rejse gennem lavlandet ligner gennemførelsen af et platformspil. ( )

Once the main story is underway, it cracks along well. There is no let up, no down-time in the tale. It’s a real-time non-stop adventure from beginning to just about the end.

Complete review at: The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey, and a close-up examination of the book itself.
( )

The Survey-Ship Tethys made the first landing on the planet, which had no name. It was an admirable planet in many ways. It had an ample atmosphere and many seas, which the nearby sun warmed so lavishly that a perpetual cloud-bank hid them and most of the solid ground from view. It had mountains and continents and islands and high plateaus. It had day and night and wind and rain, and its mean temperature was within the range to which human beings could readily accommodate. It was rather on the tropic side, but not unpleasant.

But there was no life on it.

No animals roamed its continents. No vegetation grew from its rocks. Not even bacteria struggled with its stones to turn them into soil. So there was no soil. Rock and stones and gravel and even sand—yes. But no soil in which any vegetation could grow. No living thing, however small, swam in its oceans, so there was not even mud on its ocean-bottoms. It was one of that disappointing vast majority of worlds which turned up when the Galaxy was first explored. People couldn't live on it because nothing had lived there before. ( )