Introduction to the Libertarian Party
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 31
119 pages
There's a little bit about libertarianism, but this is mostly about the Libertarian Party. I learned more about Wes Benedict and how one talented and motivated activist can turn around a defunct and ineffective party. I wish we'd elected Wes Benedict the LNC Chair in 2026. But I'm sure Evan McMahon will do a fine job.
The Changeling
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 30
Rating: 2
128 pages
Started strong, ended weak.
Tower at the Edge of Time
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 29
Rating: 1
140 pages
This is the worst book I've read all year.
It's an Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, except instead of placing the story in Africa or on the planet Mars, Lin Carter chooses the entire galaxy and the whole of Time as the settings.
Thane of the Two Swords
Our hero is Thane of the Two Swords, who we meet as he's approached by Prince Chan of Shimar and his dwarf servant Druu of Yoth Zembis. Chan offers Thane a hundred million gold pieces for three days of service. Thane insults Chan and leaves.
Immediately afterward, Thane runs into a beautiful woman on the run from five Desert Warriors who are chasing her with swords. Thane fights them off, then escapes with the woman--whose name is Illara--away from the city. Unfortunately, they are both caught by the forces of Shastar of the Red Moon. Shastar imprisons them aboard his warship. We find out right away that Shastar and Chan are working together. They need Thane because they believe he stole the Jewel of Amzar from the temple of the Time Priests of Aealim on Mnom the Dark World. They need the Time Jewel to open the Web of Time and lead them to the Tower Beyond Time so they can steal the treasure it contains. If all this sounds incredibly dumb, trust me, it is.
Illara is working with Shastar, and she tries to pump Thane for information (but of course she falls in love with Thane at the end of the book.)
Thane: psionic superhero
Shastar sentences Thane to fight a duel with Zangor, a Nexian Mind-Gladiator. Thane is almost destroyed by the mental blows that Zangor throws at him, but the mental blows shake something loose in Thane's mind and unlock heretofore unknown mental powers. Thane lifts Zangor into the air using the power of his mind, holds him aloft, then drops him to his death.
Cool. So our hero has psionic powers of psychokinesis now.
Thane is put into a very regular sort of prison cell on Shastar's jungle moon hideout. You know the sort: heavy stone walls with a tiny window barred by a grill of massive steel rods. Thane uses his new mental powers to simply realign the atoms of the steel, then rips the grill away with his bare hands. Then Thane uses his psionic psychokinesis on himself, to levitate himself through the air to the cell where Illara is being kept prisoner. He mind-punches a hole through the steel bars on her window. Then he flies them both to Shastar's little moored spaceboat, which they steal.
Thane: immortal god
Thane reveals to Illara that he didn't steal the Jewel of Amzar. He was trying to steal it when he dropped it. It shattered, and the spirit that was inside the Jewel entered him. The spirit of the last Immortal, a very god. That's what has been giving Thane these new mental powers--he has a god living inside him.
Illara double-crosses him. She activates an immobilizer that blocks Thane's psionic powers, then she sells him out to Chan, Druu, and Shastar.
The five of them--Prince Chan, his dwarf servant Druu, Shastar of the Red Moon, Thane, and Illara journey to Mnom the Dark World where they enter the Temple of the Time Web. There they turn off the mental immobilizer and Thane uses his psionic powers to active the Time Web.
Rage: purple prose
And here begins the most ludicrously and rage-inducing sequence in the book.
First, we get an entire chapter that is just the traveling through time. They see all of history unfolding. It's an entire chapter of paragraphs like this:
Before their dazed and astonished eyes, Torje and the Star Crusaders carried forward the starburst banners of Valdamar in savage struggles against the Machine Kings of Atrogon the Robot Planet... and the Sky Lords of Bartosca, who enslaved the Tigermen with their will-destroying death drug--watched as they battled the dread science of the Sun-Stealers of Arlomma the Ice Planet, and fought against the Mind Masters of Pelizon
Just pages and pages of that.
Rage, rage: the treasure
Then they arrive at the end of time. They find The Last Planet, and on it, the Tower Beyond Time where the Immortals stored their vast treasures. And here Lin Carter gives us pages and pages of description of treasure, like this:
Coins of a thousand ancient realms on a hundred million worlds. Coins of gold, silver, platinum, bronze, nickel, chaya, iridium, and the precious metals of many planets. Coins of bronze and silver from luxurious Sybaris and Iberia, and glittering Syracuse where wise Archimedes measured the earth; gold staters incised with the profiles of Seleucid and Antiochan monarchs with ivy-wreathed brows
Again, this goes on for pages.
Greedy Prince Chan is transfixed at the sight of all the treasure. His dwarf servant Druu chooses this moment to exact revenge against his cruel master: he stabs Chan in the back. Chan lives just long enough to kill Druu with a laser pistol, then he dies.
Rage, rage, RAGE!: the real treasure
And now the most acutely rage-inducing bit of this entire rage-inducing sequence:
[The] heaped mounds of treasure, for which they had come so far…vanished!
Yes, the treasure disappears. Then a disembodied voice explains that there was no treasure, and that the real treasure is the friends they made along the way.
The end.
This book is no treasure either.
The Sky is Falling
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 28
Rating: 3
124 pages
I'm not usually fond of fantasy but this is a clever little story. In an alternate Earth, the universe is an egg and the sky is cracking. In a desperate attempt to save their world, the local magicians snatch someone from our Earth: the greatest builder in history, Dave Hanson. Unfortunately there has been a miscalculation. Instead of Dave Hanson, genious engineer and renowned builder, they've snatched his nephew: Dave Hanson, computer repairman.
But because that's how prophecies work, our Dave Hanson is the right guy after all.
Badge of Infamy
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 27
Rating: 2
121 pages
An interesting premise but the execution and the final resolution were disappointing.
Daniel Feldman, disgraced doctor, flees from the Medical Lobby and ends up on Mars. Why is he disgraced? Because he dared to defy the Medical Lobby by treating a patient outside of an official hospital. He saved the patient's life, by the way, but violations of Medical Lobby rules of ethics allow no wiggle room.
On Mars, the Medical Lobby rules technically still apply, but the locals don't care so much. Feldman ends up doing clandestine medical work for the settlers while the local Mars authorities look the other way.
An outbreak of Martian plague raises the stakes considerably. Feldman not only does medical work, but he starts doing medical research as well. He discovers that the plague has a fourteen-year incubation period and has likely infected most of Earth as well as Mars. Its threatens humanity with extinction. During all this, the Martians settlers rebel against the Earth authorities and start a war.
The answer ends up being ludicrously simple: smoking the local Martian tobacco alternative, bracky weed, kills the parasite responsible for the plague. And since it will take at least a decade for Earth to isolate and synthesize the particular compound in bracky weed that will stop the plague, Earth immediately capitulates and grants Mars indepedence. In exchange, Mars will supply enough bracky weed to cure everyone.
The Star Watchman
Series: Watchmen 2
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 26
Rating: 1
223 pages
Only slightly improved from the previous book in the series. There is a third book, but I won't be reading it.
The Star Conquerors
Series: Watchmen 1
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 25
Rating: 1
215 pages
This is Bova's first book and it shows. Wow this is bad.
The Sword of Rhiannon
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 24
Rating: 4
141 pages
Book of the Month for July 2026
I am giving The Sword of Rhiannon the inaugural Stranger than SF Book of the Month award. This is a best book I've read all month.
Death is a Dream
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 23
Rating: 1
145 pages
I enjoyed it. It's not a great book, but I enjoyed it.
Brad Stevens takes the Long Sleep, expecting to wake up in a few years when his cancer can be healed. Instead, it's hundreds of years later and he awakens to find a world completely changed after a nuclear catastrophe.
The new world he finds himself thrust into is brutally transactional. Those who cannot pay their debts are sold into literal slavery. Stevens finds himself saddled with the debt of what it cost to revive him.
What's worse, the world is strictly run by various guilds and trade associations, so it's not easy to get a decent-paying job. Some shady folks try to hire Stevens because he has some knowledge of nuclear physics, but he refuses to help them build a bomb, so he's reduced to manual labor.
After various shenanigans, Stevens ends up running with a shady relic-hunting outfit. With his knowledge of the London Underground, they manage to travel beneath the surface (avoiding the hard radiation aboveground) and emerge in the downtown zone where they ransack some jewelry stores. It's a bizarre sequence.
And in the end, it turns out Stevens isn't cured of cancer after all. Those who woke him up assumed he was suffering from radiation sickness and treated him for that, but his cancer is still there and still as untreatable as ever. He goes into the Long Sleep again.
Computer War
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 22
Rating: 2
111 pages
Nope.
The nation of Alphaland is run entirely based on models and predictions given by their advanced computers. When their computers tell them that they can start a war with neighboring Betastan and win it within two months, the result is predictable: Betastan doesn't play by the computer's rules. Their sabotage, guerilla warfare, and their clever ways of circumventing the Alphaland computers results in a complete defeat for the Alphaland regime. The war is over quickly, but it's Alphaland that loses.
This book was not great.
Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 21
374 pages
As it turns out, I don't like Tiptree's writing. She's talented, but she turns her talents in the wrong direction.
The only decent story in this collection is Birth of a Salesman, and that only marginally so.
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
Humans are genetically programmed to want to have sex with aliens, and that’s going to lead to the downfall of humanity
The Snows are Melted, Snows are Gone
Armless mutant woman uses her body to lure a primitive man away from his tribe, then kidnaps him. Plot twist: it’s the future, men are mostly extinct, and the world is dying or something. The story is happening in what used to be Ethiopia.
The Peacefulness of Vivyan
Drivel and incomprehensible. As near as I can tell, the viewpoint character is mentally deranged and travels from planet to planet subconsciously trying to escape the memories that his conscious mind has long ago suppressed: that his entire family was butchered in a revolt on the planet Atlixco—and that it was his brother who betrayed them all. But as I said, it’s incomprehensible drivel.
Mamma Come Home
Giant alien women come to earth to take men as slaves. Tiptree can't write anything not about sex, apparently.
Help
Religious fundamentalist aliens from Cygnus come to earth and blow up various houses of worship to coerce humans to worship the Great Pupa. Finally a story not about sex—but about the worst stereotype of imperialist religion.
Painwise
So dumb. Some guy has been tuned—altered—so he cannot feel pain, and forced to explore the galaxy for new planets. He’s picked up by some touring alien telepaths who use him for their amusement. He convinces them to take him back to earth, where he feels pain again. What kind of nonsense is this?
Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion
On Raceworld, creatures from a million planets compete in races, for fame and money—and all run by the fair and incorruptible Solterrans. The poor, orphan, planetless refugees from a destroyed Terra.
The Man Doors Said Hello To
Nope nope nope nope nope. The doors literally say hello to the man. That’s the most sense this absurdist story makes.
The Man Who Walked Home
A science experience goes boom and triggers the apocalypse. Later, a post-apocalyptic world notices an annual specter that appears for a few seconds at the epicenter of the event: it’s a man, Major John Delgano, traveling backwards in time to his home—where he will cause the boom that triggers the apocalypse. This is not so much a story as a poetic description of a thought experiment.
Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket
Time-jumping sex maniac from the future. Ugh.
I'll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool is Empty
Terran boy goes exploring and sort of accidentally communicates Terran interstellar enlightenment to a primitive planet. I think Tiptree wants me to consider this a bad thing, but the Terran culture portrayed is far superior, morally and spiritually and from a human-rights perspective—than the cruel and inhumane native culture. If they lost some of their native customs, it’s a small price to pay for all the babies that weren't burned on pagan altars and women who were no longer forced to be slaves or men who weren't slaughtered in pointless wars.
I'm Too Big but I Love to Play
Drivel again. Some disembodied alien intelligence takes on the shape of various people and does various strange things. This is yet another pointless story with too much sex. I am not liking this Tiptree collection.
Birth of a Salesman
Mr. T. Benedict works in the off-planet shipping office, making sure products don’t cause unexpected reactions in alien lifeforms along the shipping route. This isn’t a terrible story, it’s just kind of rushed and harried.
Mother in the Sky with Diamonds
An asteroid inspector/cop for the Company is hiding a secret: the old derelict Ragnorak—and a woman, Topanga.
Beam Us Home
Little Hobie gets hooked on Star Trek, grows up expecting the Enterprise to come and beam him up, joins the Air Force, flies a plane to the stratosphere, and gets abducted by aliens.
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 20
288 pages
It's refreshing to hear an approach to poverty that centers the gospel of Jesus Christ. Also, it seems that giving people stuff, except in the case of basic relief in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, never works out well. Poverty is a mindset or a worldview, and it's not something that can be solved merely by giving money and materials things to people who lack money and material things.
I do think anybody who wants to get into helping ministries should read this book.
The Planet Savers
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 19
Rating: 2
99 pages
Dr. Jay Allison's other personality, Jason, undertakes a trek into the mountains of Darkover to ask the Trailmen (the Sky People) to leave their arboreal homes and come to the Terran outpost to help stop a plague.
The Waterfall
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 19
17 pages
A young woman finds her psi talent, and it's evil.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the young girl, Sybil, is "fifteen years old and as frail as a branch of willow," which is disturbing considering that author Marion Zimmer Bradley describes her using sex to entice and ultimately murder someone, and also considering the claims of child sexual abuse made against Marion Zimmer Bradley by her own daughter. One suspects Bradley may not have fully understood the enormity of what she wrote in The Waterfall.
Bradley escaped justice in this world, but there is a day of judgement in the life that is to come.
To the Stars
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 18
Rating: 2
210 pages
Starts well, finishes weakly. Hubbard writes good fiction. He should have stuck to that.
Alan Corday is shanghaied and forced to join the crew of the Hound of Heaven. Alan has a fiancee waiting for him back on Earth, but because Hound of Heaven is an interstellar starship, it's on the Long Passage. The time dilation effect mean that when Alan gets back home a few months later, his girl is an elderly spinster in the throes of dementia. She doesn't recognize him.
Indeed, Earth doesn't recognize Alan, and he doesn't recognize what Earth has become. He realizes that Hound of Heaven is all he has left. He eventually becomes captain of the ship. There are various adventures, mostly dumb, and eventually (years later in his timeline, millennia later on Earth's timeline) the crew of Hound of Heaven fight a war against earthmen who try to steal their cargo.
This is not a great effort from Hubbard, but it's readable.
Yankee in Oz
Series: Oz 41
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 17
203 pages
A typical Thompson book, not bad. Yankee is the dog.
Merry Go Round in Oz
Series: Oz 40
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 16
313 pages
I did it. I finished the Famous Forty. Also, it turns out that Merry Go Round is the name of a wooden horse from a merry-go-round.
Stark and the Star Kings
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 15
30 pages
It's a collaboration between husband-and-wife team of Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett. Hamilton's name is first on the cover, but I dare say there is more Brackett in the story than Hamilton.
John Eric Stark (who I'm told has his own series of stories) is sent into the future to the universe of the Star Kings to battle a great destructive entity that threatens to destroy all life in the universe. It's a decent story, albeit shorter than I'd like. Interesting--usually I complain that stories are too long.
The Hidden Valley of Oz
Series: Oz 39
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 14
137 pages
Delightful. Thumbs up. This is one of the few non-Baum Oz books that's worth reading.
A boy named Jam from Ohio finds his way to Oz via a large kite. He lands in Gillikin Country. The supporting characters are memorable: his guinea pigs named Pinny and Gig, and his pet rat Pervical, aka Percy the Personality Kid. Percy is a lot of fun.
They end up in in a valley where the citizens toil as slaves of the giant Terp the Terrible. Terp is fifty feet tall, and he forces the citizens to tend the grapes and make jam, which he eats for breakfast on muffins from his magic muffin tree.
Percy helps Jam escape from the valley, and steals some of Terp's magic muffins. It turns out the muffins are what make Terp a giant; when Percy eats one, he becomes human-sized. But the magic only lasts a few days.
Jam and Percy meet Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Hungry Tiger, and together they have many adventures, finally returning to Terp's valley and chopping down the magic muffin tree. Terp shrinks back to normal size, and the citizens are free. Ozma sends Jam home and the Wizard makes Percy's large size permanent, so it's a happy ending all around.
The Shaggy Man of Oz
Series: Oz 38
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 13
255 pages
Snow is improving.
Twins from Buffalo, New York named Twink and Tom are pulled through their television set into the fairyland. They've been summoned by the sorcerer Conjo to his island in the Nonestic Ocean. Conjo, as it turns out, is the sorcerer who created the Shaggy Man's Love Magnet, that totem that causes everyone to love whoever holds it. Unfortunately the Love Magnet has broken and can only be repaired by Conjo, so the Shaggy Man is also headed to Conjo's island.
Conjo is self-centered and deceitful. He fixes the Love Magnet, but the Shaggy Man realizes that Conjo intends to keep Twink and Tom as his slaves. So the Shaggy Man, Twink, and Tom steal Conjo's Airmobile and escape the island. After various adventures, they arrive at the Emerald City to find that Conjo is there. He is attempting to use the Wizard's bag of magic to take over Oz. Our heroes foil Conjo's plans and send him back to his island. Ozma sends Twink and Tom back home to Buffalo.
The Magical Mimics in Oz
Series: Oz 37
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 12
240 pages
Tightly plotted, but every challenge is resolved by a fairy showing up and metaphorically waving her wand or literally waving her wand.
Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz
Series: Oz 33
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 11
272 pages
I've been waiting for ages to read this Oz book. Ozoplanes? Sign me up!
My main question is whether the "Oz" in Ozoplane should be pronounced as in "ozone" or like "Oz." Probably Oz.
Basic plot: the Wizard designs and builds two ozoplanes--the Ozpril and the Oztober--with which to explore the skies. As he's giving a tour, the Tin Woodman, Jellia Jamb, and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers accidentally launch the Oztober, which carries them off far away. The rest try to track them in the Ozpril.
There's a sky kingdom called Stratovania, whose ruler tries to invade the Emerald City and usurp Ozma's throne. In the end, Ozma uses her magic belt to end the threat and everything right.
Ozma's magic belt is a problem. It's too powerful, and it's the plot resolution device for too many Oz books. That and Ozma's magic picture are just too much.
Overall, the book was OK. Not the worst, but also not nearly the best.
Also, a nitpick: Thompson names the Soldier with the Green Whiskers as Wantowin Battles. Earlier books clearly established his name as Omby Amby. I disliked the unnecessary name change.
The Silver Princess in Oz
Series: Oz 32
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 10
255 pages
Return of Kabumpo. This story was...OK. Thompson seems to really like the character of Jinnicky the Red Jinn, as she brings him back in this book once again. I'm not as convinced that Jinnicky is interesting enough to justify his continued appearances.
Handy Mandy in Oz
Series: Oz 31
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 9
246 pages
Better.
An geyser accidentally blasts a seven-armed goat-herder named Mandy into Munchkinland in Oz. All right then. She immediately falls in with Nox the Royal Ox, who has a magic horn. It turns out that the rightful king of Keretaria (the little kingdom within Munchkinland where Handy Mandy has landed) is missing, so Mandy and Nox go on a quest to find him.
I found the uses of magic to be clever, and I quite enjoyed the story. But (as I'm writing this review a month later) the details have faded quickly. I still think it's one of Thompson's better Oz stories, but on the whole I'm not sure it's worth reading Oz beyond Baum. Indeed, even several of Baum's books could be skipped.
Captain Salt in Oz
Series: Oz 30
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 8
306 pages
Thumbs down.
Captain Salt, first seen in book 25, Pirates in Oz, is back. He's been commissioned to explore the seas and claim new lands for Oz. He takes King Ato along (as his cook) as well as Roger the Read Bird. The story format is perfect for introducing little islands with strange and marvelous little societies. Unfortunately I found it tedious.
- Volcano island: They visit a volcano island called Lavaland and barely escape with their lives after the Lavaland Islanders throw lava at them.
- Jungle island: On Patrippany Island they rescue a little boy named Tandy (full name Tazander Tazah, son of the king of Ozamaland) from the Leopard People. Tandy joins the crew. They also pick up a hippopatamus named Nikobo.
- Peakenspire Island: An "island" that is all sharp spikes rising out of the sea. There's no flat land, and the people build bridges between the spikes to travel and to live on. They yodel a lot.
- Sea Forest: A forest of enormous trees growing straight out of the ocean.
- Seaweegia: An undersea kingdom.
- They fight off a giant narwhal that rams their ship with its horn and puts a hole in it.
- They find a hole in the ocean.
- Ozamaland: Finally, they end up back at Tandy's homeland of Ozamaland, where they foil a coup and restore order. Tandy declines to take his rightful place as king and appoints the very capable Chunum to rule in his stead. Tandy rejoins Captain Salt for more adventures.
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn
Series: Lucky Starr 6
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 7
Rating: 3
144 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
The Sirians have colonized Titan, saying that the Saturn system was empty so it's theirs now. Earth won't stand for having an enemy base in their solar system, but to force the Sirians out will mean starting a war. Lucky Starr calls an interstellar council and persuades the rest of the solar systems to back Earth. Sirius is forced to withdraw.
I do so love when a problem is solved by people talking in rooms. Really. Asimov is fantastic at making conversations and diplomatic negotiations enthralling.
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter
Series: Lucky Starr 5
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 6
Rating: 3
144 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
Lucky Starr roots out a Sirian spy.
Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury
Series: Lucky Starr 4
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 5
Rating: 2
143 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
There's a saboteur on Mercury who is stalling progress on an important scientific research project. Lucky Starr solves the case. I found this installment in the Lucky Starr series to be below par, mainly because I didn't believe the motivations of the guilty party.
Also, the title is misspelled on the cover.
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus
Series: Lucky Starr 3
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 4
Rating: 3
142 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
Lucky Starr solves a mysterious spate of accidents in an underwater dome city on Venus.
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids
Series: Lucky Starr 2
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 3
Rating: 3
144 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
Lucky Starr fights space pirates and foils a Sirian plot to invade the solar system.
David Starr, Space Ranger
Series: Lucky Starr 1
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 2
Rating: 3
144 pages
Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French
Poisoners and interplanetary politics
This is clearly a juvenile, but Asimov sure can write. David Starr, a newly minted agent of the Council of Science, cracks an interplanetary food poisoning plot that threatens the stability of the entire solar system. Someone has been poisoning food imports from Mars. This is a geopolitical crisis because Earth is unable to feed itself: its six billion inhabitants rely on imports, mainly from Mars. If the citizens of Earth stop eating Mars food out of fear, starvation will ensue.
A side note: I find it interesting that in 1952 Asimov found it reasonable to predict that Earth could not support as many as six billion people. In 2026 we have well over 8 billion and there is plenty of food. It's not always evenly distributed, but that's a political problem, not a food supply problem.
Council of Science, Galactic Patrol?
Parts of the plot remind me of the Lensman series. Instead of a Galactic Patrol that serves as a force for good in the entire galaxy, we have the Council of Science that serves as a force for good in the entire solar system. Our hero isn't a Gray Lensman named Kinnison who is pals with the President and the Port Admiral, he's an orphan named David Starr who is the surrogate son of the Chief Councilor Hector Conway and Councilman Augustus Henree. Like a Gray Lensman, though, Starr is given free rein to operate wherever and however he sees fit.
There are other points of similarity, too.
- Sidekick: Kinnison has Van Buskirk, a sidekick who isn't a Lensman but is basically good enough to be one. Starr pals around with Bigman Jones, who isn't technically a Councilman but might as well be.
- Like a Lensman, Starr visits a race of disembodied super-intelligences and receives a mystical talisman that gives him super-powers.
- Space pirates figure prominently in the series. (More so in the second book than in the first.)
- Members of the Council of Science have a thought-controlled skin tattoo that serves as an un-counterfeitable form of identification, much like the uncounterfeitable Lens of Arisia.
I'm probably reading too much into these points of similarity, but I also know I'm not the first to make the connection. Fortunately, Asimov doesn't turn this into a Lensman copy.
Bigman, Hennes, and Benson
Where better to investigate the poisoning of Martian food imports than at the source? David Starr goes undercover as a farm boy on a big Martian farm. He makes a friend in John "Bigman" Jones, an enemy of foreman Hennes, and an ally in agronomist Benson. It's Benson's theory that the poisonings are the work of native Martians who are angry about humans colonizing their planet. The others dismiss his theory because nobody has ever seen a native Martian: they don't exist.
Magic Martians
Of course David Starr finds the elusive non-existent Martians. They are not the poisoners: the Martians have long since abandoned their physical forms and now exist as beings of pure energy. They are content to exist in caverns deep below the surface of Mars while they explore realms of Inner Life of the mind. They are unconcerned with humanity. The Martians give David a gift: a personal force-shield that also makes him invisible.
Superhero origin story
Wait, is this a superhero origin story? David has a personal force-shield that makes him invincible and invisible! Fortunately, no. David uses it a few times in this book and the next, then Asimov wisely drops it.
Space Ranger
But before Asimov drops it, David uses the force-shield to don a secret identity: he is the Space Ranger, an invisible superhero who unmasks the real culprit behind the poisonings: it was Benson all along. He was disgruntled because the others looked down on him for being a mere "college farmer" and not a real man of the soil. And being a college-educated agronomist employed at a major Martian farm, Benson had the knowledge and skills to create a poison as well as the access to slip it into the outgoing exports.
Little Bigman
Bigman joins forces with Starr and becomes his sidekick for the rest of the series. It's with Bigman that the series is at its best and its worst. See, Bigman's defining character trait is that he's short. He's five feet and two inches tall, and he's sore about it. Because this is a juvenile, everybody in the whole series has the emotional maturity of a middle-schooler and makes cracks at Bigman about his short stature, and hotheaded Bigman responds with anger and starts fights. I say it's the best part of the series because Bigman is genuinely big-hearted: he's loyal, he's tough, he's incorruptible. And because he's not quite as clever as David Starr, he makes a great foil. But it's also the worst because every time you turn a page, somebody is making a short joke at Bigman's expense and Bigman starts swinging his fists. It gets tiresome.
The verdict
Overall, it's an enjoyable book and a fun series. Thumbs up from me.
Position and orientation correction for pipe profiling robots
Reviewed date: 2026 Jul 1
245 pages
I always say, if you discover that someone you know has written a thesis or a dissertation, you should read it. Well, I read it. The math was beyond me. I have a Bachelor's degree in math (technically, Computer Science and Mathematics) but either I never learned this math, or I forgot it all because I haven't used it since graduation.
800,000 miles of pipes
I learned that there are over 800,000 miles of sewer pipes in America and that most of them are nearing or are past their projected lifespan. I learned that in 1999 the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) published Statement No. 34 which requires municipalities to account for infrastructure assets in their financial reporting. As a result, the "false economy of deferred maintenance will be revealed as a long term mistake disguised as a short term benefit."
How this relates to pipe profiling robots comes in how Statement No. 34 specifies that sewer pipes be accounted for: "GASB 34 requires a condition assessment of sewer assets at least every three years using a consistent basis of measurement and scale that can be repeated." Sewer pipes, being buried, are not easy to inspect. Hence the need for sewer pipe profiling robots—robots that travel through the sewer pipes and inspect them from the inside.
Lasers, math, band saws and welders
And apparently, it's not as easy as sending a remote-controlled car with a camera into a pipe. Serious pipe profiling robots have fancy laser sensors to measure defects and pipe ovality. The problem is (and I never would have thought of this) if the robot is not pointed dead-center along the pipe centerline, the measurements can be skewed. Further, it's useful to know the orientation of the pipe itself with respect to the earth, to help in developing proper three-dimensional maps.
So, enter math: Dettmer shows a lot of fancy math about how to properly detect and account for the position and orientation of the pipe profiling robot within the pipe. The math was beyond me. Then the practical: with help from Swanbom he constructs a proof-of-concept pipe profiling robot and tests it in a 72-inch test pipe to demonstrate the validity of his new position and orientation technique. He writes a lot about how he had to construct the robot, which "included the use of an end mill, drill press, thread tap, welder, band saw, sheet metal bender, sander, and grinder." All that is as far beyond me as the math is.
Kill all humans
Finally, he ends with some suggestions for further research. My favorite recommendation is #5, "Sewer inspection vehicles are difficult to market if they are expensive. Developing a low-cost alternative would be well received by the industry." The recommendation most likely to lead to robots killing all humans is #7, "Develop an automated inspection robot which can be left alone in the sewers for days, weeks, or even months. Conceptually, a system could roam the sewers, periodically uploading condition information to provide constant asset monitoring."