Star Born is the exciting sequel to The Star Are Ours.  After a nuclear was, a small band of Free Scientists breaks free of the Dark Age being imposed on the shattered Earth by Pax.  In a sleeper starship some fity humans escape across space to a world they name Astra to disappear from the pages of human history.  They find freedom, but not paradise, on a world that also has fallen from war.  The remnants of two native species, the peaceful mer-folk, and the survivors of “Those Others” a xenophobic race with high technology sporadically battle on Astra.  The human colonists seek only to live in peace but of necessity align with the mer-folk.

Star Born begins with Dalgard, a descendant of Dard Norris, the protagonist of the first book.  He travels with Sssuri, his “knife brother” of the mer-folk.  Dalgard is on his first  journey of exploration, a rite of passage he must endure in order to become a full adult member of his tribe.  The Free Scientists retain their desire to explore Astra though their technology has disappeared in the four generations that the Terrans have lived on Astra.  Dalgard bears a knife and bow and more resemblance to a Native American than to the original spacers.  Yet he carries the scientific method with him and while technology has been impossible to preserve knowledge has remained.  The Terrans are not regressing but developing in different ways.  The Mer-people who appear to have been genetically engineered and developed by those others from an animal species are limited telepaths.  Each generation of humans has been better able to communicate with the mind touch, extending it to the animals of Astra as well.

Centuries pass and back on Earth Pax falls, and is replaced by a democratic government.  Hyperdrive is discovered and Earth launches its first starships.  One of these, the RS10 ( a rather unimaginative name I felt) carries with it Raf Kurbi, young loner, the pilot of the flitter a small atmospheric craft for exploring whatever new world they find. 

Dalgard having his ancestors wanderlust and curiosity is heading toward one of the deserted bases of “Those Others” while the humanoid Others are similar in appearance to humans, their minds are so alien that contemplations of their color-coded communications have driven humans near mad.  The science of Those Others has been put aside by the colonists and ignored by the mer-folk whose hatred of their former masters knows no limit.

Dalgard and Sussurri head for the base only to find that it is deserted no longer.  Those Others have returned in a globe airship to loot their old labs for weapons and devices.  Over their heads comes the RS10 landing at this critical moment in Astra’s history.  Against the odds, RS10 comes down on Astra but its landing is very different from the landing of the original Free Scientist Colony ship.  They land on the continent of Those Others, meeting them almost immediately.  The natives and the humans are wary of each other, none more so then Raf, whose distrust of the aliens is immediate and visceral.  Unfortunately it is perceived as mere prejudice by his captain, a sin in the new society that fought free of Pax, and he is initially disregarded.

Those Others however cannot conceal, even it occurred to them to do so, their true nature, imperious, xenophobic and contemptuous of all life not their own.  While the humans travel with Those Others learning some of their astonishing technology and visiting their ruins, they are horrified to watch an attack by the globe ship on a group of furred mer-folk.  The humans are unsure if the mer-folk are animals or people but the chilling brutality begins to tell on them.

Meanwhile Dalgard is stalking the expedition of “Those Others”and Sussurri has returned to warn the colony and the tribe.  Dalgard is captured by Those Others, who are alarmed and astonished to find a human in alliance with the mer-folk.  While they are confused by his appearance, they are viscerally disgusted by his friendship with their slave race/  Dalgard is taken to the arena in the depleted city of “Those Others” to be thrown to dinosaur-like beasts with a merman prisoner.

Dalgard has been using his limited telepathic powers to call for help.  He is shocked when he contacts not a mer-person or a colonist but Raf.  The young pilot, the embers of his distrust of Those Others now fanned to bright flame, intervenes to free the pair bringing an open break with the Starship and Those Others.

Raf and Dalgard find a mer-folk tribe nearby preparing for a hopeless attack.  But with Raf’s weapons and explosives perhaps it is no longer so hopeless.  It all turns on Raf.   If the Globeship and its warehouse of weapons and recovered treasures are destroyed then it may be that the rise of Those Others, degenerate and few in number can be checked.

Raf and Dalgard face to choices, to support each other in a way that the visiting starship had no wish to participate in.  And beyond that lies a greater choice, RS10 has not come to stay.  Dalgard fears that reestablishing a tie with Earth will end the evolution of the Terrans into Astrans.  Must they follow the same path of science and technology as the Earthmen or should they continue on the path that they are on.  Two young men, two choices and a world in the balance.

Read it and find out.

Pros, Andre Norton’s clear writing and engaging characters, usually young people seeking to find their way in life, becoming  the adults who will lead in their worlds.  Colorful descriptions even in the smaller details make the ruined cities and countryside of this new world very vivid.

Cons- The YA and Boy’s Own quality gives the book a slightly dated feel as does Forbidden Planet’s all while make crew of the C57D.  An update of this would make one of the leads female for a more interesting story.  The RS10 is probably the least developed part of the book and the starship crew sometimes seems both a bit cluless and underdeveloped.

For all its shortcomings there is really nothing wrong with the charming tale of otherworld and its unexpected friendship between these too little more than boys.

Zero Stone by Andre Norton (1958) review

Zero Stone by Andre Norton (1958)

Zero Stone opens with a man fleeing for his life down the darkened alleys of a primitive alien city. He’s a Terran, younger half of a team of jewel dealers. His partner has been murdered when the priests of an alien religion, in an unheard of act, select an off-worlder for a sacrifice and are answered with lasers. His partner dead, Murdoc Jern flees to an alien sanctuary and uses his store of jewels to bribe his way to a Free Trader space freighter and escape offworld.

But it is not an escape, a net is being drawn around Jern. The net has spanned the gulfs of interstellar space as the Thieves Guild reaches out in search of the Zero Stone, an ancient and mysterious artifact that is Jern’s prize possession, a heritage from his father.

Jern’s father was a passionate collector of jewels, secrets and mysteries, particularly those associated with the ancient and long disappeared races called the Forerunners. These aliens reached incredible heights of technology ages ago before disappearing, destroyed in wars or leaving space-time for unguessed of destinations. The Jerns are perfectly positioned to learn these secrets positioned in a “hock-lock” (pawnshop) near a spaceport.

Murdoc’s world collapses around him after a particular stone is brought into the shop, a colorless, lifeless lump on a large ring. It is a zero stone, an artifact from the time of the Forerunners, found on a drifting spacesuit and alien corpse. With the stone comes the death of Jern’s father after a mysterious meeting with an offworlder. Jern learns his father was a former Veep (VIP) retired from the shadowing quasi-government of the Thieves Guild. Now that Guild has reached out for the Zero Stone. Bur the killers do not find the stone, which Murdoc takes from his father’s hidden safe.

Other blows fall. Jern learns from his mother that he is a contract child, a test-tube baby decanted on this world for genetic diversity. His “mother” makes it clear that his younger brother, her natural child, is to inherit all. Jern who has always and only been his father’s son has never cared for either mother or brother. He leaves to become apprenticed to Vondar Ustle a master jeweler with wanderlust. They journey and trade in a life Jern comes to love before it ends in a dagger thrust in an alien bar.

The Free Trader Jern escapes in, lands on various worlds. On one, the ship’s cat eats what appears to be a stone from a riverbed. Days later the cat is pregnant. The spacers, fearing, some alien contagion, isolate the beast which gives birth to an oddly shaped mutant. But it is more than that. The mutant is something ancient, reborn, powerfully intelligent, armed with telepathic ability and knowledge of things Forerunner. Jern falls ill with what seems a fever. The crew’s fears are confirmed. They are determined to kill both Jern and the mutant.

Jern, delirious and suggestible, follows the voice in his head and escapes with the mutant out into space protected only by a spacesuit and with a container holding the mutant. Then the Zero Stone ring plays a part. It begins to glow and drags the pair through deep space to the site of an ancient forerunner wreck where they find an operational lifeboat.

Jern’s recovery is abrupt. The illness was a telepathic manipulation by the mutant who calls itself Eet. It learned that the Free Traders were actually Thieves Guild from the minds of the crew. It knew that they were responsible for killing Jern's partner and planned to deliver Jern to their bosses. Eet also knows of the Zero stone and its almost limitless power.

The pair are forced into an alliance to fight for their lives and freedom when they land on an unknown world where there is a store of Zero Stones. They are caught between the Thieves Guild and the Space Patrol in a battle for possession of the ancient artifacts.


The Pros: The relationship with Eet is the strength of this book. Maddening and intriguing, Eet is a recreation of a Forerunner, a personality hidden in the seed eaten by the freighter ship’s cat. Smug, superior and yet somehow endearing, Eet is full of surprises.
As Jern plunges ahead on his own adventure, he touches those of others. These alien worlds, cultures and peoples are not mere devices but are rich and complex and we sometimes want to turn aside and spend more time exploring them. This is also true of the gem lore, the little we learn makes us fascinated, even covetous, the gems begin to wink in our minds, sensuous and seductive.

The Cons: Andre Norton’s books are usually devoid of sex and sexuality and Zero Stone is no exception. One sometimes hungers for a little higher degree of complexity or sophistication which with Norton simply is not there. Dialogue is sometimes clumsy with odd turns of phrase such as “my hurt” as opposed to “my wound.”

The Space Patrol which in Andre Norton’s books is a combination of police force and navy is unsympathetically portrayed. The Patrolman they meet, Hory, is violently xenophobic, which seems odd in the pluralistic galaxy that Norton describes. However she develops this theme in other books in this shared universe, notably Last Planet, wherein the Patrol is rather isolated from Galactic life and human-dominated. When one realizes that the Zero Stone’s function is too make almost any machine or weapon more powerful, one can understand the Patrol’s desire to not leave such power in the son of a Thieves Guild Veep and an unknown mutant. Still Hory, the “double star” patrol agent (equivalent to a double-00 operative in James Bond’s universe) is a one note performance and without empathy or depth.

In sum, I love the book and forgive it the minor transgression above. There is high adventure and a fascinating universe to explore with pirates, ancient ruins, mysterious weapons and devices. Yes, it could use a green Orion slave girl or two.

Stay Tuned for the sequel “Uncharted Stars.” This is a rare case of the sequel being better than the original, rather like the second Terminator movie.

By Edward McKeown