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| Auteur | Rackham, John + High |
| Titel | The Double Invaders + These Savage Futurians |
| Uitgever | Ace |
| Genre | SF / Fantasy |
| Reeksnummer | G-623 |
| Editie | 1967 - pocket - Ace Double - G-623 - 120+134 p. |
| ISBN nummer | |
| Taal |  |
| Conditie |  
Goed |
| Beschrijving staat | (VG) |
| Gewicht | 129 gram |
| Past door brievenbus (Ja/Nee) | Ja |
| Prijs | € 4,50 |
| Omschrijving | Essef - Of the two stories in this volume, it's 'These Savage Futurians' that is the winner. 'Double Invaders' is 'merely' a decent SF story.
DOUBLE INVADERS:
This story tells the tale of the invasion of the planet Scarta by ships of Zorgan. The initial invasion plan goes like it should, and the key cities of Scarta are taken. However, the Scartans don't act like they've been conquered, and the Zorgan seem to be overconfident.
Resistance continues across the planet. The Zorgan take this in stride, just raising the output power of their weapons a notch at a time. Zorgan seems to have everything under control until the Zorgan ships start to disappear...
This is an interesting, well-written invasion story with a twist.
THESE SAVAGE FUTURIANS
First of all let me say that I think that the title of this story is awful, and is not helped by the cover.
The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic UK. Outside of villages the land is poisoned, with many dangers. To leave the boundaries of the villages is a death sentence.
Robert Ventor is flagged as a 'gadgeteer' - an inventive person - by the padre of his village. Because of this, the padre incites the village to kill Ventor, but Ventor saves his life by escaping over the border of his village. Unfortunately, this just means that Ventor has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Nothing but rubble is left of the previous civilization. Instead there are mutated animals, virulent diseases, and a few surviving automatic weapons to make life interesting - albeit short. A few human tribes manage to exist in the ruins.
Although copyrighted in 1967, what we would today call nanotechnology plays a prominent role in the story.
Elements of the back story are also very worthy of mention. For example, despite the world being in ruins, the world was not destroyed by war. Written at a time where 'planned obsolescence' was a growing concern, the story took that and ran with it. In the story, *everything* was built to last only a short time - the upside is that everything was then dirt cheap. So, houses lasted only a few years before crumbling into dust. Cars lasted a few months. Shirts might only last eight hours, canned goods last for a few weeks. That was fine until there were ... problems with production. Everything still crumbled into dust - only there were no replacements. That is why the world is in ruins - not war. There are similar stories behind the other dangers of the world. |
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