Earthstrings / The Chariots of Ra

Keys to the Dimensions

by John Rackham, Kenneth Bulmer

Cover artist: Lima de Freitas

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

271 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1972

About the author

A pseudonym used by John T. Phillifent.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the Ace Double volumes, a publishing curiosity extant from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, where two separate books are bound together but published back-to-back and in opposite orientation to one another in what was known as tête-bêche format. Each side had its own cover, so there were two fronts and no backs. The Rackham novel in this volume has an interesting David Plourde cover and my favorite of the pair was the Bulmer cover, which was painted by Kelly Freas, a very colorful action capture of exotic aliens. This one was published in 1972 and (as I usually say) was still a bargain for the newly-raised price of ninety-five cents. Earthstrings is a quirky tale of a mystery on Mars and the reporter and his companions who investigate. The colony has gone silent, it's feared all five-hundred people may have died, and also missing is famous author Kit Carew. There's are spies and industrial espionage and romance and it's a fast-paced story. Rackham was a prolific author from the U.K., who was also published as John T. Phillifent. He never caught on in the U.S. as did Kenneth Bulmer or E.C. Tubb, for example. The story on the flip side is Bulmer's The Chariots of Ra, one of his novels that's part of his Keys to the Dimensions series. There were nine books in the series published from 1961 - '83, all adventurous stories with imaginative settings and situations but not terribly memorable characters. Bulmer always seemed to have cool and catchy titles! It's a very fast-paced adventure in which Roy Tulley is kidnapped into an alternate dimension which is descended from ancient Egypt. It's a fun story with plenty of action and might have been at home in issue of Planet Stories a couple of decades previous. The standard disclaimer is that both novels have a mid-20th century feel and all of the prevailing attitudes of the time. But it's an enjoyable read, three stars for each.

[Steve Isaak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earthstrings -

Plot: When the beacon signal from Beta Hydri, a human "space colony" on Mars, goes dead for forty hours - indicating almost near-certain disaster - and a notorious author (Kit Carew) goes missing there as well, reporter Jeremy White is sent there to investigate what happened. Accompanying him is a motley crew with mixed, possibly dangerous motives: Liss Landis, a flirty fellow reporter; Abigail Crane, Carew's secret sister and head of the Triple-C Corporation, whose financial ties to Beta Hydri are complex; Fanny Allen, a promiscuous, petulant socialite and Carew's sugar mama; and Miguel Santana, a playboy with hidden talents - and possibly another identity.

Earthstrings reads like an high-spirited Swingin' Sixties science fiction parody - there's plenty of science fictionish-sounding devices, the characters wear different colored skin suits which highlight their curves (particularly the women's), there's a strong element of mystery and lots of twists, and the women act like "Bond girls," in the sense that they fall over themselves to get with the mission-focused, sometimes taciturn Jeremy White.

This is a fast blast, wildly entertaining pot boiler, one worth owning.

#

Chariots is a solid, exotic and action-relentless science fiction novella that recalls the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs for its blunt physical action and many of John Wayne's films for its masculine/man's gotta do. . . tone. In it, two friends (Graham Pike and Roy Tulley) are kidnapped and shuttled (via portals) into other worlds, where they encounter strange creatures, slavers, warriors, queens and other bristling characters. Will they be able to return to Earth, whence they came? That question is secondary when survival is a moment-to-moment challenge.


(This review originally appeared on the Reading & Writing By Pub Light site.)