Druids' World

Annwn #1

by George Henry Smith

"Adam MacBride is the stiff backbone of a sprawling empire, his Empress is smart but acts dumb. When the novel begins MacBride has set his mine to retiring home to his fjords and his three wives and only an imminent threat to his beloved fleet and his unwarranted loyalty to his Empire keep him from returning home immediately. This novel is jammed to the rafters with swashbuckling action, ship-to-ship broadsides, many volleys of grapeshot, at least two rebellions and sickle wielding druids. What’s not to love? All these elements swirl about in a swift but realtively simple plot. I love the way this book was written, it’s small but denser than a neutron star. My guess, George H. Smith had just finished reading a stack of history books before sitting down to write this rollicking hodge-podge of science fiction, pre-Roman religion, and 18th century Imperialism. Druid’s World is a scattered but worthy listen – the kind of pulpy material you can crave on dark winter evenings. Druid’s World could happily sit on your audiobook shelf between The Green Odyssey and Star Surgeon . Druid’s World was the first book in Smith’s “Annwn” series." - SFF Audio

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Early novels were risque (with lurid covers), but later moved to writing science fiction.

Not to be confused with George O. Smith, another SF writer.

Also used the following psuedonyms:
Clancy O'Brien
George Hudson Smith
Jan Smith
Jerry Jason
Hal Stryker
Jan Hudson

BUT... not to be confused with Jan Hudson who wrote young adult novels, a female author from Canada. She wrote Sweetgrass and Dawn Rider and was born in 1954 in Calgary Alberta.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this as part of A Galaxy Trilogy: Star Ways, Druid's World and The Day the World Stopped. I'm going to review each book individually & put a link to the review in the overall trilogy. My overall review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...

This was the first I listened to. It was a fantasy, first published in 1967. I would have guessed a decade earlier & wasn't particularly impressed. I thought these were supposed to be SF. There is a mention of dimensions, but it basically took the Arthurian legend, mixed it up with Rome, some sword & sorcery, & then had a heroic figure who fixed the problems. There was never any doubt that he could do so either. Ugh.

The writing technically wasn't bad & the reader was pretty good, so I made it through it. I won't be looking for more by this author, though.

[Jared · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a pretty high tolerance for pulp science fiction, in fact, I actually love some of it. But this book was absolutely everything wrong with pulp sci-fi. Dumb characters, vague world-building, random plot and cheesey dialogue made this one a chore to finish.

[Mr. Mustela frenata · Rating 2 out of 5]

3.26

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it a bit convoluted and jumbled together mashup.