Gath is a backwater planet on the edge of the galaxy, renowned for one thing: the magnificent majesty of its violent storm season. Now, as the storms begin to brew, a strange cast of characters have come to Gath and all for different reasons. The Monks of the Universal Brotherhood have come seeking lost souls. The psychopathic Prince Emmened has come seeking a new sensual experience. The Matriarch of Kund has come fleeing the threat of assassination. What of the mysterious man traveling . . . with a coffin as his only luggage? And then there’s Earl Dumarest, a man roaming the galaxy on a secret mission, a man without a home, a man who has washed up on Gath at just the right (or possibly the wrong) time. And now . . . the winds of Gath are beginning to blow . . .
So, this good old fashioned pulp and it is pulp that knows what it is and has no pretensions to being much other than a fast-paced, high-energy adventure. Tubb’s world-building sets things apart from the crowd in my opinion. He’s crafted an interesting universe and he gives us glimpses of new technology and strange idiosyncrasies of this version of the future, not all at once in an infodump, but organically as they come up in the story. This is the first book in a series focused on Earl Dumarest and his journeys; the series eventually ran to over thirty novels and, frankly, I can see why. This is sharply written and exciting stuff. The plot never slows down really, but at the same time, Tubb is able to invest a lot of supporting characters with real personality. Tubb has a good ear for dialogue and he’s able to lay out a lot about a character just by the way they talk. This book is under two-hundred pages and I blew through it in about a day and a half and had a blast. I’m rather put in mind of Edgar Rice Burroughs, one of the only writers to really elevate pulp into its own kind of artform; Tubb’s work is brisker than Burroughs, though it does have some of the romanticism of the John Carter series as well. I absolutely loved this book, all things considered, and it’s the most pure fun I’ve had with a novel in ages. I’m going to be following Earl Dumarest on his journey, I think. I don’t know how long I’ll stick with him or where we’ll end up. But the trip is going to be a blast. 4 stars.
tl;dr – unpretentious pulp is sharply written, well characterized and wildly entertaining; pulp can be elevated to an art form and it is here. 4 stars.