The Door Through Space

Another quick SF novel that reminds one of reading as an adolescent. There's not much to say about plot or characterization--it's a yarn, the men are butch, the women sexualized, and much resolves too neatly and quickly at the end. I most enjoyed the details of the landscapes, and the guilty pleasure of not caring very much about the writing or story. It's a cotton-candy novel, and sometimes that's enough.

The Door Through Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I read this; because it was there. Well, it's written by Marion Zimmer Bradley and its one of the first novels of her's that was published. I loved The Colors of Space but honestly did not read much more than that because her stories seemed predominantly fantasy and at the time I was reading science fiction.

I'm almost sorry I haven't read more of her's- the good thing is that enough is out there I might still have time.

The Door Through Space demonstrates that she had a lot of talent coming out of the gate.

The story starts on the planet known as Wolf. The reader is introduced to Race Cargill former intelligence agent of the Terran Secret Service. He's at the spaceport in Kharsa and in the show more first chapter we are introduced to the natives much of the political situation and some of the back-story of Cargill all through the movement of a mob chasing a dwarf who appears to be peddling toys. And the reader is introduced to a mystery when the dwarf disappears while Cargill is trying to calm the natives, using his skill at speaking in their language. All of this is in the first short chapter.

Cargill is intent on leaving Wolf on the next Star-ship. He's ready to go and on the ship waiting when he's pulled off by his employer who has one more job for him. This job involves a traitor named Rakhal. Rakhal had been a fellow agent. When he turned native he left with Race's sister Juli and he disfigured Race's face. Race has since been at a desk job and he has no desire or ambition to seek after Rakhal or to kill his own brother in law. The problem is that Juli has come back and she's desperate to have Race find Rakhal and bring back her own daughter to her.

If that's not enough Race finds out that Rakhal has been pursuing the possibility that someone on Wolf might possess a matter transmitter. If that's true then Terran Intelligence needs to be on top of it.

One more time Race Cargill must go undercover to find his niece and try to secure the matter transmitter.

This is a tightly written tale that has survived the test of time and still stands as an intriguing story that keeps the reader on their toes and involved to the very end.

Guttenburg has this in kindle format and its easy to upload it from a pc into your que- I believe that's how I did it.

J.L. Dobias show less

I liked this book, even as it shows its age of more than half a century and the plot itself isn't the most innovative.

Wolf, the planet where the protagonist goes on his hunt for his niece and her father, has an abundance of characteristics that readers will remember for MZB's Darkover series. Darkover, on the other hand, is mentioned as a different world. This mismatch may seem jarring for readers who are acquainted with her work.

I consider this novel as something we rarely see in an author's work: a snapshot from right in the middle of the worldbuilding process. Many elements we see here in their raw form will appear later in another context, and I'd really like to know more about the thought process that evolved Wolf into the famous show more Darkover in the end. show less

This early MZB is more interesting for its insights into the origins of parts of Darkover than for the story itself. Even the name Darkover is in this book, and the beginnings of the Dry Towns. Other phrases and species are also there, but they are not what they would become in the Darkover novels. She hasn't quite got it yet, but the first signs are there.

Romance masquerading as a peculiar mix of fantasy and science fiction. Implausible plot, cardboard characters, and genteel bodice-ripping situations. The mind boggles at what passed for popular fiction in the old days.
Author's note by MZB indicates that she encountered the "old pulp science-fantasy magazines" at the age of 16, Began writing "straight science-fiction" but was glad to go back to writing about the "world we won't live to see."

This is a hard book to review - and in some ways that's my fault. This is one of MZB's very early books (it was first published 4 years before I was born), but I'm reading a reprint from after she died.

The story is, of itself, perfectly competently told and engaging. A Terran intelligence agent on a distant planet on which he has an awkward past having spent 10 years undercover gets called off the ship transporting him to another planet for one last mission - to rescue his niece his from the father he has a blood feud with.

The story skips along with that path, on a suitably alien planet with some suitably alien attitudes and adds some extra twists and turns along the way. All in all, it should be very satisfying.

But then the planet is show more called Wolf, but it has a red sun, a ghost wind, cat-people and ya-men, a red-headed psychic child, Dry Towns where they chain their women and suddenly it feels like a Darkover novel. There are differences, but they're small and fussy and they make it hard to take in - this book set in a totally new alien culture would have been much better I think, but a bit like speaking to an American who misuses English a bit, it's more jarring than speaking English to a French person where the missteps are much more common and so you accept them and go with them much more smoothly.

If I didn't know the Darkover books, or if the differences between Wolf and Darkover were bigger, or it was set on Darkover without the disguise, I'd be giving it more stars I think - if you want something quick and accessible in the series it's a decent enough place to start.

I also want to know if there was ever a series planned of the old empire... that spread the cat people, the ya-men and the like across planets with suns now gone red... but I guess we'll never know. show less

Not a bad story....just a bit dated as a re-issue of M.Z.Bradley's first novel from 1961. A mixed-species planet with many plots against humans--but has secret teleportation. It was probably a pretty good story when first published, but a bit stodgy for today. The hero has a vendetta for his old partner, but is forced by the Terran government to find & bring in said partner and it turns out that there are circumstances etc. and women--of various humanoid persuasions--that influence the plot. Today I would qualify this as a YA level story.