Swordships of Scorpio

Sword and Planet Fiction at its best. Fast-paced entertaining reads. Rereading this series nearly 50 years after the first book's publication, I was surprised at how well they held up and at the erudition and learning of the author. For "pulp" fiction, the vocabulary is rich and rewarding to logophiles like myself. I purchased the ebook omnibus editions for my reread of the series to facilitate dictionary and web access to definitions and references to 19th century history and the Age of Sail -- since I am a student of history as well. However, this is not necessary for the causal reader who desires only the pleasure of the experience, just as enjoying a delicious meal does not require knowing the precise recipe. The marvelous interior show more illustrations are the added seasoning (and only present in these original paperback editions). show less

This book shows some slight signs of improvement over its predecessors. It is the fourth of the initial cycle of five in the dozens of Dray Prescott sword-and-planet books. Many otherworldly swashes are buckled in this one, but it seems that towards the end of it the narrative starts to acquire a wry sense of humor, striking off in a direction that just barely reminded me--however faintly--of James Branch Cabell.

Early on, the author provides a stunning discontinuity, where he inserts his protagonist into a desperate cliffhanger of a situation, and then simply jumps forward to a point well after its unexplained resolution, chalking up the lacuna to a gap in the audio tapes which were his supposed source material! This lackadaisical show more approach to yarn-spinning is why I'm not pursuing these books with much zeal, and I lack confidence that the next book (ending the "Delian Cycle") will even arrive at a satisfactory climax. show less

This is the 4th book in the Dray Prescot series. It opens with Dray taking the shoelace express, rather, the black boot express, all the way to Vallia. On his way there, Dray has a very brief encounter with a gang of psychedelic lizards riding lizards and finds himself trapped in an almost impossible way before unexpectedly the story takes a rather hard turn with Dray waking up, hungover in a rented room above a bar.

Now A.B.A. explains that the tapes in which he's transcribing the Dray tales becomes garbled and undecipherable. In my most honest and humbled opinion, I believe A.B.A. wrote himself into a corner and instead of figuring out how to help Dray fight his way out of the Phokay death pit, he simply just stops writing about that show more and starts writing about something else? Brilliant! Or, he'll surprise us with that tale in a later book?

The story then takes a turn towards young Pando and his illustrious mother Tilda as Dray helps them reclaim a lost throne and place the rightful heir to the kingdom of Tomboram. Much like the last 3 books, Swordships of Scorpio is action packed, filled with women swooning over Dray and him completely shutting them down, and Dray saving the day in the end.

Now, for book 5! show less