Reviews for The Last Spaceship

The average rating for The Last Spaceship based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-03 00:00:00 Ben Rawles Gem of Old-Fashioned Grand Space Op'ry. Murray Leinster (real name Will Jenkins) was one of the giants of Golden Age sf, and The Last Space Ship is a shining nugget. The hero, Kim Rendell, is a matter-transmitter technician, in an age when spaceships are largely obsolete and people travel between worlds by teleportation booths. He falls foul of the authorities when he discovers a dirty secret regarding the disciplinary circuit. This is a fiendish device which enables the exact location of any person can be instantly traced - and pain inflicted in any desired amount. Needless to say, governments love it. In practice, the circuit is used to block offenders from entering particular places, and the number of barred places steadily increased until eventually the entire planet is off limits. At this point (if not sooner) the offender can go to the matter transmitter and emigrate to another planet. Ostensibly he can go to any world of his choice, but Kim discovers that this is a lie. All offenders are transmitted to an exile planet called Ades. Things get personal when he learns just how the circuit can be abused. One of the planet's leaders takes a fancy to Dona, Kim's bride to be. When she rebuffs his approaches, he has her blocked in her quarters until she sees the light. Kim responds by inventing a device to nullify the circuit, but his activities are detected and he is himself blocked. However, he knows a way out. By one of those convenient coincidences, he is the grandson of the man who opened the planet to settlement and brought in the first matter transmitter, which of course had to be done by spaceship. The ship is now a museum exhibit, but remans his property so that by law he can't be blocked from it. He goes there and, by threatening to broadcast the details of his invention, blackmails the authorities into sending Dona to him, after which he is able to blast off. Fortunately for him the ship still has some fuel even after all these years. This, however, is only the start of the couple's problems. The authorities have contacted all nearby planets, whose rulers are equally opposed to Kim's subversive activities . Wherever they go, they come under attack with a death ray which is a beefed up version of the circuit. Kim has to put his skills to work and develop a new space drive which enables them to flee to the far side of the Galaxy. Yet wherever they go the worlds they find are even more dystopian than the one they left With the disciplinary circuit to enforce their rule, Neros and Caligulas have free rein. In the end, ronically, they have to take refuge on that very planet Ades to which he would have been exiled. There Kim starts scheming on how to settle the Second Galaxy.(unnamed but presumably Andromeda) beyond reach of the tyrants. End of Part One. In Part Two, however, he and the people of Ades have to focus more on a more immediate threat to their survival. It seems that a nearby planet is set on building an empire. It has modified the death rays to kill only males, and is going around wiping out the male populations of nearby worlds, so that its settlers can acquire ready-made harems. This is made even more alarming by the fact that the population of Ades is nine-tenths male! Our hero duly goes into action, but is distracted when a freak accident sends him and Dona shooting off to another Galaxy some 300 billion light years away (is the universe that big?) and they have to find a way back home. Being the Good Guys, needless to say they do, and Kim is able to scotch the Bad Guys with another invention. End of Part Two. In Part Three, however, another menace appears. While away in the Second Galaxy, Kim learns that the whole planet Ades has mysteriously disappeared. The planets which Ades has recently liberated are being snapped up by the tyrants of nearby worlds. The rest is devoted to Kim's efforts to identify whodunit and find yet another gizmo to thwart his wicked scheme. Said gizmo succeeds, and has the potential to set the First Galaxy on the road to eventual freedom. End of story. There are of course a few minor gripes. TLSS was written in 1949, and, seventy years on, the portrayal of women is apt to make many a 2020 reader squirm. Still, at least there are female characters, which there often weren't in sf of that vintage, and Dona is for the most part feisty and in Part Two at least an important character in her own right. We must be grateful for small mercies. Also, there's no explanation for the total absence of nonhuman life. Apparently, on reaching the stars, we just found the entire Galaxy to be virgin territory awaiting human settlement. But this is nitpicking. If you enjoy a plain old-fashioned space adventure story, this is definitely for you.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-07-16 00:00:00 Maria Borsch I thought the first 90 pages of this were quite good. Leinster creates a different kind of dystopian world with an interesting protagonist, and the conflicts were interesting enough to keep me reading. But the rest of the novel degenerates into one protracted space battle after another with the protagonist coming up with one gizmo after another to save the day.