Reviews for Plague Ship

The average rating for Plague Ship based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-08-18 00:00:00 Brad Kesten Plague Ship by Andre Norton (North, Alice Mary Norton - Andre was a female writer) was first published in 1954 and is a great example of vintage Golden Age SF. Very much reminiscent of Heinlein juveniles or Frederik Pohl or especially Poul Anderson and his Polesotechnic League series featuring Nicholas Van Rjin (Norton has a character, a trader also, named Van Ryche - though Norton's Van Ryche does not come close to the personality of Van Rijn.) The second in her Dane Thorson / Solar Queen series, this describes a cargo ship on a distant planet that picks up an alien bug (?) and gets labeled a plague ship. Modern readers may see some similarities with Ridley Scott's Alien films, though Norton's 50s era aliens are no where near as scary. This was my first introduction to Norton's prolific canon and this is odd because I have something of a connection to her. Ms. Norton lived her final few years in Murfreesboro, TN where I work and spend most of my time. Many of the locals, some of my close friends included, remember her in the community. She was known for her devotion to her cats, and this feline affinity can be seen in some of her writing. A bit dated but a fun and entertaining SF book.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-04-22 00:00:00 Michelle Jennings Rating: 3.5* of five Why not more stars, as this is a sentimental favorite? Because I'm rereading it at closer-to-70-than-4o instead of closer-to-10-than-20. It's dated, of course, but it's still a thumping good read for its wonderful interconnectedness to the other parts of Norton's universe: the Forerunners, the Salariki (a catlike people from Planet Sargol), the gems so bewitchingly described...after all, gems are perfect high-value low-bulk trade goods...the horrible, misery-sowing religious professionals, the Patrol, the finny rockets. As I'm rereading at a time in life where I've had more and vastly enriching experiences translating ideas from page to screen, or at least trying to, I kept looking for the modern technology to slot into the story. It was surprisingly easy to do. Also surprisingly easy was gaying it up. When the Agatha Christie's Marple adapters showed the way to tart up a fairly drab story, by today's TV standards, was to chuck a gay subplot into it, I was galvanized. Heck fire, most of it was already there already! Like with Dame Agatha's stuff, Grand Master Norton's practically has footnotes saying "re-interpret this passage, 21st century storyteller" and wowee toledo does the Solar Queen (heh) have the goods. The cover of the edition I'm posting the review to is the one I had as a youth. The Kindle Megapack is more convenient, of course, but I still sigh wistfully at the laughable cover art from an era when we hadn't even been to the Moon yet. Had I been consulted, I'd've told Reed Hastings' people to skip rebooting Lost in Space (which was a dog in 1966 and is a prettier dog in 2018) and instead *make* an episodic entertainment of the Solar Queen chronicles. Someone should...all the elements are there. The youthful, handsome protagonist Dane leaving school, joining the crew he bonds with, growing as a man and as a trader with lurches forward and swattings backward. I don't know if modern (under-45) readers would have the patience to mentally update the old tech (space ships with mag-tape computers?!) but I'd say this series is a decent place to test the tepidarium of Papaw's stories.