The Hounds of Skaith

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The Hounds of Skaith, by Leigh Brackett

So hilariously bad.  Wow.

More fun on Skaith!  Stark and Ashton and company --which includes a pack of deadly Northhounds -- are heading south to try to get to Skeg, the only city on Skaith where spaceships are allowed to land, before the remnants of the Lords Protector can get there and close the spaceport forever.  Half the planet is in revolt and Stark has no compunction about encouraging the other half, through which he is traveling, to do the same.

There is a good deal of fairly interesting stuff on why the Lords Protector, as well as a bunch of other Skaithian peoples, want to get rid of the starships.  The government doesn't want to lose its slaves, but also they are all in a kind of culture shock.  It's only been ten or fifteen years since the population of Skaith found out about other planets and peoples, and many of them can't deal with it.  They'd prefer to pretend it didn't happen.  It's a bit like how the Krikkiters reacted to the same discovery!

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Skaith is packed with different kinds of people and tribes.  Besides your usual desert warrior nomads and such, there are groups that long ago did some genetic engineering on themselves to try to survive a dying planet, with varying degrees of success.  Amphibians, furry ice people, elvish cannibals, winged psychics, and really terrifying desert predators keep things interesting.  As the weather gets worse and resources dwindle, all these groups hate each other and fight endlessly over what's left.

Comments

  1. jrleekJanuary 11, 2018 at 9:02 AM

    Are you reading these out of the book I loaned you? I seem to remember some of these and not some others.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanJanuary 11, 2018 at 10:30 AM

    Yep. I gotta remember to give them back next time...

    ReplyDelete

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