Book Review: The Planet Explorer by Murray Leinster
This “novel” is more of a story cycle, a set of four novelettes about the career of Bordman, an officer of Colonial Survey (“Colonial Survey” being the title this collection was first published under.) It’s set in a future where humanity is constantly expanding through the galaxy. There’s faster than light travel (thirty light-years takes about four months subjective time) but not FTL communication. There’s some reasonably-habitable planets, but most require some work, and reasons to settle on planets that are barely survivable. Humanity’s population is ever-growing, so they are constantly looking for new colonies. Colonial Survey’s job is making sure new prospective colonies are in fact ready for normal people to come and live in them.
These stories were originally published in Astounding in 1956, and somewhat modified for this collected edition.
“Solar Constant” finds Bordman on his first mission as a Senior Agent and thus in charge. Lani III is an ice-world, roughly like Antarctica at its most habitable. With the relatively advanced technology of this era, that’s not a deal-killer. But their parent world, Lani II, sends bad news. A once-in-a-million-years matchup of sunspot cycles means that the amount of solar energy sent out by their sun is dropping rapidly. Within a year or two, Lani II will be completely frozen over, and Lani III will be worse off. It’ll be at least a decade before the star returns to a normal output.
Bordman would be able to escape on the scheduled Survey ship in a few weeks, but he’s fallen in love with a young woman of the colony, and made friends here. And of course, the millions of people he doesn’t know who will die. There has to be a way to save Lani III and Lani II!
There is, of course. Bordman uses the technology available and basic scientific principles to guide the colonists in a way of saving themselves. He tries to resign from the Survey to marry his sweetheart, but by the time the relief ship arrives, there’s an emergency on another colony and he’s the only agent in range, so he has to go.
This is very much a standard story for Astounding of the time period; heavy emphasis on hard science, and character development and emotions taking a back seat to the engineering problem. It’s never stated that the Colonial Survey is exclusively male, but we never see a female agent in this series.
“Sand Doom” takes place a few years later (after Bordman has in fact managed to marry and have children but still is seldom home) as our hero comes to Xosa II. This planet is a sand world like Tatooine, and the crisis is that the nearly-completed landing/launching field has been covered in about a mile of sand. Even if they can find some way of digging it out, how will they keep it from being buried again?
This story has some problematic elements. In this future, humanity has sorted itself into “races” by ancestral bloodline, and each race tends to settle on planets with climates suitable for their ancient cultures. There is of course some overlap as different races are “just naturally” better at certain occupations than others, plus able to survive in different conditions. So Xosa II’s development team is “Amerinds” and “Africans” who handle construction and mining. They are able to survive okay on this desert planet with minimal protection while Bordman, who is apparently the palest of Anglos, needs a special life-support suit just to walk outside in the dry heat.
I can tell that Mr. Leinster is being very “respectful of all peoples” by his own lights, and it probably went over with the mostly white readers in the 1950s, but hoo boy does this set off alarm bells for a 21st Century reader.
It’s also notable that Amerind historian Aletha Redfeather has clearly figured out how to solve at least part of the problem, but rather than just telling Bordman, which might offend him as a man, she tells a “friend of a friend” story to give him a hint.
“Combat Team” (originally published in Astounding as “Exploration Team” under which title it won a Hugo) switches things up a bit as the viewpoint character is a man named Huyghens who is illegally living on Loren II. He’s shocked when Colonial Survey suddenly radios him to announce they’re dropping off a Senior Agent at his location. This agent turns out to be Bordman, who’s now a very experienced operative.
Loren II turns out to be off-limits to colonization due to the insanely hostile wildlife. Huyghens has been sent with a team of Kodiak bears (that have been bred for a mutation that makes them domesticable) and an eagle to prove that people from his overcrowded world can in fact live there. Yes, it’s illegal, but the people behind him are hoping to present it to Colonial Survey as a fait accompli.
Bordman explains that Colonial Survey had authorized an experimental colony on Loren II that would be protected by robot guards and workers. He was supposed to be dropped off there for an inspection, but the captain of the Survey ship apparently decided that the only working radio set on the planet had to be them.
Huyghens opines that the robot-guarded colony is probably all dead, but checks local radio waves, and there’s a faint SOS coming in. There’s nothing for it but Huyghens and Bordman making a hazardous cross-country trek to see if there are actually survivors.
Huyghens makes some possibly valid points in his disdain for robots, while they can be well-programmed, they can never exceed that programming (no AI here!) Plus, if you are served by robots, you have to arrange your life around the robot servants. (Have you had to rearrange your furniture to make the floor accessible to your Roomba ™? Imagine that on a culture-wide level.) He prefers partnering with animals as a true team.
When the team reaches the other base, there are a couple of shell-shocked survivors, because they were underground when the apex predators attacked and the robots were unable to stop it. Bordman decides to use exact words in his report to Colonial Survey to make sure that Huyghens and his people will have a fair chance to colonize Loren II.
Happy ending? Well, Huyghens’ plan for dealing with the apex predators is to poison their breeding grounds and drive them to extinction, and no one brings up the effects that might have on the ecology. There’s no intelligent aliens in this series, but also no consideration for what happens to local animals or plant life.
Still, this is great manly adventure stuff, and the best story in the book.
“The Swamp Was Upside Down” has Bordman as one of the most senior of Senior Agents, called back to Sector HQ on Canna III as they are facing their own crisis. Canna III is an ocean planet, with HQ built on the one sizable island not under an ice cap; Survey had put the headquarters here as it was not a place people would normally colonize. But the need for support staff, and people to support them, and their families, etc. means that there’s a substantial civilian population.
Due to over irrigation by the civilians and the unusual geology of the island, the topsoil and all the buildings on it are in danger of sliding into the sea. In theory, the civilians could be temporarily housed on the un-irrigated Survey base while a solution is found, but a mistake in storage has turned the groundwater below that location into an explosive that could go off at any major vibration.
Of course, these problems are the solution to each other as soon as Bordman thinks it through.
A major subplot is Bordman mentoring a junior Agent, Barnes, who’s stuck on the planet with him, turning him from a snotty orders-follower into someone who can think for himself but knows when that’s appropriate.
The book closes with Bordman becoming Sector Chief himself, and finally able to be with his family full time.
Overall, this is a fine book of its type and time, but that second story is dated even worse than usual for Fifties SF. If you’re okay with that, you should be able to find a used paperback cheaply with a little effort.
