Opinions on the Obscure, Off-Beat, and Outdated

World of the Starwolves

Hello and welcome, weary wayfarers, once again, to the wide and wonderful
world of the willfully wacky and wantonly weird where one would wander wherever they
want without worry or woe! Wow! I’d wager you’re wondering what’s up with all the
words beginning with “wuh”. Well… why wonder? What’s it gonna get get ya? Worry
warts, I’d warrant. Well wonder no more! Would seem it was no more than a wild whim.
What can I say, I’m just full of…whimsy.
Shifting gears from that neat bit of alliterative allegory to our odd article…
So, it occurred to me the other day that, hey! Abandoned Towers is supposed to be
a zine for readers, and here I am talking about movies and music and stuff. So, just to
show off what a literary guy I am, I’ve decided to do a little review on a book. First, I
shall share with you the complicated and thoughtful process that went into finding the
book. It went something like this:
My Poor Old Mother (™ ©) bugged me for about two weeks to take her to one of
the local second-hand book stores, and I ran out of excuses, so off we went. So, I’m
minding my own business over in the Fantasy and Science-Fiction section, scanning
through titles and authors half-looking for a few specific items when, lo and behold! I spy
the title: Starwolf #3: World of the Starwolves. Like WOW! Tell me that doesn’t sound
like a B-movie matinee at the drive-in, I dare ya! Written by some guy called Edmond
Hamilton, but that name meant nothing to me. So I look at the front cover, painted by
Jack Gaughan. Yup, some guy in a black armored-looking spacesuit with a horned space-
helmet sitting in some kind of control seat surrounded by a complicated configuration of
fancy levers, above him are a pair of elongated teardrop-shaped (well, more like bowling
pin-shaped) ships flying into the void leaving long lines of fiery exhaust behind them.
WOW again! It even LOOKS like a B-movie poster!
So, to make a long story short, I got the book.
I did some research, too, and found out that this guy Hamilton IS somebody in the
fields of science fiction and pulp magazines. He burst onto the writing scene with “The
Monster God of Mamurth,” which I actually read when it was reprinted in a rival
magazine a few years ago, accompanied by some cool pictures. Well, he quickly became
one of the heavy-hitters for Weird Tales back in the day, alongside H.P. Lovecraft and
Robert E. Howard. In fact, between 1926 and 1948, Weird Tales published 79 of his
stories, making him one of their most productive contributors. The only two authors who
appeared in their contents more frequently were Seabury Quinn and August Derleth.
But that’s not all! He wrote for all of the sci-fi magazines of the time, and for
many of the horror and thriller magazines as well. During the Great Depression he also
wrote some detective and crime stories. Apparently, it was not uncommon for him to have
multiple stories in a single issue of various magazines; though only one would bear his
name and the others were credited to pen names.
He also helped shape the sub-genre of ‘space opera’, along with the highly
respected E.E. “Doc” Smith. Hamilton is also credited as publishing the first hardback
compilation of science fiction stories in “The Horror on the Asteroid and Other Tales of
Planetary Horror” in 1936. This seems to be a compilation of stories previously
published in magazines. He is also credited as the ‘primary force’ behind Captain Future,
a sci-fi pulp aimed at younger readers. Then, in 1946, he began writing for DC Comics,
primarily writing stories for Superman and Batman, but some others as well.
In December of 1946 he married another ‘Somebody’ in the field of science
fiction: Leigh Brackett. It seems to be generally agreed and accepted that he wrote some
of best works due to her influence and collaborations. They worked side-by-side for a
quarter century, but their only formal collaborative work was Stark and the Star Kings.
When Brackett essentially left prose for screenwriting, Hamilton made an uncredited
revision and expansion of two of Brackett’s earlier works: Queen of the Martian
Catacombs (revised as The Secret of Sinharat) and Black Amazon of Mars (revised as
The People of the Talisman).
Sadly, Edmond Hamilton died in 1977 from complications following a kidney
operation. But, you can find out (a little) more information on him, and his complete
bibliography with a few simple web-searches.
Now (finally!) on to the book! Fair warning! This is a Space Opera book! This is
NOT Hard Science Fiction! This is the good, old-fashioned sort of Space Opera,
unhindered by too many scientific facts! It’s a two-fisted action tale in space where no
thought is given to how the fantastical machinery might work! You know, it’s the GOOD
stuff!
It’s the third book in the Starwolf series, but don’t worry, it’s not the sort of series
where you have to read all the books to know what’s going on. This book, at least, seems
to be its own thing, and can be enjoyed without the rest of the series. It’s only a series
because they are all about the same guy.
That guy is Morgan Chane. He is a human who was raised on the alien world of
Varna. His father was a missionary, sent to convert the indigenous aliens: the Starwolves.
Well, the Starwolves, as a race, are basically just intergalactic bandits. They fly out into
space and plunder other worlds. That’s how they exist. It’s what they do.
Morgan Chane grew up among them and eventually left because he got into a
fight with a Starwolf who wanted his share of the plunder; now that Starwolf’s whole
Clan is gunnin’ for him!
Since then, Morgan Chane, sometimes known as The Starwolf, joined up with a
group of human mercenaries who wander the galaxy doing various deeds to reap the
rewards. But all that seems to have occurred before the start of this story. I’m not sure
how much—or if any—of this is conveyed in the first two books.
The leader of his mercenary band, John Dilullo, had retired to Earth, content to
build a house and live out the remainder of his years… But then Morgan Chane shows
up, with hot news about a set of forty artificial gems—the Singing Suns—having been
stolen from their owners, and the magnificent reward being offered for their return…
So, Chane and Dilullo get a small team together and a ship and head out into
space to retrieve the Singing Suns and return them for the reward. Now, I’m a little fuzzy
on just who they thought would be watching, but they were trying to pass themselves off
as miners, and made a big show of mining some asteroids.
Now, you know how the galaxy is a big ball with long swirling arms on each
side? Kinda looks like its being sucked down the drain? Well, they flew OUT of the spiral
arm, through the Great Empty Void and over to the next spiral arm. I know that doesn’t
sound like a big deal the way I just worded it, but, believe me, there was a LOT of
tension about doing it. After all, those asteroids they were mining was the last rest stop
for about four-thousand light years, or something, and if it had been later than Chapter
Three, I would have been really worried about whether or not they made it!
Anyway, they get over to the other spiral arm, called the Argo Spur, and head for
a civilized planet to sell the minerals they mined and collect some information. They
learn that the Singing Suns were split up and sold in an incomplete group! So, they start
tracking down the individual gems…
That’s how they find out that all the gems were purchased by various agents of the
greedy and xenophobic Qajars. The Qajars live, unpublicized, on an uncharted world in a
dead star system. They’re clever and paranoid. They collect the treasures of the universe
and hide them away on their planet. Then, they build up all these defenses to protect
them: nifty pain-rays, and booby-traps galore! The best of these booby-traps is the
surrounding solar system—they mined out some of the surrounding worlds and filled
them with explosive elements so that the whole system is a minefield!
Well, with a weak cover story and a borrowed scout ship from a dubious ally (the
best kind in a space opera!) Chane and Dilullo try to fly into Qajar, but the paranoid
aliens zap them with their pain-ray which darn near kills the older Dilullo and even takes
down Chane despite his mighty Starwolf stamina! They manage to return to their dubious
ally, who locks them up just in case the Qajars come looking for them.
Except, of course, that the whole pain-ray fiasco has ticked off Chane royally.
He’s decided he wants revenge against the Qajars, and the best way to hurt them is to take
away their oh-so-prized treasures. So our man Chane breaks out of his comfortable
prison, hijacks a ship, and heads straight for Varna, the world of the Starwolves.
He runs into a lot of people he used to know, and most of them are glad to see
him. The only ones who aren’t are members of the clan that’s out to kill him. Fortunately,
he knows enough about Starwolf politics to stall his duels to the death long enough to tell
the Starwolves about the vast treasures hidden on Qajar…and how he can lead them
straight to it.
They go for it, of course. But the raid is being led by a member of the feuding
clan, and Chane gets put on his ship, under his command, with his crew of relatives.
Now, I don’t really want to ruin the end for ya. Just in case you decide to track
down the book and read it. But, he’s still got a lot of obstacles to get through: he’s got to
find the Singing Suns, smuggle them off Qajar without losing them to the Starwolves, get
away from the Starwolf clan that wants to kill him, AND rescue Dilullo and the rest of his
human crew from the dubious ally/Qajar agent holding them. Whew!
But if you do want to track down World of the Starwolves you can find it on
Amazon, or Half.com, and probably some other book buying/exchange sites. A quick
web-search should get you there. You can also find the first two Starwolf novels and other
books by Edmond Hamilton.
Like I say, it may not be the most sophisticated story around, but it was a lot of
fun! There were parts that could have been expanded, some parts that probably could’ve
had some more detail about this or that… The book is only 158 pages long, I know that if
it was written today it would be at least twice that! But that’s not really important,
because what it Is is the sort of sci-fi that made us all fall in love with sci-fi in the first
place. Its good stuff and a pleasant way to kill some time. What more do you want from a
story?
 Oh yeah, I’m supposed to give out a rating score according to my Well-Thought-
Out and Totally Scientific Rating Method. Ok, I got my bag of D&D dice right here! And
a quick roll of the percentage dice will show us the rating. For those of you who don’t
play D&D, or some other RPG that uses percentage dice, I should explain that a double-0
equals 100%, the top-of-the-top and the cream-of-the-crop. While a 0-1 is the bottom of
the heap, not worth your time, not even worth spitting on in spite, just turn and ignore it,
walk away briskly and try to pretend it doesn’t even exist. Got that? Good!

Well, I rolled a 71. Hmm, when I was in school that was a “D”. But the way
schools keep lowering their standards that’s, what, a “B-“ these days? Hey, that’s not too
bad! I can live with that!
But, hey! You don’t have to take my word for it! In fact, you probably shouldn’t!
We’ve already established that I’m full of…whimsy. So, instead, read the book yourself
and draw your own conclusions! Feel free to share them on the good ol Abandoned
Towers message forums
Well, folks, I guess that’s all the news that is news! …Some news, “Oddcube
finally read a book!” Oh well, see you next month, same time, same page! Be there and
be square!

-----Your Buddy, Oddcube