She tells him about how Spacers, according to Earth’s understanding, are irradiated inhuman monsters who capture women in order to force them to breed with the ranks of their subhuman army.

Upon being captured along with her brother, Tom Barron, Joyce begins to fight with Ben about the evils of the Spacers.

She is first introduced as a spirited person with strong viewpoints, so naturally her position as a captured bride-to-be would help to drive the plot, correct? True, Joyce does drive the plot, but merely to provide exposition for why Earthmen and Spacers dislike one another. For a narrative that relies so heavily on the history-keeping tradition of the Spacer women, it feels odd that individual women are not featured.īut what about Joyce Baron? Surely an Earth woman kidnapped by the main character for the purpose of being assimilated into the Spacer culture should have a prominent place in the story. As the reader makes their way through the book the characters start to feel flat as the society of the Spacers loses its sense of realness.Ī key example: roughly a third of the way through the book, I realized that, aside from Joyce Baron, there is not a single named female character even marginally involved in the story. Nourse creates a science fiction future that lacks essential human elements. Through an overuse of narration and a lack of actors Alan E. Raiders from the Rings isn’t a badly written book, but it lacks something that would have made it a truly good read: humanity. It will be up to Ben of the Martian house of Trefon and his two Earthling hostages, Joyce and Tom Barron, to keep their people from pyrrhic victories. Like the conflict that nearly wiped out humanity before, both Earthmen and Spacers seem to be on a trajectory of mutual destruction. But when a newly built secret Earth armada confronts a raiding party of Spacers, all out war is declared once again.

This space-bound society, appropriately called the Spacers, squeak out a living by occasionally raiding food stores and supply depots on the technologically-lagging Earth.

Nourse.įollowing a near cataclysmic world war, Earth has separated genetically and culturally from those who live out an exiled existence in space. Raiders from the Rings is latest story from experienced science fiction writer and physician Alan E. Avoiding the non-fiction section, and especially the news stand, I made my way to the science fiction shelves of my favorite book store and picked up a novel that had originally caught my attention back in April. After a short hiatus following the death of a dear family member I was in desperate need of some levity.

PRoblem by Alan E. Nourse