Kevin B. O'Brien reviewed Getaway World by Edward Elmer Smith (Family d'Alembert #4)
Review of 'Getaway World' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This is the fourth in a 10 novel series which was mostly written by Stephen Goldin. Doc Smith wrote a novella called Imperial Stars which Goldin expanded into the first novel, and then Goldin wrote another 9 novels in a long story arc. But Smith is the famous one, so his name appears in large letters everywhere and Goldin is barely mentioned.
The setting is a universe where a Russian Feudal system has somehow become the dominant mode of government and of the language, so we see Russian words sprinkled throughout the conversations. Humanity has spread to a number of planets with varying characteristics. One of these is DesPlaines, a high gravity planet whose inhabitants have adapted by becoming shorter and stockier, and which has developed a unique attraction, The Circus of the Galaxy. What people don't know is that this circus is also a key part of the secret …
This is the fourth in a 10 novel series which was mostly written by Stephen Goldin. Doc Smith wrote a novella called Imperial Stars which Goldin expanded into the first novel, and then Goldin wrote another 9 novels in a long story arc. But Smith is the famous one, so his name appears in large letters everywhere and Goldin is barely mentioned.
The setting is a universe where a Russian Feudal system has somehow become the dominant mode of government and of the language, so we see Russian words sprinkled throughout the conversations. Humanity has spread to a number of planets with varying characteristics. One of these is DesPlaines, a high gravity planet whose inhabitants have adapted by becoming shorter and stockier, and which has developed a unique attraction, The Circus of the Galaxy. What people don't know is that this circus is also a key part of the secret service SOTE, the Service Of The Empire. This allows for an interesting twist for space opera, a series where the heroes do not have secret weapons or super powers, merely acrobatic training.
In this novel the threat they deal with is a number of mysterious disappearances of the major crooks in a number of worlds. They must be going somewhere, but where, and why? Jules and Yvette d'Alembert, top agents of SOTE, must infiltrate this world, find out who is doing this and why, and stop this plot. And just to make everything more difficult, the daughter of the head of SOTE, Helena, has decided to try her hand at field work by infiltrating the planet as well, so they also need to get her back and prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy. As the SOTE second-in-command, she has too much critical information. The book is fast-paced and a good combination of space opera with spy thriller. But since this a 10-novel story arc, each novel builds on what went before, so do not read them out of order.
