© 1973 by Andrew J. Offutt
This slim, 151-page SF paperback is the first in my current
detour in the “Quick Reads Long in the On-Deck Circle.” After War and Peace and a bunch of military
tomes on Napoleon and Richard Sharpe, I listed about a half-dozen of these
quickies for a side trip into nostalgia, reading mileage, and to get my science
fiction chops back. It was a pleasant read over six days, but I could’ve put it
away in half that time save for my daughter’s graduation and relatives flying
in and partying and dining out.
A short synopsis in honor of the novel’s shortness:
For nineteen years Earth has been locked in a brutal
territorial war with the Azulians. A space cruiser returning from the front
with refugees, casualties, and traumatized soldiers is hit by enemy fire and
all hands must abandon ship in three-man lifepods. One such pod containing
three burnt-out soldiers lands on the remote planet of Bor, whose civilization
is roughly akin to the Amish in late 19th-century America.
Rinegar is fifty-ish, a telepath, who spied with his
wife among the Azulians. She was caught and tortured to death and now he’s a hollow
shell of his former self. The other two are Bernie, a thirty-something man who
has the ability to telepath short distances, and Cory, a teen girl who has
powers of telekinesis, both also suffering war fatigue. These are our heroes.
To make a living on Bor they become carnies. Yep, that’s
right. They join a traveling circus, using their abilities to gain fame and
fortune, to ferret out corruption and cheating among the fair, and to win over
the carnival’s owner. A year or two goes by and they have achieved near fame on
the planet as they await rescue that may or may not come.
Had I read this at age 11 or 12, I’d have eaten it up.
Loved it. It was amusing to read as an adult of a somewhat mature age, but it
did hearken a bit back at those feelings of wonder, of “falling into a story,” I
had all those decades ago. Ray Bradbury could’ve turned this into an instant
classic.
Then, quite suddenly, an Azulian ship lands on Bor.
Soon the hostile aliens begin abducting Borean youths
to be shipped off planet as slave labor. Our three protagonists are faced with
a dilemma: give up fame, fortune, and comfort, or re-join the war effort and
put an end to this pre-invasion of the Enemy.
All in all, I would have given it a solid B. It might
have been an A if I read it as a kid, but judging on the plot, the characters,
and giving credit that this gentle throwback of a novel actually pulled me in,
I give it a solid B. It would have been a B+ though, if not for the shocking,
abrupt, and surprising death of one of our main characters in the last two
pages! Perhaps Offutt was trying to bring some grit to the story. I dunno. Felt
out of place to me, so I had no choice but to sadly put that “+” back in the
writing desk drawer.
I don’t know much about Offutt. I could’ve sworn I’d
read at least one of his books before, which is probably why I picked it up in
the first place. But in reality I confused him with Chad Oliver, whose novel Shadows in the Sun I read eleven years
ago. Offutt has somewhat of a checkered past, in that in addition to an SF bibliography
of about twenty novels in the ’70s and ’80s, he also authored “at least 420
pornographic / erotic works under seventeen different pen names”, if Wikipedia is
to be trusted (no pun intended). He also penned a trio of Conan stories in his
travels.
All that aside, The
Galactic Rejects felt a bit like an overlong short story, but one that I
enjoyed nevertheless. It would be interesting had Offutt did the expanded
universe to this book, as is done so much nowadays, as my curiosotiy had been
piqued by the Earthling-Azulian War.
