Treasure on Thunder Moon
By Edmond
Hamilton
Published
in Amazing Stories, 16 #2, April 1942
 |
| This world is a Red Zone. Literally. |
I’ve read and posted about other works by Edmond Hamilton
(here
and here).
Once again I find his work to be a breezy and enjoyable read, if one doesn’t
peer too closely at the ‘science’ underneath.
Treasure on Thunder Moon is
the most Traveller pulp sci-fi novel I have read to date. Let me count the ways
this sounds familiar . . .
The main character is John
North (a reference to Northwest Smith?), a 37 year old retired Space Officer.
He’s currently out of a job and looking for work. His gang of friends is in the
same boat – they’re all too old to work for the Company that monopolizes space
travel. They’re living at the scraping-by level in one of Earth’s starport
towns hoping to get lucky.
North, Peters, Steenie,
Dorak, Hansen, Connor, Whitey. We have our crew of PC veterans. These guys are
not in their 60’s and 70’s, but in their 30’s & 40’s.
Starport, check. Looking for
Patrons? Check. Long-term subsistence? Check.
The luck arrives in the
form of a young woman who happens to be the daughter of an old pal of theirs.
She wants their help, to crew a ship. Her destination is Oberon, one of the four moons of
Uranus. The plan is collect a treasure that her father discovered but couldn’t
recover.
Now we’ve got a Patron,
and a Rumor.
The treasure, by the way, is
a unique mineral. Levium has contra-gravity properties, so it is very valuable.
it is also a Macguffin.
Then they have a run-in with
reps from the Company who deny the girl’s claim to the ship she says belongs to
her. (Legal encounter?) North and the guys plan a Caper to steal the ship and
make a run for the treasure. The ship is an old decommissioned “12-man long
distance cruiser” on its way to the scrap yard.
The Caper is a success, and
they’re on their way to Uranus. The Company’s agents are not far behind,
though.
 |
| Original Illustration from Amazing Stories |
Along the way they perform a burial in space, as Peters meets his death in
the takeoff. I noted with satisfaction that it was, in form, a Christian
burial.
“. . . until such day as the last summons shall call from space its dead.”
They
make it to Uranus and land on Titania, one of her moons. Titania is a jungle
planet with a small frontier starport (Class D, I’d say) and a rough-and-tumble
startown.
On
Titania, North goes to a local tavern/nightclub to meet with a local shady
businessman. He has some specialty gear they’ll need. (See below)While there
North meets Nova Smith, a saloon showgirl. She ends up tagging along too.
Random encounter? Check. The Company man they dealt with on Earth appears again
too. He invites himself along for the expedition. NPC Henchman? Check.
To
the surprise of no-one but North and his mates, the shady businessman decides
to cut himself in on the deal. He hijacks the ship and takes the Patron
hostage. More of North’s crew get dead. They make it to Oberon. North displays
his Piloting skill by landing on the volcanically active surface, amid
lightning storms and super-heated updrafts.
 |
| Also the original illustration from Amazing Stories |
They
have to trek Across the Bright Face to reach the location of the treasure.
Along the way the local wildlife, a sort of hellhounds called Fieries, attack.
Animal Encounter? Check.
The
rest of the story is full of gambits, ploys, discoveries, complications,
dangers, reversals and last-minute rescues. The rescue came from a character I
didn’t expect, but that made it all the more satisfying.
I
enjoyed this story. Despite many of the story beats being predictable, Hamilton
still surprised me. North and company are sympathetic protagonists. There is
friendship, gentlemanly behavior and heroic sacrifice. The villain of the piece
gets a suitable comeuppance, and the good guys win.
Also,
his astronomy was accurate for the time. Oberon is actually quite cold, rather
than hot, but Hamilton couldn’t know that. Astronomers found the fifth moon,
Miranda, in 1948. Now there are 26 moons identified.
Am I right? Does this sound like a Traveller adventure, or not? What is your "most Traveller story"?
Am I right? Does this sound like a Traveller adventure, or not? What is your "most Traveller story"?
Equipment Inventory: Anti-heat gear
This device is an add-on to the vacc suit’s array of
gear. It creates “a blue nimbus of heat neutralizing force” that surrounds the
wearer from head to toe. It is capable of repelling temperatures up to 650 Fahrenheit.
Weight: 2kg TL: 9 Cr1500
Little specific information is given about the anti-heat
gear in the story. I assume the temperature limit because they wear lead
overshoes to weigh themselves down in Oberon’s light gravity. Lead melts at 621
Fahrenheit. The lead shoes are not said to have melted. Either that or Hamilton
forgot about that part.
Image credit: Lava
planet from Pixabay
Fieries: Amazing Stories
Takeoff: Amazing Stories
To me, the most Traveller stories are those that are either based on Traveller directly, which currently encompasses Firefly/Serenity, the Concordat novels of Jefferson Swycaffer, and the Chuck Gannon, Marc Miller, etc. novels that bear the actual trademark, or else those which Traveller was directly based on. The latter include the Dumarest novels of E.C. Tubb, which definitely show where the general rhythm of play of "arrive on a planet, find a patron who sends you on an adventure that pays for passage to the next planet" comes from, and perhaps Space Viking and related stories from H. Beam Piper, which illustrate what a "feudal technocracy" is, seem to describe the model for the Type C Mercenary Cruiser, and seem to be the source of several other elements.
ReplyDeleteThanks to your reviews, Mr, Weaver, I have been a a pulp magazine reading binge for the last six months or so. That's yet another thing I need to thank you for!
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