Feral Planet: Colonel Landry Series, 1

By Bryan Smith

GRAND CLASSIC SCIENCE-FICTION SPACE ADVENTURE IN THE TRADITION OF
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
STRANDED AND SURROUNDED!

--First In Bryan Smith's "Colonel Landry" Space Adventure Series.

It is the 25th Century. The space cruiser Beagle, under the command of Colonel Kendrick Landry, explores a planet ravaged by war millennia ago, now inhabited by hostile savage humanoids.

The Beagle is shot down and grounded by an ancient, mechanized planetary defense network created by an advanced civilization long pre-dating the humanoid savages. The humanoids abduct two women officers: the sexy and sultry Maya Terrazone and the bright but petulant Veronica Winters.

Colonel Landry leads a rescue party to find and bring back the two women with the help of Veronica’s pet telepathic alien tiger Jones. But if the women still live and Landry rescues them, can his group survive another crossing of the desert terrain--teeming with the savage humanoids--to return to the Beagle?

The humanoids are going extinct because long-ago biological warfare killed all the females. Can the Beagle genetic scientists create females to distract the savage male humanoids and permit the crew to make repairs and escape?

But even if the Beagle crew makes repairs and regains orbit around the planet, then the ancient planetary defense network may fire upon them a second--and likely fatal--final time.
GOLDEN WRITING, MEMORABLE CHARACTERS

A lean and flowing prose style. A well-crafted plot. Well-developed characters. The beautiful and temperamental Veronica Winters.The supremely sexual and tough while yet sensitive Maya Terrazone. Colonel Kendrick Landry is a supremely focused, capable, and yet vulnerable man. Still haunted by a near-death event of many years ago. The reader is drawn deep under his skin, and views the distant world of “Sigma Theta III” from his perspective as he struggles desperately to save his crew and himself from becoming hopelessly marooned and dying on the planet.

The novel creates a stark vision of determined men and women fighting for survival against overwhelming odds.

THE SCIENCE OF “FERAL PLANET”

Much of the Sci-Fi space adventure of today makes only routine and passing reference to such concepts as faster-than-light space travel and the “beaming” of characters from one location to another. Concepts that were staples of the Golden Age Sci-Fi of the 1950's and 1960's and provided inspiration for much filmography including of course the famous “Star Trek” franchise. Golden Age Sci-Fi coined the term “astrogation” for navigation in space. Later sci-fi defaulted to the term "navigator" (e.g. Mr. Sulu in Star Trek). "Feral Planet" adopts the terms "astrogation" and "astrogator" in part as a tribute to the Sci-Fi Golden Age.

“Feral Planet” gives particular attention to faster than light travel accomplished by way of “space warping” as written about in scientific journals by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. The novel provides detail as to how such processes might actually work.

A RENAISSANCE OF SPACE OPERA

"Feral Planet" harkens back to Science Fiction's Golden Age of such distinguished writers as Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and H. Beam Piper. Yet the novel achieves its own fresh modern originality.

Good Sci-Fi "Space Opera" has become a rarity today. But for lovers of the genre "Feral Planet" marks a fresh new resurgence of an old favorite.
The novel is compelling modern Sci-Fi Space Opera at its best.

"Feral Planet" will be a welcome relief for readers tired out of the contemporary vogue clichés of vampires, werewolves, dragons and princesses, galactic empires, and "star wars."

FIRST OF A SERIES

"Feral Planet" is the first in the Colonel Landry Space Adventure Series. Four other novels in the series are scheduled for release:

--Dome of Slavery
--Final Battle
--In Search of Kronos
--Amira, Warrior Queen of Crucib

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryan Smith
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310458682

Book preview