Synopsis

After a planet had been seeded with primitive life forms from Earth, a spaceship of humans crash lands. 40 generations later, having descended into savagery forced on them by the incredible dangers of overgrown insects and fungi, Burl starts to learn to think and leads his tribe on a dangerous adventure across the landscape to find a safe place to live.

History

First publication: Gnome Press, 1954

Fix-up from “The Mad Planet,” “The Red Dust” and “Nightmare Planet.”

Review

This novel joins the three stories about Burl and his tribe into a cohesive novel. Very little was rewritten. Only enough to accomodate the newer story of the distant planet from Nightmare Planet. Otherwise it appears the stories were not changed. This causes the novel to have three obvious sections, each section containing a new odyssey through the landscape of the planet. While this does smooth the stories together a lot better, I still feel that Leinster should have left well enough alone after The Mad Planet. Enjoyable, but only for those who love the clunky classic SF pulp stories.