2.5 stars
First Sentence: There was a moment so short that it had never been successfully measured, yet always far too long.
Thoughts: First off, let me present the soundtrack to this book to get you in the mood:
Science fiction is more often about the time it was written in than the future it claims to depict. That goes double for World of Ptavvs which depicted what the future would look like if society had never progressed past the 1960s. You’ll notice this within the first few pages because everyone—everyone—smokes like a chimney. Also California never passed strict emissions-control laws so there’s still constant smog over Los Angeles. (There is still smog, but it’s not like it was back in the 1960s.) Also also the main character’s wife exists only as a sex object to the extent that a freakin’ dolphin hits on her.
But that’s not what this book is about. What it is about is an alien creature discovered at the bottom of the ocean. A scientist posits that this alien may have some telepathic abilities, so he gets Larry Greenberg, one of the best human telepaths, to mind-meld with the alien to see why it’s been at the bottom of the ocean. This will forevermore be known as Mistake Number One.
This isn’t a friendly alien who just happened to make a wrong turn at Neptune. No, this is a classic golden-age sci-fi alien who wants to enslave all humans and take over the solar system. We actually meet this alien in the beginning of the story when his spaceship goes kerflooey. His name is Kzanol and he’s a Thrin, a species that has enslaved most of the known galaxy with its telepathic powers. Kzanol, realizing that he’s in trouble, get himself into a stasis suit and then stuffs his most valuable possessions in his spare suit. He programs the ship to land on a nearby food planet and hits the stasis button.
Two billion years later, Kzanol is dredged up from the ocean floor. Those stasis suits really last.
So back to Larry Greenberg. When he links with Kzanol, he loses control of his own mind. Kzanol, now controlling Larry’s body, breaks out of the stasis cube and begins wreaking havoc. He steals a flying car and heads off to the St. Louis spaceport. It was on this trip that he realized how long he’d been out. Enraged, Kzanol takes over the minds of a spaceship crew and steals a ship. His destination? Neptune, where his spare suit had crashed. One of the prized possessions he stuffed in the suit was a helmet that enhanced his telepathic abilities so he could enslave an entire planet.
Obviously the humans aren’t going to stand for that kind of nonsense! A team from Earth and another team from the asteroid belt head off after Kzanol/Greenberg to thwart his/their perfidious plans. It’s all very exciting but I got confused halfway through the chase when another Thrin showed up and then it wasn’t clear if Larry or Kzanol was in charge and honestly I was just glad it ended when it did. But can anyone tell me what role the dolphins played in the denouement?
The Eclectic Reviewer 