Sat 25 Sep 2021
Diary Review: POUL ANDERSON – The War of Two Worlds.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[6] Comments
POUL ANDERSON – The War of Two Worlds. Ace Double D-355, paperback, 1959. Novella. Published back to back with Threshold of Eternity, by John Brunner (reviewed here ). Cover by Ed Valigursky. Reprinted in The Worlds of Poul Anderson (Ace, paperback, 1974).
Aliens forced from Sirius instigate the Earth-Mars war by taking the form of top leaders of both sides, so that after the defeat of Earth by Mars, the conquest of both planets will be easier. An ex-spaceman returns to Earth after the war and becomes the object of a countrywide hunt after he learns the truth. The aliens are exposed after they believe he and his Martian friend have been killed.
A clever but obvious idea that ends much too easily. The best scenes are those of a conquered Earth under Martian rule. After the introduction of the aliens and their story, there is little left but the usual chase-and-hunt. Somehow should have been better.
Rating: ***
September 25th, 2021 at 9:21 pm
I agree it has a rushed feel, but no one did adventure in SF as well as Anderson most of the time.
September 25th, 2021 at 9:35 pm
I didn’t know this at the time, when I was reading Ace Double’s as if they were popcorn, but some at least were cut down to size to fit the format. I wonder if that’s what happened to this one. As my last line says, it should have been better.
September 26th, 2021 at 1:57 am
That, and some of the books had appeared as little more than novellas that maybe had been expanded a little from a magazine appearance in one form or another and got teamed with another novella to make up a Double, neither of which was a full blown novel to begin with.
I can’t recall, and don’t have this one at hand, but are either of these stories fully 50,000 words? I seem to recall some fairly wide margins and small pages of decent sized print in many Ace Doubles.
September 26th, 2021 at 9:55 pm
From ISFDb for this book:
“An estimation of the word count puts their number at below 33,000: thus, this is a novella by ISFDB standard.”
The page count is only 108; that for the Brunner half is 148.
September 28th, 2021 at 12:40 pm
I had this Ace Double at one time (where do these things go, anyway?) and read this. Being a Poul Anderson fan, I’m sure I liked it in my then typically non-critical way, easy resolution and all. I do like the cover.
September 28th, 2021 at 4:53 pm
Speaking of Ace Doubles in general, I’ve found as I’ve gotten older that the stories aren’t really as good as I thought they were when I was 15. I’m not saying that this one is one of them, but on the average I have a feeling that it’s true.