There are two major problems that I have with this novella. I will get into the worst first. I have seen a few accusations (after having read this book) about some of her works being suggestive of racism. I read this book first, and got that impression, before I checked online to see if others felt the same way I do. I did find some. James Nicoll Reviews wrote, "I really think Norton meant well when she decided to write this story (bless her heart!). You can see that she is trying to push back against the racist conventions of the era. Khatka is an advanced world!"
However, there's one key sentence that makes her racism beyond reasonable doubt:
...the white technicians they had kidnapped to run the ships didn't (thrive). (ch. 1)In other words, black people are too dumb to run the technical parts of a spaceship to make it to another planet. They have to kidnap others.
On the other hand, she does seem to see it as an injustice, the way Africans are treated, "... herded most of the natives into a giant concentration camp and practiced genocide on a grand scale." (ch. 1)
Most science fiction is a retelling of stories we tell about earth. That's what this is, but with blasters instead of revolvers, spaceships instead of oceanships, and drugs instead of herbs. Basically this is a battle between poachers and a sanctioned/licensed hunting group. In the mix, there are hallucinations that look like real lions, apes, and elephant-like creatures.
This story is a fast paced action story, and it has a lot of merit for it.
The other demerit I find in her writing thus far is the absence of women. There are no women at all in this story. Why didn't she write women or girls into her stories in a way that wasn't just a carrot to the ass (the protagonist)?
The motif of earth's basic destruction through war is reiterated in this book as has been done with the other two stories of hers that I have thus far read.
I recommend reading it, but keep the above in mind (or try to forget about it... up to you).
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