Much of
Golden Age science fiction is bound up in the pseudo-scientific, quasi
fantastic renderings of heroic frontier stories set in space. The market demanding a large quantity of such
stories, sub-genres split off—planetary romance/adventure, lost in space, alien
attack, among them. Another branch which
sprouted was in the world of merchants and traders of extra-terrestrial
goods. It is in this minor vein that
Andre Norton published her Solar Queen series.
Planetary adventure mixed with the legalities, economies, and rivalries
of interstellar trade, the second of these books Plague Ship (1956) is the subject of this review.
Plague Ship is the story of the freighter Solar Queen and the trouble she gets
into on the planet Sargol. Part of the
Free Traders union, the crew establish initial contact with the clan-like
Salariki, and thus claim the right to be the only group allowed to trade for
their precious Koros stones and valuable timber. But when a rival merchant illegally butts in,
tempers flare. A Salariki family drama
playing out simultaneously, dragging the Free Traders and their rivals into a
fray, Dane Thorson, Ollie, Rick, and other crew of the Solar Queen are lucky to get off planet with the hold full of the
valuable wood. But as crew members start
to come down with symptoms of illness and drop into incapacity, it seems
their troubles are only beginning.
