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Mindflight A World Called Solitude ... And Not Make Dreams Your Master Rehumanization of Jade Darcy Novels/Collections : reviews Stephen Goldin. Assault on the Gods . Legend. 1977 Review: Captain Ardeva Korell discovers that the downtrodden natives of Dascham have good reason to fear and obey their oppressive gods, when she witnesses an angel blast one of her crew to ash for blasphemy. Then a rebellious native seeks sanctuary on her ship, promising a reward for taking him to the "demons" who can help vanquish the gods. Piecing together the story, the crew realise the gods are probably early settlers, keeping the natives in thrall through advanced technology. Larramac, the ship's owner, scents a profit, and decides to assault the gods directly, despite the Captain's protests. This is good old-fashioned SF, with a motley crew of five taking on an entire mountainful of gods, or at least high tech. Some of the old-fashioned-ness and naivety grates a little, and, as ever, the tech hasn't stood the test of time. But the attacks of the killer robot-angels are quite fun. And the plot structure drops into the action from the start, filling in back-story with flashbacks, or omitting it all together, which helps move the story on. One bit of this backstory, and the most interesting part of the book, is the extreme rationalist philosophy of Dev's home planet, probably a variant of the | |
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