Wednesday, August 28, 2024

The Jester at Scar (Dumarest #5) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission


Title: The Jester at Scar
Series: Dumarest #5
Author: EC Tubb
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 176
Words: 54K


This felt extremely short, even though it was longer than the previous book, Kalin. Earl has his little adventure on Scar, the mold harvesting planet (yeah, it’s just disgusting) and then has the chance to go be a rich son of a gun on some no-name world and flips a coin. The coin goes against that choice, and the book ends. BAM. I was totally expecting him to go to the other world and have continuing adventures there in this book.

On the plus side, no naked ladies on the book cover. Or in the book either. The lady portrayed is the wife of the said Jester and she’s a snotty nosed blueblood who begins to learn that taking care of your people is what is important, not just ruling over them. That theme was done a bit heavy handed, but I had a bottle of bbq sauce on hand, so I swallowed the morality lesson without too much problem.

By this point, if I was Earl Dumarest, I’d give up on finding Earth and I’d go to war against the Cyclans. Every book they have either tried to kill him, have him killed or spiked his plans for finding Earth in one way or another. I’d try to find their secret homeworld and nuke their sicko little world of brain boxes into nothing. Given his success rate of staying alive on planets that just want to kill you, I think his chances would be pretty good. John Wick In Space!

Going to end with some more cover love. This series has some great art and I am just loving it. While I know they won’t last for the whole series, I am trying to enjoy each one as it comes along. Live in the moment as it were.



★★★✬☆


From Wikipedia.org
Dumarest finds himself on a planet with an economy based on transient labor harvesting spores of fungi valuable for different properties, which grow abundantly on a planet with rapid seasons. He must survive the natural hazards of the monsoon season, and prepare for the hazards of the harvest as many of the fungi are dangerous to lethal. Ultimately he is given a task, by the "Jester", that wins him freedom but costs him the fruits of his labor. He also confronts a Cyclan because they have become nemeses by this point in the saga. Dumarest's red ring is mentioned repeatedly in this novel.


No comments:

Post a Comment