The Weapon From Beyond: Chane gang

The Weapon From Beyond by Edmond Hamilton

It would seem that I owe a very sincere apology to all my FanLit readers here. In my June 2017 review of Edmond Hamilton’s 1966 novel Doomstar, I mentioned that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sci-fi master, and as it turns out, that statement was far from being correct. One of the folks who saw that review, Dennis Burdette, was good enough to point out, 10 months later in that review’s Comments section, that Hamilton had indeed come out with more work shortly after Doomstar appeared … in fact, an entire trilogy of books! I have no idea how that trilogy had escaped my earlier awareness, and offer no excuses today for the oversight. But ever since Dennis’ revelation of that fact, I’ve been wanting to one day experience those three books. One of my favorite reads of 2024 had been Hamilton’s The Haunted Stars (1960), a wonderful novel that combined Golden Age plotting with the author’s more-sophisticated writing style of his later years. I’d been hankering for another dose of latter-day Hamilton ever since, and this trinity thus seemed made to order. The three books in question are the so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, and are comprised of the novels The Weapon From Beyond (1967), The Closed Worlds (1968) and World of the Starwolves (also 1968). For the sake of convenience, I will be examining the books individually here, starting, of course, with The Weapon From Beyond.

The Weapon From Beyond was originally released as a 50-cent Ace paperback here in the U.S. Internationally, the novel would see editions in Portugal (1967, under the title Arma do Alem, or The Weapon From Beyond), Italy (’68, as Il Lupo dei Cieli, or The Wolf of the Skies), Germany (’69, as Der Sternenwolf, or The Star Wolf, and featuring a beautifully faithful piece of cover art), Sweden (’70, as Vapnet Fran det Okanda, or The Weapon of the Unknown) and Japan (’70). For those readers today who might be desirous of purchasing the trilogy in one big volume, please know that such do exist: for example, the English-language ones from Ace, simply entitled Starwolf (’82, and the edition that I was happy to lay hands on), and the one from the British publisher Hamlyn/Arrow (‘85, also simply titled Starwolf).

Now, as for The Weapon From Beyond itself, the book was released when Hamilton was already 63 years old, and 10 years prior to his passing. The book is set in an indeterminate future age in which space flight and space commerce have been long established. Against this backdrop the reader is introduced to Morgan Chane, one of the piratical Starwolves of the planet Varna. Decades earlier, Chane’s parents had arrived on Varna from Earth as missionaries and had succumbed to the world’s heavy gravity. But Chane had somehow survived and had been taken in by the Starwolves there. But shortly before the events of this book commence, Morgan had had a falling out with one of his fellow raiders, Ssander, involving spoils following a foray. Chane had killed Ssander in self-defense, and as this Book #1 opens, he is fleeing from the vengeful Starwolves and attempting to hide his one-man cruiser in the gaseous murk of the parsecs-wide Corvus Nebula. His lot is made even worse when he espies another ship. If it is a cruiser belonging to the Starwolves, he is a dead man; if it is not, he will most assuredly be killed anyway, if his identity as a former Starwolf is discovered. And when his craft is damaged by a marble-sized bit of space junk, knocking out the ship’s drive, Morgan has no other choice than to suit up and, using hand-held impellers, try to make it to the mystery cruiser. Fortunately for him, the ship belongs to a band of mercenaries, the Mercs, whose leader, John Dilullo, although recognizing Chane for what he is, nevertheless gives him a chance to work along with them on their current mission … or else. And Morgan, a man without a friend in the world(s) and nothing else to do, has no choice but to concur.

Thus, before long, the Mercs land on the planet Kharal, in the Corvus Nebula, and take on their new assignment. It seems that the Kharalis’ enemies, the people of Vhol on the outer planet of their star system, have reportedly come into possession of a new kind of superweapon; one that is being developed somewhere in the immense nebula. The Mercs’ mission (if they choose to accept it) is to locate this new superweapon and then destroy it. After some tense days on Kharal, during which Chane is imprisoned and compelled to escape from a guarded jail cell, the Mercs make their way to the beautiful planet of Vhol to do some spying, under the guise of being purveyors of conventional armaments. More escapades ensue, after which the crew is compelled to fight their way off the planet and back into space. Casting about the nebula once again, the Mercs have the bad luck of running into a squadron of Starwolf cruisers, and since the space pirates are capable of zipping along at far greater velocities than any other ships in the galaxy (due to their ability to resist killing acceleration pressures), things begin to look very grim, indeed … and even worse, when a Vhollan cruiser joins the battle! But ultimately, Dilullo & Co., with Chane beside them – his identity still a secret from all but the Merc leader – do indeed find what they are looking for, on an unnamed planet in the Corvus Nebula. And, it would appear, this discovery will just be the prelude to some more jaw-dropping wonders…

The Weapon From Beyond, to its very great credit, is a book that features virtually nonstop action, movement and color all the way through. That elusive sense of wonder, so highly esteemed by readers during science fiction’s Golden Age, is very pronounced here, too. Hamilton, after six decades of nonstop productivity, had perfected a wonderfully readable style by this point, and the cliff-hanger chapters here seem to make those pages fly by. Besides the space travel, alien races and galactic commerce, Hamilton peppers his book with all manner of interesting futuristic touches. And so, we witness Chane being treated with a “healamp” to do away with a grievous wound sustained in battle; Chane employing a “miniaturized ato-flash” gizmo to cut through the bars in his jail cell; a portable analyzer whose “fingering rays” help examine the innards of the most arcane devices; and, of course, those nasty laser pistols that every race in the galaxy seems to favor. Adding to the exotic flavor of the book are the alien races that Hamilton gives us in this outing: the slender, seven-foot-tall, blue-skinned Kharalis; the albino Vhols; and the amber-skinned, seemingly jointless Krii, whose wrecked starship the Mercs discover on that nameless planet. Oh … and let’s not forget some of those interesting critters to be found on Vhol: the Pyam, a telepathic, turnip-shaped thing; the snokk, a wallabylike animal with a friendly, canine disposition; and the Golden Ones, enormous sea creatures far far larger than a Terran whale. No, we don’t get to see the Varnan Starwolves here – only their space cruisers – although one senses that they will surely make an appearance later in the trilogy.

Very few authors were capable of depicting space battles better than Edmond Hamilton (see such novels as 1929’s Outside the Universe and 1930’s The Universe Wreckers if you don’t believe me!), so it might seem strange that in this Book #1, the ship-to-ship engagements are present but considerably downplayed. Still, any number of exciting set pieces are to be had. Among them: the spacesuit-clad Chane adrift in that nebula, his cruiser having gone blooey, hoping against hope to be spotted and rescued; his escape from that jail cell in a mountain-city on Kharal; Chane breaking into a heavily guarded spaceport warehouse on Vhol, to see what has just been delivered from the heart of the nebula; the Mercs escaping from house detention on Vhol and fighting their way back to the ship; the attack of the Starwolves in the Corvus Nebula; the discovery of the Vhollan superweapon on the lost planet; the exploration of the derelict Krii ship; Chane and two other Mercs’ scaling of a precipice to fire a laser weapon at two Vhollan heavy cruisers; and finally, the arrival of the Krii themselves, in a scene that might bring to mind the return of the Llorn in The Haunted Stars.

For the rest of it, The Weapon From Beyond also gives us an interesting roster of secondary characters. Dilullo shows himself to be both highly capable and not a little tough, despite the fact that he is getting up in years; his second in command, the corpulent engineer Bollard, remains absolutely unflappable during times of crisis; Thrandirin, a Vhollan government functionary, impresses by dint of his sneakiness and arrogance; and Labdibdin, a Vhollan scientist working on the lost planet, ingratiates because he seems to be the only Vhollan more interested in research than in weapons. The book gives readers some occasional food for thought, too, in addition to the relentless action. Thus, when Chane tells Labdibdin that the Krii “must have been the greatest looters in the universe,” based on all the galactic artifacts and flora and fauna samples in their wrecked ship, the Vhollan replies “Not looters. Scientists. Collectors of knowledge.” To which the Starwolf replies “I see. It all depends on who does it.” A good part of the fun in Hamilton’s book comes from watching Chane as he endeavors to conceal his superior abilities – running speed, strength, withstanding crushing velocity pressures – from the other Mercs. And it is surely nice to observe the Starwolf gain a grudging respect for the weaker Mercs from Earth, and vice versa. Oh … and I love the concept of the lingua-franca “galacto” language that enables all the alien races to communicate with one another here; no need for the Universal Translator found in the original Star Trek! And speaking of Star Trek, fans of that show might pick up on a hint of the Season 1 episode “Errand of Mercy,” to be found near the end of Hamilton’s story. As the kids like to say today, if you know, you know.

At one point in Hamilton’s novel, Dilullo is accosted by a green-skinned madam on Vhol, who tells him “The ninety-nine joys dwell here, oh Earthman!” To which Dilullo replies “Not I, mother. I crave the hundredth joy … the joy of sitting down quietly and reading a good book.” And it seems to me that Edmond Hamilton, with The Weapon From Beyond, has given his many fans a very good book to sit down with, indeed! By the end of this first installment, Chane has accepted an offer to work indefinitely with the Mercs, while the two brothers of the deceased Ssander continue to comb the galaxy to take their bloody vengeance on him. What could possibly happen next? I guess I’ll just have to crack open Book #2, The Closed Worlds, to find out. Stay tuned…