The Closed Worlds: Chane vs. Nane at Allubane

The Closed Worlds by Edmond Hamilton

In Edmond Hamilton’s 1967 novel The Weapon From Beyond, Book #1 of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to Morgan Chane, an orphaned Earthling who had been brought up and raised by the piratical Starwolves of the planet Varna. In that first installment, Chane had been forced to flee from the vengeful Varnans after having killed one of them in self-defense, and had gone on to work with a group of mercenaries, the Mercs, on one of their exciting missions. That first installment had been as colorful and as action-packed an adventure as any sci-fi fan could have hoped for, so perhaps it came as something of a surprise when Hamilton delivered a sequel the following year that was even more thrilling than its predecessor; the second STARWOLF novel, entitled The Closed Worlds.

The Closed Worlds, like The Weapon From Beyond, was originally released as a 50-cent Ace paperback, and again with cover art by the great Jack Gaughan. This would be the book’s sole appearance in a stand-alone, English-language edition. Internationally, however, the novel would appear in Italy (also in 1968, but under the title Pianeta Perduto, or Lost Planet), Germany (1969, as Todesschranke um Allubane, or Death Barrier Around Allubane) and France (1978, as Les Mondes Interdits, or Forbidden Worlds). And for those smart shoppers curious to know whether all three STARWOLF novels might be purchased in one giant volume, please know that two such English-language collections do exist: the 1982 paperback from Ace, entitled Starwolf, and the 1985 paperback from English publisher Hamlyn/Arrow, also entitled Starwolf.

In this Book #2 of the trilogy, we find Chane and John Dilullo, the aging but still highly capable leader of selectively recruited Merc bands, recuperating after the rigors they had experienced in Book #1. But before long, Dilullo is offered another contract, this time from the wealthy industrialist James Ashton. It seems that five months earlier, Ashton’s younger brother, Randall, an extraterrestrial anthropologist, had gotten wind of some fantastic discovery on one of the so-called Closed Worlds. He had gone there to investigate along with four other specialists and had never returned, and now his older brother has grown worried. Thus, the Mercs’ mission (if they choose to accept it): gain access to the Closed Worlds – three planets orbiting the star Allubane in the Perseus Arm of the galaxy, whose residents have long forbidden outsiders from landing in their solar system – find Randall Ashton and bring him back … if he’s still alive. Dilullo, hoping to retire soon and build himself a beautiful seaside home in Brindisi, finds that he cannot resist Ashton’s offer of $500,000 for himself and his crew to get the job done, and so accepts the contract, knowing full well what a dangerous assignment this might turn out to be. But even he could have no idea of what perils were to come!

Thus, in a few days, a crew is put together (this reader could not help thinking of Dan Briggs or Jim Phelps putting together an IMF team!) … a different crew than the one we’d encountered in Book #1, except for Bollard, the corpulent engineer with whom Chane enjoys a bantering relationship despite their mutual respect, and, of course, Chane himself. Upon landing on the main planet of the Closed Worlds, Arkuu, the Mercs are summarily ordered to leave by a delegation headed by the muscular leader Helmer. The Mercs do indeed depart, only to make a survey of the two other planets and then sneak back into Yarr, Arkuu’s capital city, at night. During a hazardous nocturnal raid, they manage to rescue one of Randall Ashton’s team, a Mexican anthropologist named Garcia, as well as an Amazonian Arkuun woman named Vreya, who was also being held captive by the government because she is an Open-Worlder, advocating for a renewal of galactic contact. The Mercs quickly depart with the two hostages and hide out in an abandoned Arkuun city surrounded by scarlet jungle, where Chane has an unfortunate run-in with the Nanes: humanoid, artificially created creatures that were concocted by the Arkuun scientists long ago. Eventually, after eluding Helmer’s men and following several air battles with them, the Mercs succeed in tracking Ashton to the heart of a rugged mountain in the far north, and discover the mind-blowing artifact called the Free-Faring that has caused the Arkuuns to proscribe their worlds; an artifact so chilling that even the Starwolves of Varna have a tradition of avoiding the area. And even after the revelation of the Free-Faring, and the finding of Randall Ashton, it would seem that the Mercs’ ultrahazardous mission is far from over…

I am happy to report that readers looking for an exciting, wonder-filled, action-packed space adventure will have to look long and hard before finding one much better than The Closed Worlds. Remarkably, this STARWOLF installment is even more rip-roaring than the first had been; a book that, almost from its first page, plies the reader with a barrage of nonstop thrills. The book manages to hit all the sweet spots, with its pleasing story line, interesting cast of characters, fascinating aliens (both benign and monstrous), witty dialogue, and even a touch of (dare I say it?) romance. And oh my gosh, those cinematic, action-filled set pieces! (What a film this book could be turned into!) Let’s take things one by one. As for the alien life-forms we encounter here, there are the iggin, the white night-bats of planet Arcturus Two; the flying snake thingies and six-limbed bearlike creatures encountered on Allubane Three; and those monstrous, Morlock-like Nanes. Regarding those latter, Vreya tells Chane “They were designed to take liquid artificial food … But they learned to beat animal flesh into a pulp and ingest it that way.” To which our Starwolf hero succinctly replies “Nice.” This Book #2 does not introduce as many gizmos of futuristic superscience as had the first, other than the light-bombs used to dazzle the enemy (don’t we already have something like that today?), but still, there is the Free-Faring, which {SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD} is capable of separating a person’s mind and body and sending that disembodied consciousness traveling across the galaxy! Perhaps The Moody Blues was right: Thinking really is the best way to travel!

As mentioned, this Book #2 gives us an essentially new crew of Mercs, each of which is nicely differentiated, as well as a raft of interesting secondary characters. Among them: the beautiful Vreya, who dreams of visiting other worlds, turns out to be as tough as any of the Mercs, and to whom Chane finds himself surprisingly attracted; Randall Ashton, a man who has become addicted to Free-Faring, while his physical body wastes away inside that Arkuun mountain; and Milner, one of the more violent and bloodthirsty of the Mercs who is yet an expert shot with laser weapons. Hamilton adds a touch of literary cachet to his novel by having one of the Mercs quote a snippet of a poem by American writer George Sterling, and by giving us a section in which Dilullo and Chane discuss the classic Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn (1885), of which the Starwolf is wholly unaware. And, as had Book #1, The Closed Worlds also provides the reader with some occasional food for thought, such as when Dilullo disgustedly opines “Damn all fanatics … They get themselves and a lot of other people killed because they won’t argue for their ideas – they have to enforce them.”

As to all the book’s wonderfully well-done set pieces, they come at us fairly rapidly, and indeed, during the last 40 pages or so of the story, we get four outstanding ones, back to back to back to back. Among my favorites: Chane (during his first visit to Earth) and Dilullo getting mugged in a NYC alley … to the muggers’ eternal regret; Chane touring around Carnarvon, Wales, his parents’ hometown, and carousing with some of the locals there; the short stay that the Mercs have on Allubane Three; that daring nighttime rescue in Yarr; Chane vs. three Nanes in a very unequal fight, outside of a deserted Arkuun city; the air battles that the Mercs engage in with Helmer’s fliers en route to the northern mountains; the jaw-dropping spectacle of Chane Free-Faring through space, his consciousness viewing numerous cosmic wonders and even paying a visit to the Varnan capital city of Krak; the multiple bombing runs that our heroes must endure from Arkuun fliers; the protracted trek through the Arkuun jungles that the Mercs undergo … weeks of slogging while fighting off Nanes all the way; and finally, the remarkable segment in which our brave band, rafting down an Arkuun river, fend off dozens of Nanes leaping upon them from dilapidated bridges near another abandoned city. Some seriously nail-biting sequences here, trust me, from an author who’d been perfecting his hand at this kind of thing since the 1920s!

Like all good central books in a trilogy, The Closed Worlds expands on what we had learned earlier. Thus, for the first time, we are given a look at the Starwolves’ planet, thanks to Chane’s galaxy-spanning consciousness. For the first time, we learn something about the workings of the organization that Dilullo and his fellows belong to, and even get to visit the headquarters of the Guild of Mercenaries, aka Merc Hall, in NYC. And for the first time, we discover a bit about the background of Chane’s missionary parents. Dilullo’s personal history is also given to us here, and this Book #2 places more emphasis than had Book #1 on the Merc leader’s concerns about growing older and his ability to lead men. “I get my hair cut real short … But I can’t get it cut short enough to keep the gray from showing around the edges,” he tells Chane at one point. At another moment, he looks at Chane talking to Vreya and thinks “I wish I were young and carefree like that again…” Eventually, our Starwolf is compelled to tell him “You ought to do something about that age-obsession of yours”! “Aren’t Starwolves worried about getting old?,” Dilullo responds. To which Chane replies “The kind of a life a Starwolf leads, he doesn’t have too many worries on that score.” I love it! I also can’t help but wonder if the 64-year-old Hamilton was beginning to feel his own years, at this stage of his lengthy career.

Sharp-eyed readers may note that, just as Book #1 had arrived carrying a hint of the classic Star Trek episode “Errand of Mercy,” Book #2 contains more than a whiff of the classic Star Trek two-parter “The Menagerie,” with its own “closed world,” Talos IV … and proscribed for similar reasons, too. Was Hamilton by any chance a Star Trek fan back in the mid-‘60s? It would almost seem inevitable! At bottom, The Closed Worlds is a hugely entertaining sci-fi romp; pure entertainment from start to finish line. Hamilton makes no missteps here, and for once I have no nitpicking quibbles to make. And really, any novel that could introduce me to the word “diastrophism” can’t be all bad, right? At the tail end of this Book #2, Chane, feeling homesick after his disembodied visit to Varna, declares to Dilullo that he’d like to make an actual visit in the flesh someday soon … despite the fact that he is a hunted man there. And since the title of Book #3 is World of the Starwolves, it would seem that such a homecoming might actually be in Morgan Chane’s future. Guess I’ll just have to crack open that final novel in the trilogy to find out. Stay tuned…