Monday, August 6, 2012

Andre Norton : Star Rangers

On a recent outing with my wife we went into a used bookstore.  This one is a bit out of the way, most of the local used bookstores have either closed or don't carry what I'm looking for.  You see I've got a thing for those old DAW Yellow Spined books that I remember from my youth. Anyways I spied this sharp looking volume on the shelf:
Andre Norton's Star Rangers.  I have to admit the man on the cover drew me in.  I thought he looked totally cool, sort of a combination of Spock and Hawk from the Buck Rogers TV series.
Anyway, I just finished reading it and I have to say for a book written in the early 50's I found it to be quite enjoyable.  Not to give away too much but its about a group of Star Rangers during the decline of a vast Space Empire, that find themselves stranded on a forgotten world.  Good stuff, ripe for mining material for your sci fi space games i.e. Stars Without Number, X-plorers, etc...  The guy on the cover turned out to be a psychic human but I may just have to "steal" the image to work up a new alien race for SWN.
Good Gaming! -B.

5 comments:

  1. I too have a weakness for those yellow spine Daw books, most of mine are Lin Carter or Brian Stableford books. I have recently aquired the first two books in Andre Norton's Witch World series and should be reading them soon.

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  2. From the mists of time, come forth, spirits. Norton's Witch World was the first "adult" series that I devoured at the local public library. I loved them so well that as I aged I tracked down the SolarQueen & then Forerunner series. When I was introduced to Her influence on Traveller is unmistakeable, but her image of a fantasy world preceded my discovery of D&D & was by far the most important literary source to shape my gaming.

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  3. Must be some sort of common disease among gamers, as I too only scan the shelves for the old yellow spines... anything thicker or more colorful is justs plain too "modern" to my tastes.

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  4. Yep, I love those Daw spines as well.
    Sadly my favorite place for them locally just recently went under.
    Wandering the aisles of Ebay and Amazon just isn't the same.

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  5. Thanks for the comments everyone. It's good to know I'm not alone in my love of the Yellow Spined DAW Sci Fi books from yesteryear.
    And Rainswept I agree she was an amazing writer!

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