The interplanetary adventures of Prof. Lucius Brane and his misfit collection of exceedingly British space travellers ran to ten books in all, but I was only aware as a kid of the six that were published in paperback and I haven't read them for almost four decades. Given all that, I probably shouldn't say this right now, but it really feels like Captain W. E. Johns figured out what he actually wanted to do with the series at this point, with book four, 'To Outer Space'.

The first book stands alone as a bundle of fun, sincerely trying to be scientifically plausible for its time and failing wildly to hindsight. The second was a fair sequel, expanding on what went before but without much sense of where the series was going. The third was a distraction, ditching most of the series progression that had been put into motion in favour of a grand tour of planetoids, so Johns could underline his idea that life exists everywhere and offer fleeting social commentaries by highlighting comparisons to our own planet and history.

Here, on the other hand, expansion seems to have a purpose, the philosophy ceases to be abstract and is forced to face some real world application and we can finally see something of where things are moving. On the face of it, this starts out like another tour, the Tavona popping down to Earth to pick them up for a fresh trip, to Ando, home of the Andoans they rescued from Arcadia in 'Now to the Stars'. Philosophical discussion immediately ensues, with Rex wondering what truly makes people happy, Tiger worrying about thermonuclear experimentation and Vargo contributing his experience with different technological evolution on different planets.

All of this and especially the Professor's long held pacifism, gets tested when they get to Ando, an old and advanced civilisation, as well as a brief stop on the way to a stone age world called Marlok. It seems that Marlok is behind us, with primitive humanoids tunnelling in the vast moss that covers their planet. However, Ando is notably ahead of us, having implemented effective climate control; conquered disease, crime and war; and organised and standardised every facet of their existence. It's abundantly clear which is the more advanced civilisation.

So, guess which one is equipped to deal with the interstellar war that shows up on its doorstep? On Marlok, our heroes watch the cavemen barrel out of the tunnels in the moss to brutally take down the occupants of another spaceship, one they don't recognise. On Ando, and an outer planetoid of theirs, named Larnica, there are countless dead because they have no defence. They haven't had a need for one in as long as they can remember, so suddenly Tiger is their greatest asset because he has a rifle.

Throughout the series, Johns has consistently talked up soldiers, like Tiger, but talked down wars and military structures, like everyone Tiger has ever worked for. Here, the Andoans are clearly an entire race of good guys and they're being invaded. Tiger knows exactly what to do, and he's able to shoot a few of the invaders and even damage one of their ships enough for it to crash. However, Prof. Brane is stuck in a moral quandary, which frustratingly has to involve, "well, they started it" as an important argument.

This is all good stuff, even if a few of the details are a little less so. For instance, it has to be pretty clear to everyone that Johns borrowed heat weapons (heat-rays) and creeping gas (black smoke) from H. G. Wells's 'The War of the Worlds', a far more important novel of interplanetary conflict that also brings an entirely unknown enemy to the home of people we know about. At least we're sure that he didn't borrow the tractor beam (which goes entirely unnamed here) from 'Star Trek' because this came out in 1957.

I was OK with those borrows, but I was a little frustrated by the power of Tiger's rifle. In particular, how can one of his bullets puncture the walls of a spaceship that's designed to traverse the spaces between the stars and so absolutely must be able to contend with space debris? We do know that Johns is well aware of that sort of danger because he's included it in this series already. Maybe it was a lucky shot but it felt like a real stretch to me.

Now, I have to be careful here because I don't want to venture into spoiler territory, but one of the best aspects of the book is the way Johns plays with assumptions. It's already a good book through its focus and its testing of beliefs and philosophies, but it's a better one because our heroes are all outsiders, not just the Professor's group of Earthlings but Vargo and Barron on the Tavona too. On Ando and on Larnica, they don't really know anyone and nobody really knows them, just a handful of locals they rescued one book earlier. These outsiders suddenly find themselves involved in some sort of interplanetary conflict, but they don't really understand the sides. Just like people caught up in any war on the surface of our planet, they have to make assumptions and those can be wrong as often as they are right. And I'll shut up at that point.

What I guess I'm saying is that there's some real substance here. Instead of this feeling like maybe it's the last book in a hesitant series, it suddenly feels like it's the first book in the rest of one that Johns has outlined quite a few volumes further yet. That gives him a clear mandate to expand the scope of the action; play with our expectations and those of his characters; and take his time when dishing out information. I appreciated every part of that, as well as the fact that Ando isn't in our solar system, is surely entirely fictional and so can have two suns that prevent it ever getting dark. Everything is possible again without us wondering why he put dinosaurs on the moon or people on Venus for advances in science to laugh at.

There is an oddly quick ending and there are a couple of side trips, as the Tavona gets chased, one diversion on a planetoid populated by insects and another by violently poisonous flowers, so it's a mixed bag, but it's surely the most substantial book in the series thus far, easily the most focused and emphatically the most fun since the first one. Bring on 'The Edge of Beyond'! ~~ Hal C F Astell

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