I found a book

Meg's grandma has tons of old paperbacks she's bought over the years. I found a three novel compendium of F. M. Busby's "Demu Trilogy".

The series was written over a seven year period ('73-'80). This is the "New Wave" at it's best: alien culture conquers, tortures and assimilates humans and a lone ex-physics student is the galaxy's only hope. It's heavily moral and viciously anti-cold war! The character development is more Heinlein, but the plot is more Poul Anderson.

One of the things missing in many of Anderson's novels is a strong central cast (which he often eschews in favor of extended timeline and macro-plot elements), but Busby's work really takes up that slack. Heinlein's plots often wander and fizzle out in favor of characters relationships, but Busby creates a happy medium of both.

It's certainly more "hard sci-fi" than either of my recent man crushes Zelazny or Phil Farmer, and it feels nice to move back away from fantasy for a change. I've been burned out on the moralistic-hardcore-space-travel for a while after I read through the entire Enderverse, but I'm ready to go back to space ships and laser guns.

FTL, motherfucker... warm up that hyperdrive.


F.M. Busby
- posted by Mason @ 4:06 PM