Tom knows that while the Xumans are not human, they are definitely people, some of whom are now friends. If the natives decide to be uncooperative? The Xumans have nothing to match the ship’s lasers easy enough to simply exterminate them and proceed with the plans for an uninhabited world. The Xumans appear to think the humans are their old gods. Even better, the planet has been visited by aliens before. The rival city-states seem perfect for a divide and conquer strategy. The Xuman situation seems ideal for the officers on Riverhorse. Riverhorse did not expect to encounter natives but it had contingency plans just in case. Sent down to the surface, Tom discovers that Xuma, as the locals call it, is a comparatively backward world, ancient but very conservative, technologically on par with Earth in the 18 th century (with some very specific gaps in their know-how) and even more politically divided than lost Earth. Their language is unfamiliar, of course, but easy enough to learn given time and a kidnapped native from whom to learn it. The natives - Xumans - are misleadingly humanoid, the details of their biology significantly different from humans. Whatever the planet is called, it is clearly life-bearing, a potential home for humanity. Linguist Tom Carson favours the name “Barsoom”, after Edgar Rice Burroughs but humourless Captain Mannheim insists on Ares. 82 Eridani 3 is small but habitable, the Mars ours solar system never had. The unfortunates sent to Epsilon Eridani found only airless rocks and the Delta Pavonis ship has yet to report its findings but in 2143, starship Riverhorse hits the jackpot.

The stalwarts of the Euro-American moon base have every hope Operation Breakout will plant Euro-Americans on the worlds of 82 Eridani, Epsilon Eridani and Delta Pavonis.

The stars are ours! Well, the Moon is ours (albeit at the cost of World Wars Three and Four largely depopulating the Earth but eggs and omelettes), not that the Russians, Americans and Chinese like sharing that world with each other.

Lake does not appear to have been one of them. Many authors benefited from the golden age of ebook reprints but the late Mr. Readers intrigued by my review need not worry if they have not read the first three books not only does Gods function as a standalone, good luck finding a copy. 1978’s The Gods of Xuma or Barsoom Revisited is the fourth book in David J.

Barsoom lake