Astral Quest

Astral Quest by John Rankine. Novelisation of "The Infernal Machine", "Mission of the Darians", "Dragon's Domain" and "The Testament of Arkadia". Rankine maintains his high-quality interpretation of the series with the last four stories of Year One, displaying a prose-style that is a bit more sophisticated than his previous outings. (However, he loses a bit of credibility when he has the elegant and refined Benes utter the expletive "Holy cow!" at the sight of Gwent.) He weaves the four segments together with a continuing story of Koenig and Bergman discussing the first steps of establishing a viable civilisation when they eventually settle on a planet. The quest theme is explored through Gwent's search for identity, the Darians' ambitions for a future, Jim Calder's quest for redemption and the culmination of the destiny that the unknown forces holds in store for the Alphans. Changes this time are few: (1) Morrow is present in "The Infernal Machine". (2) The mutants are referred to by the Darian survivor tribe as "Mutes". (3) The Tony Cellini and Monique Bouchere characters are known as "Jim Calder" and "Olga Vishenskya" as they were in the final shooting script.


Genre: Science Fiction