The Beast Master by Andre Norton (review)

SYNOPSIS

Left homeless by the war that reduced Terra to a radioactive cinder, Hosteen Storm Navaho commando and master of beasts is drawn to the planet Arzor, to kill a man he has never met.

On that dangerous frontier world, aliens and human colonists share the land in an uneasy truce. But something is upsetting the balance, and Storm is caught in the middle. He had thought the war was over but was it?

REVIEW

CONS:

1. The story was very focused on plot and the movement of characters or factions through space as opposed to the motivations of characters or character's actual thoughts. I realize that this is an older book and in this time this was a lot of how books were read or written, but it was a little bit of a bland let down. It would have been cool to get Storm's emotions and maybe the emotions of the animals that he's connected to.

2. The first half of the book is pretty easy to follow, but the last half introduces a bunch of new factions all at once and it can be a little confusing to follow what's happening. I wish there was a little bit more explination of each faction and perhaps their motivations (relating to con #1). Clearly following each faction is important for a reveal at the end that could be lost on you if you're confused, like I was. I knew a reveal was happening, but it wasn't "epic" because I got twisted with all these new tribes and alien people that I'd just been introduced to.

3. Most of Storm's animals are African in nature, which is very cool, but he's meant to be descended from Native Americans. It would have been cooler if his animal companions were more native to the Americas.

4. I would have like to dive more into the rituals and customs of the various people that we met on Arzor. All we really get is what they look like, how they look different from the main character and their general stance on the main conflict. I'm sure each of these peoples have a culture of their own.

PROS:

1. This is the book that inspired The BeastMaster movies and then later the TV show. With that, it also inspired a young me because who didn't want the ability to speak to animals!? I have modeled so many characters after Dar/Storm in my own stories. Speaking to animals is a common theme across a lot of my written work.

2. I loved the mix of sci fi and Native American lore and something mystical like speaking to animals. We always think of Native Americans being one with the land and preserving the "old ways." It was cool to see how that could potentially translate into a story with space travel and aliens and ray guns. It's also interesting to point out that no matter what technological advances we have, we will still need a world to live upon. This is a concept that I am working on with my series of novels that will be released some day. We will always be natural beings as people and we will need to always connect to the natural world, to a planet, to other earths. We could never live upon a ship of metal and synthetic materials, even if it were possible.

3. Storm has the ability to communicate with animals! Though, in the book it seems he really has a strong connection with his animal team and can sort of "calm" other animals. It doesn't dive deep into how much the animals can understand him. It seems that they understand commands that he's taught them, but it doesn't seem that they truly commicate like Dar seems to in the BeastMaster movies and show. Anyway, this is one of the best abilities that anyone can have, in my opinion.

4. The concluding reveal about Storm's family is cool enough to have read the book, even if it didn't go exactly how I had imagined. I don't want to give anything away, but hopefully you don't get too confused with all the new factions and characters that seem to creep up at the last part of the book so that you can understand the reveal or perhaps pick it out before it happens. Someday, I'll do a reread to see if I can catch hints of the reveal before it happens.

FINAL SCORE: 3/5