his one is another of those Golden Oldies I got from the big used bookstore, by Poul Anderson back in 1968. And a funny little story about this.

Was sitting in a fast food joint a week or so back, going from somewhere to somewhere else, just grabbing a bite and sitting in a booth with my book. Reading and chewing. A booth or two down on the other side of the aisle, two churches (a man and a woman, not seemingly married) were yacking away about some sort of church speech or presentation they were going to make, outlining the points and the pitch and all that. Yeah, fine. Tuned them out. But a couple of minutes later, I noticed how quiet it had gotten. Looked over the top of the book. They were glaring at me, having seen the cover of the book. Just two pairs of red angel eyes burning holy wraith at me.

I’d like to say I smiled. Or winked. Or smirked. But I just went head down back into my book.

And there is a perfectly good reason this book is named what it is. You see, Satan’s World is a rogue planet with all sorts of valuable heavy metals that had been noticed by scouts fifty years ago, hoving on on a sun, soon to be captured. As it closes, the frozen gases start to heat and boil. The gravity of the sun causes the plates of the planet to shift. The new-found atmosphere roils and storms. Volcanoes blast out, here and there. A total hellscape, which a main character christens Satan’s World, for obvious (except for those two churchies) reasons.

Okay, so the book covers three parts. In the first, the hero goes into a data brokerage which was wild to think about in 1968 but pretty commonplace now. Turns out that some alien influence uses it to mine our data and learn our secrets (you know, like AI does now). They kidnap the main character and one of his sidekicks is forced to storm their moon-side castle, freeing him and wrecking the place. That part was okay – interesting to read.

The second part was where the book shines. The main character, along with another sidekick, go to Satan’s World to check it out. There, an alien fleet arrives. In classic Stainless-Steel-Rat maneuvering, the hero uses observational logic to figure out the best moves, to play them as fools and chase them off, all on his own. I rather liked that bit.

But then, the third part. Now the hero’s boss gets directly involved, riding out for a meeting with the aliens, quickly getting captured and taken to their homeworld. I mean, yeah, okay. This part had a lot of talking, a lot of slowly coercing the the human slaves to turn them (or at least give tiny tidbits of information). It just went on and on. The breakout as as quick and painless as could be hoped for, the aliens drubbed, the humans victorious. As long as this section was, it was a pretty weak conclusion.

So that’s Satan’s World. Dislike it for the stretched plot (or on religious grounds). Whatever. Fun to read and even more enjoyable to finish.

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