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posies23's review against another edition
4.0
One of my favorite movies as a middle-schooler was THE BEAST MASTER, which was a crazy fantasy with Marc Singer as a Conan-like fantasy hero who could communicate with animals and fought against creepy demons to save the population of an innocent village against some horrible villain for reasons I can't quite recall. (Okay, the details are sketchy -- it's been a long time.)
This is the novel that movie was based on, although it's virtually impossible to tell. Other than the fact that the hero can communicate with animals, there's hardly anything here that even vaguely resembles the movie. Like, nothing.
The novel is the story of an "Amerindian" soldier trained to communicate with specific animals. Now that the war is over, he moves to a frontier planet to seek long-delayed revenge on someone who settled there. But things are not as they seem, and things get complicated.
This is really more of a Western than a Sci-fi novel, but it actually makes sense in the context of the novel because the planet's conditions are better suited for horses and the like. There are some sci-fi touches, though, and I thought it was kind of an interesting idea. (Apparently, readers at the time thought it was a "cheat" and Norton caught a lot of flack for this being nothing but a Western disguised as Sci-fi.)
The fact that the protagonist is an American Indian is interesting, given the age of the novel, and Norton does the best she could. Of course, in retrospect it feels pretty clunky, but I have to respect her for her attempt to show diversity and the fact that the future was not made up entirely by white folks. (It's also interesting to note that there are hardly any female characters in the book, and none that have anything to do in the overall plot.)
In typical Norton fashion, the plot moves along quickly and there's not much depth of characterization. Still, there's a reason Norton was one of the most popular writers of her time -- her books are fun to read and action-packed.
Yes, there are some creaks and not everything has aged well, but Norton was pushing the boundaries of genre fiction in her own way, and we can't judge her by contemporary standards for how she did that.
So, it's an entertaining book, but it suffered for me in comparison to the movie, because, like I said, there's hardly any comparison at all.
I'll keep continuing to work my way through Norton's work chronologically.
This is the novel that movie was based on, although it's virtually impossible to tell. Other than the fact that the hero can communicate with animals, there's hardly anything here that even vaguely resembles the movie. Like, nothing.
The novel is the story of an "Amerindian" soldier trained to communicate with specific animals. Now that the war is over, he moves to a frontier planet to seek long-delayed revenge on someone who settled there. But things are not as they seem, and things get complicated.
This is really more of a Western than a Sci-fi novel, but it actually makes sense in the context of the novel because the planet's conditions are better suited for horses and the like. There are some sci-fi touches, though, and I thought it was kind of an interesting idea. (Apparently, readers at the time thought it was a "cheat" and Norton caught a lot of flack for this being nothing but a Western disguised as Sci-fi.)
The fact that the protagonist is an American Indian is interesting, given the age of the novel, and Norton does the best she could. Of course, in retrospect it feels pretty clunky, but I have to respect her for her attempt to show diversity and the fact that the future was not made up entirely by white folks. (It's also interesting to note that there are hardly any female characters in the book, and none that have anything to do in the overall plot.)
In typical Norton fashion, the plot moves along quickly and there's not much depth of characterization. Still, there's a reason Norton was one of the most popular writers of her time -- her books are fun to read and action-packed.
Yes, there are some creaks and not everything has aged well, but Norton was pushing the boundaries of genre fiction in her own way, and we can't judge her by contemporary standards for how she did that.
So, it's an entertaining book, but it suffered for me in comparison to the movie, because, like I said, there's hardly any comparison at all.
I'll keep continuing to work my way through Norton's work chronologically.
suzemo's review against another edition
1.0
Andre Norton's The Beast Master was a bit of an inspiration to the movie of the same name, but please, do not think these are the same thing. The idea of communicating with animals is where the similarities start and end. Or rather, the idea of a man running around communicating with animals is where it ends. The book is hard sci-fi, there is not a scrap of the fantasy-ish world of the movie.
This book is a hard, pulpy sci-fi novel with other planets, futuristic weapons, aliens and all of the good stuff you expect from older works, and it feels very, very dated.
I'm not saying I hated it, I just really didn't like it.
Hosteen Storm is our savage noble (no, seriously, he's Navajo - she uses "Amerindian" as well, which adds to the dated feel), who is a veteran commando with several animal team members. He's got a couple of meerkats, a puma, and an eagle, and he has settled on another planet not so different from his native Terra, where he can put his talents to use. Oh, and hunt down and kill another man, for vengeance. You don't find out the story until the end (the why of the hunting down and/or what really happened).
In the meantime, he wanders as a colonist, working as a cowboy (no, really!), and runs amok of aliens, including the Xik, who are super bad aliens.
There's a whole lot of stereotype (beyond the whole Noble Savage) with regards to how people act, and how colonizing (and the old west?) should be. It was just really, really tedious to get through for me.
In the end, we're all good (minus one meerkat, which I knocked half a star off for), so the series can continue, but it just felt very forced. And dated (did I mention the dated?). I just didn't enjoy it. I've read a few other of Norton's works and she's always been hit and miss for me, so I'm not terribly disappointed.
This book is a hard, pulpy sci-fi novel with other planets, futuristic weapons, aliens and all of the good stuff you expect from older works, and it feels very, very dated.
I'm not saying I hated it, I just really didn't like it.
Hosteen Storm is our savage noble (no, seriously, he's Navajo - she uses "Amerindian" as well, which adds to the dated feel), who is a veteran commando with several animal team members. He's got a couple of meerkats, a puma, and an eagle, and he has settled on another planet not so different from his native Terra, where he can put his talents to use. Oh, and hunt down and kill another man, for vengeance. You don't find out the story until the end (the why of the hunting down and/or what really happened).
In the meantime, he wanders as a colonist, working as a cowboy (no, really!), and runs amok of aliens, including the Xik, who are super bad aliens.
There's a whole lot of stereotype (beyond the whole Noble Savage) with regards to how people act, and how colonizing (and the old west?) should be. It was just really, really tedious to get through for me.
In the end, we're all good (minus one meerkat, which I knocked half a star off for), so the series can continue, but it just felt very forced. And dated (did I mention the dated?). I just didn't enjoy it. I've read a few other of Norton's works and she's always been hit and miss for me, so I'm not terribly disappointed.
amyjoy's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyable. It's a pretty quick read, and once the action gets started, it really sucked me in.
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3095510.html
Long long ago, I think even when I was in primary school (so, more than forty years ago), I read The Beast Master, and it stuck with me. Not quite so long ago, I got it and its sequel, Lord of Thunder, in a single volume, Beast Master’s Planet. Both concern a future galaxy where Earth has been destroyed in the final act of a war with the alien Xik, and our protagonist, Hosteen Storm, is (as far as he knows) the only survivor of the Navajo. He is an ex-soldier, trained to have a psychic link with his animal conpanions - two meerkats, an eagle and a big tiger-like cat, and he is sent to the planet of Arzor to earn his living as a civilian.
Arzor turns out to be a sparsely settled planet whose main industry appears to be the ranching of the cattle-like frawns, carried out by human settlers in negotiation with the indigenous Norbies, who have a complex tribal structure and totem-based religion. Hosteen Storm becomes a horse wrangler. It’s basically the Old West in space, although nobody ever says that, with Storm set up as uniquely placed to bridge the communication gap between humans and natives. Basically he is a Magical Indian.
It’s also worth noting that there isn’t a single female speaking character in either book. Storm’s mother is mentioned in passing, but she is dead. The Norbies seem to be all male. Storm’s animals are female, which is interesting.
The Beast Master
Still, the first book reminded me of the magic it exerted on my mind in a Belfast classroom long ago. (I think I may have even written a book report on it.) I appreciated then the tragic burden carried by Storm as the last of his tribe, charged by his grandfather with maintaining a family vendetta (which drives a lot of the narrative) but then also caught up in both a Xik plot against the humans and the discovery of lost ancient alien tech under the mountains. The tone of the book is detached, measured and firm. The flaws are still there, but the fact is that this was an sf book featuring a Navajo protagonist at a time (1959) when the future was mainly seen as white.
Still, bearing in mind that both are books of their time, they are good reads.
Long long ago, I think even when I was in primary school (so, more than forty years ago), I read The Beast Master, and it stuck with me. Not quite so long ago, I got it and its sequel, Lord of Thunder, in a single volume, Beast Master’s Planet. Both concern a future galaxy where Earth has been destroyed in the final act of a war with the alien Xik, and our protagonist, Hosteen Storm, is (as far as he knows) the only survivor of the Navajo. He is an ex-soldier, trained to have a psychic link with his animal conpanions - two meerkats, an eagle and a big tiger-like cat, and he is sent to the planet of Arzor to earn his living as a civilian.
Arzor turns out to be a sparsely settled planet whose main industry appears to be the ranching of the cattle-like frawns, carried out by human settlers in negotiation with the indigenous Norbies, who have a complex tribal structure and totem-based religion. Hosteen Storm becomes a horse wrangler. It’s basically the Old West in space, although nobody ever says that, with Storm set up as uniquely placed to bridge the communication gap between humans and natives. Basically he is a Magical Indian.
It’s also worth noting that there isn’t a single female speaking character in either book. Storm’s mother is mentioned in passing, but she is dead. The Norbies seem to be all male. Storm’s animals are female, which is interesting.
The Beast Master
Still, the first book reminded me of the magic it exerted on my mind in a Belfast classroom long ago. (I think I may have even written a book report on it.) I appreciated then the tragic burden carried by Storm as the last of his tribe, charged by his grandfather with maintaining a family vendetta (which drives a lot of the narrative) but then also caught up in both a Xik plot against the humans and the discovery of lost ancient alien tech under the mountains. The tone of the book is detached, measured and firm. The flaws are still there, but the fact is that this was an sf book featuring a Navajo protagonist at a time (1959) when the future was mainly seen as white.
Still, bearing in mind that both are books of their time, they are good reads.
wburris's review against another edition
4.0
I was reading Andre Norton about 45 years ago, so I may have read this one before, but nothing was very familiar. The one somewhat familiar aspect was alien ruins and some alien technology which is still functioning after being abandoned for centuries. My memory of this idea may be from some of her other novels and not this one.
This book reads somewhat like a western, but I enjoyed it anyway.
This book reads somewhat like a western, but I enjoyed it anyway.
solaniisrex's review against another edition
4.0
I picked this book up because I was curious to see how it compares the movie based off of it. There is no comparison. The fantasy movie has almost nothing to do with this sci-fi book. This is the story of a Navajo tracker with a psychic connection to his team of animals on their quest to hunt down a man on an alien world. This is a well written story of slow-burning revenge.
murraycampobianco's review against another edition
5.0
All the bits just fit together so satisfyingly. This is Cowboys and Indians all mixed up with Rudyard Kipling. It is positive even in a fading post apocalyptic future.
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