Murray Leinster–pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins–was a key figure in early-to-mid-20th century science fiction. So great was his influence on the themes and tropes of early sf, from space travel to alien contact to emerging technologies, that he's often called "the Dean of SF." Published mainly in pulp magazines, he was a dependable craftsman of imaginative, well-paced stories that catered to readers' cravings for straightforward adventure escapism. There is perhaps no better example of Leinster's storytelling skill than his novella Planet of Dread, a tale of space pirates struggling for survival on a planet overrun by humongous and hostile invertebrate life forms.
This novella is also notable as a prescient, and rather inadvertent, work of eco-sf. The planet's nightmarish ecosystem is the result of Earth bugs and fungi being transplanted into an alien world in an effort to terraform it. But lacking any predators or other checks on their population and physical growth, the creatures have assumed monstrous proportions, becoming to this world what dinosaurs were to Mesozoic, and giant mammals were to early Cenozoic, Earth.
The scenario isn't entirely plausible–even during the Carboniferous heyday of Earth's arthropods, when higher oxygen content in the atmosphere allowed them to grow far larger than today's biggest bugs, they never reached the colossal sizes seen in this novel–but it's entertaining and vividly imagined. And it's worth noting that Leinster can't be entirely faulted for this implausibility, since the relationship between atmospheric oxygen levels and arthropod size wasn't as well understood when he wrote the novella as it is today.
The story earns points for plausibility by having the humans wear space suits when stepping off their ship and into the alien environment, thus nullifying the question of how they would be able to breathe in such an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Likewise, the absence of non-bug life forms on the planet sidesteps the issue of how other species with respiratory systems similar to humans' would survive here.
The planet is called Tethys II, and it is a cloudy, Earth-like world with a breathable atmosphere and a small polar ice cap. It is about to be visited by a space yacht known as the Nadine, whose crew of fugitives from another world seeks to rid itself of a problem: a stowaway named Moran, who snuck aboard the vessel to evade arrest. The plan is to maroon Moran on Tethys II. But as the Nadine draws closer to the planet, the crew discovers another reason to land: a mysterious beacon emanating from the wreck of a long-crashed vessel named the Malabar. They decide to investigate, hoping the beacon might hold clues to their location and how to proceed to their ultimate destination, Loris.
Shortly after landing, they discover that the ground has a hard, charred outer crust, and beneath that a softer, spongy layer riddled with porous tunnels inhabited by beetles at least 20 times the size of an average Earth beetle. Soon they discover a 10-foot-long inchworm, yard-long ants, and a monstrous, 30-foot-long centipede that captures one of them before the rest manage to track it down and slay it with torches. Like the hapless crew of the S.S. Venture in King Kong, who face dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts while attempting to save Ann Darrow, the crew of the Nadine valiantly battles an ever-growing swarm of massive bugs on its way to the wreck of the Malabar.
They reach it and discover, by way of a sheet of metal propped up like a sign, with a date and message etched into it by torch, that it crashed 150 years ago. The message, written by the Malabar's captain, explains that the ship was irreparably damaged in the crash. He officially relinquishes all salvage rights to the vessel and its valuable cargo of bessendium ore to whoever finds it. The Nadine crew immediately begins salvaging the haul.
The rest of the plot is essentially one long, very effective action sequence in which the Nadine's crew works to retrieve the Malabar's bessendium ore while fending off attacks from ever more extreme arthropod beasts. Among the more notable set-pieces are a mission to rescue a crewmember from a giant spider's web and a fierce battle among giant ants that draws the attention of a ravenous 20-foot-tall praying mantis. Apart from all this bug action, we also get satisfying character arcs and a nice twist ending.
Circling back to ecology, we get a glimpse of some of the natural rhythms of this alien world when a swarm of giant sexton beetles sets about cleaning up the carrion left in the wake of the ant battle.
Planet of Dread doesn't try to be anything other than a straight creature-feature pulp adventure. Yet it can also be read as an allegorical warning to humankind about the unintended consequences of ecological meddling and the folly of pursuing grand technofixes like terraforming. This serendipitous blend of pulp and parable makes it my favorite among eco-sf novellas.
*******
If you enjoyed this review, try Prairie Fire. Imagine Tom Clancy writing a multilayered thriller about peak oil.
