Storm over Warlock [Mass Market Paperback]

Storm Over Warlock is the first novel in the Warlock series. Warlock is the second planet in the Circe system. First scouted four years previously, a Terran Survey Corps team has been sent to prepare the planet for the coming of the first pioneers.

In this novel, Shann Lantee has joined the Survey team as contract labor from the Dumps of Tyr, performing the dirty, tedious clean-up jobs and the dull maintenance routines. Yet one of these jobs is the care and feeding of the mutant wolverines, which soon becomes an act of friendship rather than a chore. While the wolverines return this friendship, they are mischievous and cunning, enjoying an occasional outing without formal permission. During one such escape, Shann and the wolverines witness the Tharg attack that overruns the camp. As the only known survivors, Shann immediately increases the distance between themselves and the camp.

As they travel, Shann comes across a downed Terran scoutship being harried by Tharg flyers, but the Tharg weapons set off an explosion that destroys one of the Tharg vessels and drives the other Tharg flyer from the scene. Shann investigates the crashed flyer and is fired on and pinned down by a survivor, but then a rock smashes the Tharg's head from above, thrown by Ragnar Thorvald, leader of the Survey team. Thorvald has been off-world on Survey business and was returning for the arrival of the settler ship, but their hail of the camp was not answered except by the Tharg flyers. The scoutship had been damaged during the fight and the pilot killed, so Thorvald sets an explosive surprise for the Tharg and abandons ship.

When Thorvald recognizes Shann, he immediately asks about the camp and receives little good news. However, he realizes that the Tharg have probably left many Survey items within the camp, since they are no use to the aliens, and then conceives a plan to raid the camp disguised as natives, thereby concealing the presence of Terran survivors. Thorvald and Shann prepare primitive tools and weapons for the attack to add authenticity to the subterfuge. They use bolos, fireballs, stink bombs and spears to kill a few Thargs and create a diversion while Thorvald gathers items from the camp, then they escape on a raft.

Thorvald has noted a "hound" within the camp and suspects trouble. Later, they discover that the alien animal is following their trail and that they can neither evade it nor even kill it with any weapon at their disposal.

In the journey downriver, Thorvald finally admits to Shann why they are heading toward the sea. Thorvald possesses a curious bone-like medallion with hypnotic carvings that has been found on a sea island beach. The object was very unlikely to be Tharg work, so possibly Warlock holds, or once held, a native race living somewhere near the sea. When Thorvald allows a few drops of water to fall on the object in his hand, he looks dazed and acts like he is mind-controlled.

As they float downriver, both Thorvald and Shann have weird dreams about skull mounts and veiled caverns. The first-in scout also had such dreams, which sometimes coincided with an "emanation" registering on certain instruments. They speculate that the river water may have conducted the dreams to them from the sea.

When they reach the sea, the dreams are even stronger. Thorvald is now obsessed with finding the things or persons who are projecting the dream. Then Thorvald apparently succumbs to the lure of these dreams, paddling their canoe away while Shann is asleep on the beach. Shann tries to build another craft, but destroys it later as he sleeps. The dreamers seemly want to remain unfound.

This novel has the signature characteristics of early Norton stories: a courageous young person coping with adversity on his own, with aliens and animals as well as telepathy and other psionic powers. It also displays another signature personality trait: perseverance to the point of obstinacy.

Storm Over Warlock is recommended for all Andre Norton fans and anyone who likes stories about young people, friendly animals, and even somewhat friendly aliens, successfully coping with a hostile environment and even more hostile sentients.

-Arthur W. Jordin

�The Throg task force struck the Terran Survey camp a few minutes after dawn, without warning, and with a deadly precision��

The planet Warlock in the Circe System was being surveyed for possible human colonization when the alien attack wiped out Terran Survey team---all except for Shann Lantee, its youngest and least important member.

Shann now realizes that he is the only one of his kind left alive, �on a none-too-hospitable world controlled by enemies---without shelter or supplies.� He does have two companion wolverines---genetically altered and highly intelligent scouts---

Okay Norton fans, we�re on a strange planet but in otherwise familiar territory: a young, low-caste human companioned with intelligent, mutant animals, manages to survive with their freely-offered assistance. Because of his new-found ability to communicate with his wolverines, he also establishes first contact with Warlock�s mysterious, semi-aquatic Wyverns.

�Storm over Warlock� is one of Norton�s finest SF adventure novels, equally as exotic and exciting as her �Plague Ship� or �Lord of Thunder.� Her hero Shann not only needs to overcome the prejudice of his own kind and survive on a strange new world, he must also learn how to earn the trust of his companions, the wolverines Taggi and Togi.

Norton�s non-human characters, whether they be wolverines or Wyverns are fully-realized, sentient beings. They are not pushovers for pathetic, starving humans, no matter how plucky and likeable. Shann has to earn his own way with them.

We, her readers must also earn our way. We must never expect to fully understand how a wolverine or Wyvern thinks. We must learn to accept them as our equals, no matter what their shape or thought-processes.

Andre Norton keeps us turning the pages, not only for the cliff-hangers that Shann gets himself into, but also for the tantalizing glimpses into the minds of her non-human characters.

In this book and it's sequel, Ordeal in Otherwhere, Andre Norton continued to develop the far future history that would sustain many of her books though the next decade.

Shan Lantee is very much a Norton young adult hero. Reared in the Dumps of Tyr, he fought his way into a laboring position as a caretaker for a pair mutant wolverines used by Survey in exploring the planet of Warlock. This precarious toe-hold on respectability was threatened by the malice of Garth Thorvald, a young cadet. However, Garth's malicious action in releasing the wolverines led to Lantee being absent from the camp hunting them when the insect like Throgs (aliens with whom the Terrans cannot find common meeting ground and so they fight a war of running skirmishes) attacked and destroyed it.

Heading away from the camp, Lantee chances upon a downed space ship and meets up with Garth's older brother, who had been off world an effort to slow down colonization of Warlock.

The two begin a fantastic adventure as they cross the vividly described countryside, pulled by a compulsion that cannot be explained, while dodging Throgs and natural threats.

This books definitely bears reading and rereading. I may like it even more now, than it did nearly forty years ago.