The Return

Book 0: DUMAREST SAGA

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Dumarest had learned in the hard school of experience and he came equipped with certain attributes. He had very fast reflexes, he carried a knife and knew how to use it, he wore travellers garb which, because of the metal mesh buried within the thermal plastic, gave him protection against the lash of a claw, the rip of thorns, the cut and thrust of edged weapons. Most important of all, he had an overriding determination to survive no matter what the cost. On Gath this wasn't easy... (First published 1997)

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 164

Sample

The Dumarest Saga:

1: The Winds of Gath (1967)

2: Derai (1968)


3: Toyman (1969)


4: Kalin (1969)


5: The Jester at Scar (1970)


6: Lallia (1971)


7: Technos (1972)


8: Veruchia (1973)


9: Mayenne (1973)


10: Jondelle (1973)


11: Zenya (1974)


12: Eloise (1975)


13: Eye of the Zodiac (1975)


14: Jack of Swords (1976)


15: Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun (1976)


16: Haven of Darkness (1977)


17: Prison of Night (1977)


18: Incident on Ath (1978)


19: The Quillian Sector (1978)


20: Web of Sand (1979)


21: Iduna’s Universe (1979)


22: The Terra Data (1980)


23: World of Promise (1980)


24: Nectar of Heaven (1981)


25: The Terridae (1981)


26: The Coming Event (1982)


27: Earth is Heaven (1982)


28: Melome (1983)


29: Angado (1984)


30: Symbol of Terra (1984)


31: The Temple of Truth (1985)


32: The Return (1997)


33: Child of Earth (2008)


The Cap Kennedy (F.A.T.E.) Series (E.C. Tubb writing as Gregory Kern)

1: Galaxy of the Lost (1973)


2: Slave Ship from Sergan (1973)


3: Monster of Metelaze (1973)


4: Enemy Within the Skull (1974)


5: Jewel of Jarhen (1974)


6: Seetee Alert! (1974)


7: The Gholan Gate (1974)


8: The Eater of Worlds (1974)


9: Earth Enslaved (1974)


10: Planet of Dread (1974)


11: Spawn of Laban (1974)


12: The Genetic Buccaneer (1974)


13: A World Aflame (1974)


14: The Ghosts of Epidoris (1975)


15: Mimics of Dephene (1975)


16: Beyond the Galactic Lens (1975)


17: The Galactiad (1983)


Alien Dust (1955)


Alien Impact (1952)


Journey Into Terror (originally published as Alien Life (1954, rev. 1998))


Atom War on Mars (1952)


Fear of Strangers (first published as C.O.D. – Mars (1968))


Century of the Manikin (1972)


City of No Return (1954)

Death God’s Doom (1999)

Death is a Dream (1967)

Dead Weight (first published as Death Wears a White Face (1979))

Escape into Space (1969)

Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)

Hell Planet (1954)

Journey to Mars (1954)

Moon Base (1964)

Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)

Pawn of the Omphalos (1980)

S.T.A.R. Flight (1969)

Stardeath (1983)

Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)

Stellar Assignment (1979)

Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)

Fifty Days to Doom (first published as The Extra Man (1954))

The Life-Buyer (1965, 2008)

The Luck Machine (1980)

World in Torment (originally published as The Mutants Rebel (1953))

The Primitive (1977)

The Resurrected Man (1954)

The Sleeping City (1999)

The Space-Born (1956)

The Stellar Legion (1954)

To Dream Again (2011)

Venusian Adventure (1953)

Tide of Death (first published as World at Bay (1954))

E. C. Tubb (writing as Arthur MacLean)

The Possessed (revised version of Touch of Evil (1957))

E. C. Tubb (writing as Brian Shaw)

Argentis (1952)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Carl Maddox)

Menace from the Past (1954)

The Living World (1954)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Charles Grey)

Dynasty of Doom (1953)

The Extra Man (first published as Enterprise 2115 (1954) & then as The Mechanical Monarch (1958))

I Fight for Mars (1953)

Space Hunger (1953)

The Hand of Havoc (1954)

Secret of the Towers (originally published as The Tormented City (1953))

The Wall (1953)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Gill Hunt)

Planetfall (1951)

E. C. Tubb (writing as King Lang)

Saturn Patrol (1951)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Roy Sheldon)

The Metal Eater (1954)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Volsted Gridban)

The Green Helix (originally published as Alien Universe (1952))

Reverse Universe (1952)

Planetoid Disposals Ltd. (1953)

The Freedom Army (originally published as De Bracy’s Drug (1953))

Fugitive of Time (1953)

by E.C. Tubb

In a way it all started back in 1957 when I wrote a short story, The Bells of Acheron, which dealt with a party of tourists visiting a selection of worlds with unusual features. That of Acheron was a deep, spacious
valley filled with a mass of growths each of varying size and all bearing a host of seed pods ranging in size from small to
enormous. The soil was loaded with silicon, the pods were of glass and, at dawn and dusk when gentle winds stirred the valley
each pod responded to the impact of the seeds it contained. The result was music which covered the entire aural spectrum,
‘white noise’ which held every sound ever heard and which could be shaped by the mind to form words, prayers, songs, pleas
– a threnody born in the subconscious and holding a subtle attraction and a deadly threat.


A story, published, later anthologised, but relegated to the stature of ‘ghost’ – a thing done and set aside in the face of
other work.


Ten years later that ghost rose again – and it was not alone.

When Earl Dumarest rose from the casket in which he’d lain doped, frozen and ninety percent dead, he couldn’t have known what
he had started, and neither did I. I was writing an adventure novel and had created a character who would play a prominent
part. I had no suspicion, then, that we would travel together in 32 books over the next eighteen years.


Like any strong character, Dumarest quickly developed a life of his own. To be believable he had to be consistent in the way he thought, behaved and evaluated data. The things
which made him, the attributes he had been given, the motives which drove him, dictated the actions he took and his response
to events in which he became embroiled.


Much was made clear at the very beginning. Dumarest had ridden as he had, a Low passage, risking the fifteen percent death
rate, for the sake of cheap travel. A traveller at the bottom of the heap to whom poverty, while a perpetual danger, was no
stranger. An unexpected diversion had dumped him on the last kind of world he had wanted to visit. Gath, a tourist attraction,
with a soaring range of mountains fretted, worn, shaped, channelled, pierced and funnelled into the resemblance of a monstrous
organ which, like the plants of Acheron, when impacted by the wind, filled, the air with a mind-churning medley of ‘white
noise’. But on Gath the storms were violent, the sounds they produced strong enough to induce insanity and death. A harsh
world as savage as the society in which he found himself. A bleak, dead-end world. One devoid of charity, offering no employment,
no hope. Without money it was impossible to book passage and escape to another world. Without money he would starve.


Dumarest had learned in the hard school of experience and he came equipped with certain attributes. He had very fast reflexes,
he carried a knife and knew how to use it, he wore traveller’s garb which, because of the metal mesh buried within the thermal
plastic, gave him protection against the lash of a claw, the rip of thorns, the cut and thrust of edged weapons. Most important
of all, he had an overriding determination to survive no matter what the cost.


On Gath that wasn’t easy, but he managed and the book sold and was liked and … and …

Dumarest refused to be forgotten. A year later he was back in another story, Derai, 1968, which tested him to the limit, costing him love and security and leaving him alone to follow his own path. To continue his search for the world on which he had been born and from which he had run when little
more than a child. Earth, now a world of legend, its existence denied, derided, no almanac carrying the all-important coordinates
of its spacial position.


Toyman, 1969, followed a year later followed by Kalin in which Dumarest gained both love and a secret which was to dominate his future years. One so powerful and important that
it made him the prey of the Cyclan who hunted him across the galaxy with ruthless efficiency. The Jester At Scar (1970), Lallia (1971), Technos (1972), and Veruchia (1973), followed. Then things changed.


Don Wollheim who had published the Dumarest books while at Ace moved to set up his own company, DAW Books, and wanted Dumarest
to go with him. I was agreeable, I’d already written the next adventure, Mayenne, but there was a minor snag. DAW wanted to use a longer length than Ace had used, an extra 10,000 words a volume. This was
a big advantage as it permitted more freedom to expand and develop the plot. So Mayenne had to be lengthened. I doubt if anyone could find just where and how.


With DAW Dumarest gained new life and vigour and a new element entered the scene. As the series grew longer many readers began
to show concern that Dumarest, despite finding many clues, had yet to find Earth. I received many letters on the subject and
it was seriously suggested that I should write the final book and put it safely by so that, should I die of accident or whatever,
the saga could be completed.


All were positive that, sooner or later, Dumarest would find his home world. Well, almost all, as Don Wollheim later told
me he’d had a visitor in the early years of the series; an excitable Russian who firmly announced that ‘Dumarest will never
find Earth!’ An affirmation probably based on the popularity of Dumarest and his adventures or his own hope that they would
never end. Unfortunately events decided otherwise.


In order to sustain interest and to maintain suspense Don decided that Dumarest would find Earth – but not yet and only in
pretence. This was done in volume 27, Earth is Heaven, (1982), in which the truth is only revealed at the very end of the book. So Dumarest moved on for another 4 volumes until,
in 1985, he finds the precious coordinates of Earth inscribed on the walls in The Temple of Truth.

This was not intended to be the end of the series.

Dumarest was to find Earth and then continue his adventures on a planet which, while his home world, would be strange and
terrible, monstrous and bizarre. Many questions needed to be resolved – why had Earth been proscribed? By whom? Why had its
existence been denied? What dreadful threat did it harbour? What mysteries lurked in its caverns, on its mountains, deep in
its valleys? Spurred by the lust for easy wealth others would follow the coordinates Dumarest had found, eager to help themselves
to a mountain of legendary wealth. Their presence would be resented by those who would combat the intrusion. There would be
battle, murder and sudden death. A host of possibilities – now in limbo. The series did not continue. As far as DAW Books
were concerned The Temple of Truth ended the adventures of Dumarest.


In all fairness I have to agree that, if the series had to end, then that was as good a place as any. But I had already written
The Return and planned the beginning of the next volume. That remains just a beginning, and The Return remained a ‘lost book’ until 1992 when it, together with all other 31 volumes were published in France. It seemed that it
would stay ‘lost’ as far as an English publication was concerned. Now, happily, three decades since Dumarest rose from his
casket, you can travel with him to find his home.


I hope you will enjoy the journey.

– E.C. Tubb, London, July 1996

by Philip Harbottle

Edwin Charles Tubb (“E.C. Tubb”) was one of a select group of young British writers who emerged after the second world war
and helped establish science fiction in Great Britain. A prolific novelist and contributor to the burgeoning sf magazines,
he soon became equally well established in America, appearing in such magazines as Astounding/Analog, and Galaxy. In 1956 he began a long association with American book editor Donald A. Wollheim, who was to publish numerous novels by Tubb,
most notably those featuring “Earl Dumarest,” and his quest to find his home planet, Earth.


The Dumarest saga was Tubb’s greatest commercial success. The early novels in particular, were reprinted several times in
both the USA and the UK, and the series has been translated around the world, from France to Japan.


Initially warmly received by even the most acerbic critics, as the series continued the praise became qualified by a note
of exasperation as Dumarest failed to find Earth. The more sensible end of the critical spectrum was typified by Thomas Easton,
Analog’s regular book reviewer:


“… the Dumarest series is too blamed long. When it was new, I looked forward to six or eight more books before a final answer.
Now that it is stretching toward two dozen, I am getting impatient. Come on, Tubb! Give the man a break!”

That was written in 1981. Two years and five books later, Easton wrote:

“All his search to date has been fruitless. All his apparent progress futile. He has to do it all over again. The tale will
go on, and on. How does the reader react? There’s a certain wry appreciation for being had well. But that doesn’t last nearly
as long as my irritated, impatient, ‘Oh, no! There’s more!’ Yet the series sells – so many people seem to love reliable repetition.
Perhaps we should call the Dumarest saga the soap opera of science fiction and be done with it.”

Easton clearly shared the general critical opinion that Dumarest had to reach Earth. But was this necessarily true?


Tubb, like many another freelance writer, had battled for years with the problem of finding a steady market. There is nothing
more soul-destroying (and economically life-threatening) than for a writer to labour on a novel which does not sell. The science
fiction market has always been a precarious one, in that a relative handful of individuals control the destinies of magazines
and publishing houses – and, by extension, authors. Writers who personally fall foul of an editor can find their market withdrawn;
others who curry mutual favours and scratch a few backs can see their careers secured or helped along. Most literary production
has to be tailored to individual editorial tastes, or else aimed at a guaranteed waiting market, as perceived by the publisher.
All of which vagaries are cheerfully accepted by most journeymen writers who regard it as “writing for the market.”


John Russell Fearn spent years trying to find a reliable publisher, writing for literally dozens of editors, in dozens of
styles, under dozens of names. All proved to be shifting sand, until Fearn achieved a vast personal following with readers
of the Toronto Star Weekly (with a regular readership in excess of 900,000) for his Golden Amazon series. The Star Weekly published 52 weekly novels a year, of all types: mysteries, detectives, adventure, and romance; it had a large female readership.
Until Fearn began contributing they rarely used sf. At first, Fearn managed to sell to them mysteries and westerns, and a number of straight sf novels, but sold three times as many Amazon stories. An examination of Fearn’s correspondence
with the editor of the Star Weekly highlights a dilemma facing all writers. In 1959, along with his latest Amazon story, Fearn had submitted a superb straight
sf novel, Land’s End—Labrador. Despite the quality of the latter story, it was rejected, but the editor’s letter continued, regarding the Amazon novel:


“I feel sure that this will be all right as it is an Amazon story and there is a big readership for those.”

All of Fearn’s subsequent published novels with the Star Weekly were Amazon stories, in which the Amazon travelled through interstellar space, from planet to planet – just like Dumarest!


A prolific writer, Tubb had published dozens of novels in his early career, but with almost as many publishers. He had to
battle with a fickle and fraught market place. As his Dumarest series progressed, its background became more and more solid,
and real. Tubb realised that it could be used as a template for all kinds of science fiction situations. The underlying concept
of Dumarest travelling from world to world offered tremendous scope. It offered a means to explore and invent different ecologies
and cultures. As a traveller, he could meet a vast range of varied and interesting characters – scientists, idealists, peasants,
princes, criminals, fanatics, beggars, philosophers, cripples, children, soldiers, saints and sinners, villains and heroes,
and an endless variety of fascinating women. The character of Dumarest himself grew and deepened from book to book, until
he became a character of considerable depth: he could be a ruthless killer (but only if his life or that of a loved one depended
on it), but he could also be compassionate to others, and a champion of children and those less fortunate than himself. Dumarest,
in fact, grew into the composite of all Tubb’s earlier heroes – a galactic Everyman, but with a convincing logical consistency.
He never did anything out of character, but new facets were added with each novel. There was hardly a plot, character, or situation Tubb
could conceive that could not be incorporated into a Dumarest novel.


Tubb had a choice. He could end the Dumarest series in favour of a succession of one-off novels, and try to sell them, or he could write them as a Dumarest and be reasonably sure of a sale and worldwide subsidiary sales.


Tubb, in fact, did both continue to write Dumarest and to create non-Dumarest novels (he even created other character series). D. . .