I'd never heard of Tubb, but I got 5 of his books in a boxlot of DAW pbs that I picked up, oh, a few years ago now. Apparently, he was reasonably well-known (more so in England) for this series, 'Dumarest' which numbers 32(!) books. 'Jondelle' is #10, but they're all stand-alone stories.
Based on reading this one, it's pulpy adventure space-fantasy, but really quite a lot better than I expected. (Esp. considering the embarassingly awful covers!) The hero, Earl Dumarest, is typical hero material - a hard, worldwise, intelligent man, battle-scarred yet attractive, reluctant to resort to violence but fully capable of killing... he ran away from his home planet, Earth, when just a boy, stowing away on a spaceship, and now has come to parts of the galaxy where Earth is no more than a faint legend. For reasons unspecified, he desperately wants to find his home... but in failing to do so, has quite a lot of adventures.
In Jondelle, the adventure is that he interferes in the kidnapping of a boy. He is taken in by the thankful child's mother, a doctor. But crazed forces seem bent on stealing the boy, and Dumarest, bound by his word of honor, goes on a quest to rescue the child and hunt down his kidnappers - a quest which leads him to a realm where yet another voluptuously beautiful doctor-woman awaits...
fun, quick read.
Based on reading this one, it's pulpy adventure space-fantasy, but really quite a lot better than I expected. (Esp. considering the embarassingly awful covers!) The hero, Earl Dumarest, is typical hero material - a hard, worldwise, intelligent man, battle-scarred yet attractive, reluctant to resort to violence but fully capable of killing... he ran away from his home planet, Earth, when just a boy, stowing away on a spaceship, and now has come to parts of the galaxy where Earth is no more than a faint legend. For reasons unspecified, he desperately wants to find his home... but in failing to do so, has quite a lot of adventures.
In Jondelle, the adventure is that he interferes in the kidnapping of a boy. He is taken in by the thankful child's mother, a doctor. But crazed forces seem bent on stealing the boy, and Dumarest, bound by his word of honor, goes on a quest to rescue the child and hunt down his kidnappers - a quest which leads him to a realm where yet another voluptuously beautiful doctor-woman awaits...
fun, quick read.
