Review by Steve Hooley   —   June 20, 2001

Keith Laumer was the author of dozens of breezy 'Retief' series books, as well as dozens more tightly-plotted adventure novels, including the classic WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM. Rosel George Brown is remembered for a few sf novels like SIBYL SUE BLUE and as co-author of this book before her untimely death in 1967. Not only did they get away with it, but it's been reprinted several times. How can I possibly describe this incredible book? Space turkey opera? Beyond Politically Incorrect? THE IRON DREAM by Norman Spinrad has features in common with it, but not the same range, scope, and character development. Imagine STAR WARS, except the Wookiie has to sit in the back of the bus, or STAR TREK with mongrel Spock relegated to janitor. You see, in the Future, manunkind (that busy monster) has diverged into hundreds of genetic variants, and they all have a genetic purity complex. The closer to standard human they are, the more they look down on the others as pointy-eared Gooks. Of course, Gooks are happy not to be nonhuman Geeks, the scum of the universe.

Roan Cornay is his parents' pride and joy. They paid a lot for his embryo: his dad was crippled defending it and the price left them stranded in the ghetto of Tambool, in a universe recognizably Retief's after the passing of millennia. Roan grows up among Geeks of all sorts, especially the winged and instict-bound gracyls who serve him as a social group. He learns to fight early and develops a fierce pride in his Pure Terran ancestry, even though it makes him a target for Gooks of all kinds. As a Freak in Gom Bulj's travelling space circus, he meets vivid characters like lovely Stellaraire, a humanoid 'mule,' and the huge fighting Geek, Iron Robert. Earning a place for himself with fist and wit, Roan enjoys a brief idyll until his trail crosses with Henry Dread the space pirate, another Pure Terran. Dread drags Roan into his pirate crew and Roan catches Dread's dream: somewhere in the galaxy, after sixteen thousand years, the world called Terra still exists behind a blockade of the deadly Niss. Can it be freed, or the blockade run?

Roan leads a shipload of Gook pirates into deadly danger and finally finds the blockaded world . . . and the Niss . . . and the Pure Terrans themselves, who are a pretty sad bunch. Roan and his superior genetics must somehow jumpstart a stalled world; no problem, if you're as Caucasian as Roan. The message of this silly book is clear, and often trumpeted: nothing's more important than being a white guy descended from the Right Sort of People, and if you're that gosh-darned white, why, you just can't help winning in the end. This message is snickeringly undercut at every turn by the fact that nearly every important action in the book is the result of heroism or competence by so-called Geeks and Gooks, who return to save Roan's bacon in the end, and the real point is tossed out offhandedly by old Admiral Starbird: "It's the dream that makes a Man, not the number of his toes." And in the end Roan finds that his Gooks have the same dream, and have promoted themselves to Terran. All you need is a little Earthblood.