The Hand of Zei

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The Hand of Zei by L. Sprague de Camp, Ace Books, 1982

The Hand of Zei is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, the second book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. As with some other de Camp works, it has a convoluted publication history. It was first published as a four-part serial in Astounding Science Fiction for October, November, and December 1950 and January 1951. It was redivided into two parts for its first publication in book form by Avalon, appearing as The Search for Zei (1962) and The Hand of Zei (1963). To facilitate the division, de Camp wrote a new ending for the first and a new beginning for the second to briefly recapitulate the portion of the story already told. The two parts were then reissued together in paperback, back to back and inverted in relationship to each other, by Ace Books in 1963 as an "Ace Double". The Ace versions were slightly abridged by the author. A restored text bringing both segments back together was finally issued by Owlswick Press in 1978. A new paperback edition utilizing this text was published by Ace Books in 1982 as part of the standard edition of the Krishna novels. The novel has been translated into Dutch, French, German and Czech.

[edit] Plot and storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Travel writer Dirk Barnevelt and lecturer George Tangaloa, associates of interplanetary explorer and documentarian Igor Shtain, are drafted on Shtain's disappearance to complete his commission to explore the Sargasso Sea-like Sunqar area of Krishna's Banjao Sea — and incidentally to find Shtain, who is suspected to have been kidnapped to Krishna. Arriving on the planet, the Earthmen travel to their goal in disguise as native Krishnans, dogged at every step by pirates from the Sunqar who believe their true goal is to disrupt the pirates' smuggling operation. Complications arise when the two become embroiled in the affairs of the native monarchy of Qirib, whose princess Zei is kidnapped by the pirates. Dirk is ordered by Queen Alvandi to recover the princess while George remains behind as a hostage. Now Dirk must take the lead in rescuing Zei, putting down the pirates, recovering Shtain, and settling the affairs of Alvandi's topsy-turvy kingdom, in which the women bear arms and the men languish in perfumed idleness. To make matters worse, Dirk has fallen in love with Zei, but as representatives of two different species they can never be a true couple ... or can they?

After an introductory section set on Earth in about the Terran year 2132, the main events of the novel take place on Krishna in 2143, with a final scene from the following year.

[edit] Setting

The planet Krishna is de Camp's premier creation in the Sword and Planet genre, representing both a tribute to the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and an attempt to "get it right", reconstructing the concept logically, without what he regarded as Burroughs' biological and technological absurdities.

[edit] Trivia

The titles of all of de Camp's "Krishna" novels have a "Z" in them, a practice he claimed to have devised to keep track of them. Short stories in the series do not follow the practice, nor do Viagens Interplanetarias works not set on Krishna.