The Queen of Zamba
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The Queen of Zamba is a science fiction novel written by L. Sprague de Camp, the first book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. It was written between November 1948 and January 1949 and first published as a two-part serial in Astounding Science Fiction for August and September 1949. It was published in book form as a paperback by Ace Books in 1954 as an "Ace Double" issued back-to-back with Clifford D. Simak's novel Ring Around the Sun. This version was editorially retitled Cosmic Manhunt and introduced a number of textual changes disapproved by the author. The novel was first issued by itself in another paperback edition under the title A Planet Called Krishna, published in England by Compact Books in 1966. A new paperback edition restoring the author's preferred title and text and including the Krishna short story "Perpetual Motion" was published by Dale Books in 1977. This edition was reprinted by Ace Books in 1982 as part of the standard edition of the Krishna novels. The novel has been translated into German, French, Italian and Czech.
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[edit] Plot and storyline
Victor Hasselborg, a twenty-second century private eye, is by a Syrian businessman to track down his missing daughter Julnar Batruni, who it turns out has run off with adventurer Anthony Fallon. Immediate complications ensue when Hasselborg finds himself falling for Alexandra, Fallon's abandoned wife. Discovering that the fugitives have gone off-planet, he tracks them to the planet Krishna, an Earth-like world of the star Tau Ceti with humanoid inhabitants but a medieval culture. Disguising himself as a native Krishnan, Hasselborg goes after them, little-knowing he has entered a web of interplanetary intrigue, spying, and gun-running...
The Krishan events of the novel take place in the Terran year 2138, which are preceded and followed by scenes on Earth, each of which is over a decade removed from the main action.
[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.
Anthony Fallon, the antagonist in The Queen of Zamba, reappeared in two later Krishna novels, as the protagonist of The Tower of Zanid and as a minor character in The Swords of Zinjaban.
[edit] External links
- "A Planet Called Krishna" - a book review by Simon McLeish
| Preceded by: None |
Krishna novels of L. Sprague de Camp The Queen of Zamba |
Succeeded by: The Hand of Zei |
