Ladybird Books, £0.60, ISBN 0-7214-0728-5
Sci-fi, 1982
The Planet of Death is sadly the final entry in the Professor Gamma series by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle.
It has a pretty gripping premise: there is a deadly disease called the French Ague, and despite having its name, it is killing people in China already! The world is in lockdown, and holy crap, did the authors predict COVID-19 all the way back in 1982?
Oh, let’s first look Martin Aitchison’s spread that greets me when I open the book. Oh, my goodness, it’s so gorgeous! The skull on the planet is so well-done.
Anyway, William’s sister is infection by the virus, and fearing for her life, the boy rushes to Professor Gamma’s place for help. After all, Professor Gamma’s superpower is that he knows the answer to everything and anything.
Indeed, he points out that the disease must have been unleashed as part of a nefarious plan by his old enemy Viro. Conveniently, Viro has a huge museum of antidotes to practically every infection in existence in the Planet of Death, so William, the Professor, and the Professor’s daughter Kiryl quickly zip over to that planet.
Okay, this is where I start to feel that the authors have no clear plan on where to take this story after the gripping. I have pages after pages of the trio traveling to the planet, and once they get there, I get more pages after pages of them walking around Viro’s place.
Then, Viro finally shows up, and in an anticlimactic non-showdown, they get the cure and travel back to Earth. Yay, French Ague is no longer a threat to everyone’s life, and we don’t need to be forced to get any jab of dubious efficacy to get to that point. Isn’t fiction grand?
Sadly, this story isn’t so grand. It’s not the most exciting thing ever, as the main characters spend more time enjoying the scenery. The scenery is nice, so let’s just say that the late Martin Aitchison carried this story far harder to the finish line than the authors ever did. His illustrations are the best thing about this story!
The Planet of Death is easily the weakest entry in this series, mostly because it’s pretty non-eventful, and it’s a letdown that an otherwise really fun series has to end this way.
