E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 32 - The Return.pdf - E. C. Tubb - margozap

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THE RETURN Dumarest

of Terra #32 by E.C.

Tubb

Acknowledgments:

Tubb

Dedication:

To Phil Harbottle, who has accompanied Dumarest all the

way.

Turner.

"Postscript to the Dumarest Saga," by Philip Harbottle.

Typesetting by Sean Alan Wallace.

Printing History :

Vaugirard (France): 1992 Gryphon: First English (Revised)

Edition: May 1997

ISBN: 0-936071-83-4 regular trade pb $20.00 ISBN:

0-936071-84-2 signed/* limited $40.00

A Gryphon Books Original!

This is the First English Language Edition and the First

American Edition!

Additional copies of this book can be ordered for $20.00 or

$40.00 each plus $2 per book from the publisher:

Gryphon Publications

PO Box 209

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11228-0209 USA

Introduction to The Return by E.C. Tubb

In a way it all started back in 1957 when I wrote a short story,

The Bells of Acheron , which dealt with a party of tourists

visiting a selection of worlds with unusual features. That of

Acheron was a deep, spacious valley filled with a mass of growths

each of varying size and all bearing a host of seed pods ranging

in size from small to enormous. The soil was loaded with silicon,

the pods were of glass and, at dawn and dusk when gentle winds

stirred the valley each pod responded to the impact of the seeds

it contained. The result was music which covered the entire

aural spectrum, 'white noise' which held every sound ever heard

and which could be shaped by the mind to form words, prayers,

songs, pleas — a threnody born in the subconscious and holding

a subtle attraction and a deadly threat.

A story, published, later anthologized, but relegated to the

stature of 'ghost' — a thing done and set aside in the face of other

work.

Ten years later that ghost rose again — and it was not alone.

When Earl Dumarest rose from the casket in which he'd lain

doped, frozen and ninety percent dead, he couldn't have known

what he had started, and neither did I. I was writing an

adventure novel and had created a character who would play a

prominent part. I had no suspicion, then, that we would travel

together in 32 books over the next eighteen years.

Like any strong character, Dumarest quickly developed a life

of his own. To be believable he had to be consistent in the way he

thought, behaved and evaluated data. The things which made

him, the attributes he had been given, the motives which drove

him, dictated the actions he took and his response to events in

which he became embroiled.

Much was made clear at the very beginning. Dumarest had

ridden as he had, a Low passage, risking the fifteen percent

death rate, for the sake of cheap travel. A traveler at the bottom

of the heap to whom poverty, while a perpetual danger, was no

stranger. An unexpected diversion had dumped him on the last

kind of world he had wanted to visit. Gath, a tourist attraction,

with a soaring range of mountains fretted, worn, shaped,

channeled, pierced and funneled into the resemblance of a

monstrous organ which, like the plants of Acheron, when

impacted by the wind, filled, the air with a mind-churning

medley of 'white noise'. But on Gath the storms were violent, the

sounds they produced strong enough to induce insanity and

death. A harsh world as savage as the society in which he found

himself. A bleak, dead-end world. One devoid of charity, offering

no employment, no hope. Without money it was impossible to

book passage and escape to another world. Without money he

would starve,

Dumarest had learned in the hard school of experience and he

came equipped with certain attributes. He had very fast reflexes,

he carried a knife and knew how to use it, he wore traveler's garb

which, because of the metal mesh buried within the thermal

plastic, gave him protection against the lash of a claw, the rip of

thorns, the cut and thrust of edged weapons. Most important of

all, he had an overriding determination to survive no matter

what the cost.

On Gath that wasn't easy, but he managed and the book sold

and was liked and…and…

Dumarest refused to be forgotten. A year later he was back in

another story, Derai , 1968, which tested him to the limit, costing

him love and security and leaving him alone to follow his own

path. To continue his search for the world on which he had been

born and from which he had run when little more than a child.

Earth, now a world of legend, its existence denied, derided, no

almanac carrying the all-important coordinates of its spacial

position.

Toyman , 1969, followed a year later followed by Kalin in

which Dumarest gained both love and a secret which was to

dominate his future years. One so powerful and important that it

made him the prey of the Cyclan who hunted him across the

galaxy with ruthless efficiency. The Jester At Scar, (1970),Lallia

(1971), Technos , (1972), and Veruchia , (1973), followed. Then

things changed.

Don Wollheim who had published the Dumarest books while

at Ace moved to set up his own company, DAW Books, and

wanted Dumarest to go with him. I was agreeable, I'd already

written the next adventure, Mayenne , but there was a minor

snag. DAW wanted to use a longer length than Ace had used, an

extra 10, 000 words a volume. This was a big advantage as it

permitted more freedom to expand and develop the plot. So

Mayenne had to be lengthened. I doubt if anyone could find just

where and how.

With DAW Dumarest gained new life and vigor and a new

element entered the scene. As the series grew longer many

readers began to show concern that Dumarest, despite finding

many clues, had yet to find Earth. I received many letters on the

subject and it was seriously suggested that I should write the

final book and put it safely by so that, should I die of accident or

whatever, the saga could be completed.

All were positive that, sooner or later, Dumarest would find

his home world. Well, almost all, as Don Wollheim later told me

he'd had a visitor in the early years of the series; an excitable

Russian who firmly announced that "Dumarest will never find

Earth!" An affirmation probably based on the popularity of

Dumarest and his adventures or his own hope that they would

never end. Unfortunately events decided otherwise.

In order to sustain interest and to maintain suspense Don

decided that Dumarest would find Earth — but not yet and only

in pretense. This was done in volume 27, Earth is Heaven ,

(1982), in which the truth is only revealed at the very end of the

book. So Dumarest moved on for another 4 volumes until , in

1985, he finds the precious coordinates of Earth inscribed on the

walls in The Temple of Truth .

This was not intended to be the end of the series.

Dumarest was to find Earth and then continue his adventures

on a planet which, while his home world, would be strange and

terrible, monstrous and bizarre. Many questions needed to be

resolved — why had Earth been proscribed? By whom? Why had

its existence been denied? What dreadful threat did it harbor?

What mysteries lurked in its caverns, on its mountains, deep in

its valleys? Spurred by the lust for easy wealth others would

follow the coordinates Dumarest had found, eager to help

themselves to a mountain of legendary wealth. Their presence

would be resented by those who would combat the intrusion.

There would be battle, murder and sudden death. A host of

possibilities — now in limbo. The series did not continue. As far

as DAW Books were concerned The Temple of Truth ended the

adventures of Dumarest.

In all fairness I have to agree that, if the series had to end,

then that was as good a place as any. But I had already written

The Return and planned the beginning of the next volume. That

remains just a beginning, and The Return remained a 'lost book'

until 1992 when it, together with all other 31 volumes were

published in France. It seemed that it would stay 'lost' as far as

an English publication was concerned. Now, happily, three

decades since Dumarest rose from his casket, you can travel with

him to find his home.

I hope you will enjoy the journey.

— E.C. Tubb, London, July 1996

POSTSCRIPT TO THE DUMAREST

SAGA by Philip Harbottle

Edwin Charles Tubb ("E.C. Tubb") was one of a select group of

young British writers who emerged after the second world war

and helped establish science fiction in Great Britain. A prolific

E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 32 - The Return.pdf

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