Here's a review and some interesting notes of this novel. The notes
follow the review. Additional information may also be found in the 
planet list file. Last updated September 1, 2006 C.E.

ANDROID AT ARMS, Ace, 1973.

This is one of the clearest examples that the Norton High Galactic
Civilization stories may be seen by their author as spanning various
alternate universes, rather than taking place all within the same
one. Like STAR GATE, there is travel between alternate realities
within the story.

The novel begins with the hero waking up, prosaic enough, but this
is no mundane awakening. He finds that he and his several fellow
wakers are far from home in an unknown installation of the successors
to the Psychcrats. There is the mystery of where, and more important,
when they are. They have come from several sectors and time periods,
and it soon seems evident that their positions of responsibility (the
protagonist, Andas Kastor, is heir apparent to the throne of the
Dinganian System) has led them to be kidnapped and held in cold sleep
for years while androids replaced them and make choices agreeable to
the makers or purchasers of the androids, or else the several
individuals waking up are androids for some reason never used.

There is the problem of getting off of the desolate orb on which
they awoke and making their way back to their home worlds. This,
naturally enough, is compounded by the complexities of the people,
the characters who find themselves associates and personally
concerned in the choice of primary destination. After a digression
the survivors head for Inyanga and there Andas learns that he has
been asleep forty five years. It is 2275 A.F. and he had gone to
sleep in 2230. Of course, there's politics and no real place for
a younger version of the Emperor.

There is here a lot of the common background of the High Galactic
Civilization stories: Thieves' Guild, Waystar, Salariki, Central
Control, the game Stars and Comets, Zacathans, etc. and there is
the particular scene of much of this story, the planet of Inyanga,
an African colony. Andas and his Salariki companion Yolyos pass
through a door between the worlds to another Inyanga where an older
Andas Kastor is dying, trying in his failing moments to read:

   And what he was trying under such difficulty to see was a
   book--not a reading tape such as had been in use over untold
   centuries now, but an ancient book with pages to be manually
   turned, words printed on them. Andas knew books. They were
   curiosities and brought high prices from dealers of antiquities.
   There were at least a dozen in the Triple Towers, among the
   treasures collected by dilettente emperors of the past. p. 160

The older Andas passes the rule on to his younger double, and the
struggle against the mercenary backed forces that have afflicted the
planet in this universe continues. These mercenaries recall STAR
GUARD, though there is no mention here of the arogant species so
hard on humans in that earlier book. Here, though, are warriors as
honourable as those at the time and in the reality of warriors
whom Kana Karr knew. These faced with honourable defeat accept
reality:

   "You have our terms, Commander-in-Arms, and you must have
   considered them seriously or you would not be here. They are
   simple--your contract was broken when she who employed you fled,
   leaving you to the plague death. We offer you parole with honor.
   And though we cannot give you off-world withdrawal, since ships
   no longer fin down here, we offer you the best we can. This has
   never been any quarrel of yours, save that you used your fighting
   ability to aid a usurper. You have your choice--stay pent in the
   Drak Mount and let the plague and time end you. Or surrender the
   fortress to us on honorable terms. We do not seek you, who are
   but tools, but her who brought this ruin upon us." p. 262

I found this an interesting book with a healthy mixture of suspense,
mystery, action, magic, adventure and the feel of the rich tapestry
of High Galactic Civilization, with its vast expanse of diverse
cultures. I understand that Andre Norton wrote these books rapidly,
and I resonate very well to the flow of the prose from the
unconscious very detectable in her tales. This is one reason I have
read and re-read these tales and drunk deep of the flavour of a
stars spanning environment. And, there occurs in this book one of
those little points that bedevil many a translation, not to say this
is a translation, just that it is that kind of rendering, I believe.
Anyway, on page 97 Andas is wondering about the current state of
affairs on his home world. "But who wore the crown of Balkis-Candace,
the cloak of Ugana fur, and carried the pointless sword of Imperial
justice?" Perhaps unpointed better conveys the intented meaning. Such
minor things aside, this is a typically enjoyable Norton treat.

This review was written on June 30, 2002 CE by Michael McKenny.

Notes entered here on September 1, 2006 C.E.

p. 15 inhibitor (mental block impeding memory)
p. 17 stars and comets
p. 19 vormilk well aged
p. 23 Tear Drops of Lur
p. 24 Metallic Weed Combine
p. 25 dates pp. 63, 76, 96, 110
p. 26 Central Control
p. 28 veep is Thieves' Guild boss
p. 31 Mengians, Psychocrats
p. 49 Eyes and Ears; Inner Guard
p. 57 jacks
p. 74 san-sleep; healer
p. 76 Eighth Sector
p. 81 blaster p. 200; p. 121 old blaster
p. 97 Crown of Balkis Candace, etc.
p. 110 2275
p. 121 cyrmic script
p. 139 cat
p. 140 conditioning before leaving Sargol
p. 140 androids illegal
p. 160 books
p. 160 priests of cult of Kaysee (Cayce)
p. 178 no one knew lion, etc p. 270
p. 192 gorp
p. 193 ban on planets for war or plague
p. 195 Garden of Astarte
p. 199 scout; stunner
p. 202 skimmer p. 263
p. 206 bluewoods
p. 251 verse
p. 262 mercenary ranks, names
p. 263 cruisers
p. 265 mercenary customs known galaxy wide
p. 267 Salariki blood brother


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