Treasure Planet-Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q. Fox

Treasure Planet Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q. Fox Baen, May 6 2014, $15.00 ISBN: 9781476736402 In Thoma'stown on Wanderland, since the lessocks killed her husband, human Widow Cartwright owns and runs Lord Templemount Inn with some help from her son Peter. One of the inn’s guests is elderly Skel, who enjoys the rum and telling bloody tales of yore. Skel hires Peter to keep him informed when strangers come to the bar. A telepath enters the Lord Templemount demanding Peter, setting up alone, tell him where Skel is. Peter’s friend Kzin young one, Marthar Riit, enters and orders the telepath to leave, which the intruder does. The telepath accosts Skel who takes care of business. Soon afterward, a blind Kzin arrives and gives Skel something. After the Kzin leaves, Skel dies without paying his room, board and bar bill. Inside his room, Peter finds an encrypted map to the banned world Garth; an orb allegedly filled with technological gizmos worth a fortune on the black market. Marthar’s dad Orion obtains a ship and crew, and with his daughter, Peter, Dr. Lemoine, Judge Jorg von Thoma and human scientists set off to this Treasure Planet with pirates led by infamous K'zarr the Kzin, hated by both sides in the recent war, in pursuit. Placing Treasure Island inside the Larry Niven Man Kzin universe some years after the hostilities on Wanderland are officiously over leads to a wonderful outer space adventure. Although readers will know what happens next; as Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q. Fox pay homage to the Robert Luis Stephenson's classic with close adherence to the original storyline though with a fresh locale, Treasure Planet is an entertaining unique Man-Kzin thriller. Harriet Klausner