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T hey named the other universe Ultra, because it was beyond the laws of the Milky Way galaxy. It was only by means of Ultra's non-Euclidean physics that men could travel the starways.

They named the ruler of that "immobile" planet Fury, because that was the effect of his power on people.

But they were afraid to call Craig Star Gazer by any other name, because he was the space captain who was going to cross into Fury's domain and wrench his loved one from Ultra's power-and this was something that no one had ever done before except the legendary Orpheus.

Cover art by Kelly Freas

Published in 1972 by DAW.

Dedicated to Mick Morriss

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Julius Watchgod, Craig Star Gazer, Ernst Ninrod, John Wrath, Donna Teredo, Marc Coldflame, Gray Gay Storm, Dark Aura and King Fury.

This novel was originally called Watchgod's Cargo, but Donald A. Wollheim changed the name to the more dramatic, yet equally descriptive one above. Most of it was written between Cradle of the Sun and The Blind Worm, and features the same stylistic treatment of characterisation as the Dies Irae trilogy; which here I found less irksome, because there are fewer characters to deal with. An interesting device is starting a flashback with a figure denoting how long before current events the sequence occured.

The descriptive writing is vividly clear as we've come to expect and we travel through the melancholy landscape of Chaos X in a graceful black gondola; accompanyed by souls as dark and shadowy as the landscape.

Personally, I like this every bit as much as the Blind Worm and together, they stand as the best of Brian's early novels.