The UK cover shows Hook still with the same hair and eyebrows, standing above a number of green and lumpy hands. To my eyes, he seems to look faintly embarassed.
Cover art is credited to Peter Goodfellow.
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450 01839 3 (? - UK edition doesn't actually specify this as the ISBN, but it appears on both the cover and inside with the publication details)
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UK blurb reads:
'The Universe hides many menaces: awful diseases, fearful storms, the emptiness of Space that drives men mad. But man can create his own dangers too.
The boosted men are almost super-men. Their muscles are like steel, their bodies possess great stamina, and their minds can communicate . . . thay are porcessed men. They can presenta a threat to any community if these powers are abused and confused with the lust for power.
Hook stumbles across what appears to be such a plan. And he finds that the only way to defeat them is to join them.
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'Ryder Hook jumped the last three treads of the mobile pedway from space shuttle to concrete. He was onplanet again, he owned dunnage filled with costly clothes and the trivia of the wealthy, his money-belt bulged with metal, a Delling snugged on his right wrist, and he meant to enoy himself or know the reason why.'
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Hook, full of promise and money metal, disembarks from a shuttle on the planet of Mergone only to find disease has overtaken the plaent's population. After a small firefight, the shuttle lifts off but its parent ship - HGL starship Talcahhuano - refuses to allow the passengers or crew to return. With only an uninhabited planet anywhere near, Hook has no choice but to try to crash-land the shuttle and it's oxygen-starved passengers on the nearest refuge.
Of course, this being a Hook book, the simple matter of crash-landing onto an uninhabited planet is merely the curtain raiser to another adventure.
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We meet Shaeel in this one, and Karg - a friend of Shaeel's. Karg is a F'lovett, and his facial expressions and so on are exactly the opposite to what a human's are. So when he smiles, he's angry. When he looks angry, he's happy. And so on. Shaeel is also now a mother/father, with a child of ves (not 'his' or 'hers' or 'its', but 'ves') own.
There's a Boosted Man in this one, and there's a love interest - Anthea Elterich.
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