Earthblood

Earthblood Author: Keith Laumer & Rosel George Brown Publication Date: 4/1968 Publisher: Berkley SF Paperback 4.1 x 7 inches, 287 pages Earthblood chronicles one man's struggle to find his destiny Galactic Hijinks: We are in the year 13,000 A.D. Our hero is Roan, a pure-strain human, who, as a boy, is kidnapped by the owner of a freak show and sent on a "summer stock" tour by means of spaceship. This weird interplanetary circus troupe is suddenly pirated by another vessel. But its outlaw commander, the dashing Henry Dread, turns out to be a pure-strain human, and he instantly takes a liking to our youthful hero. From here on, Earthblood explodes into wild cascades of pure adventure and excitement. Dread and Roan wander through the universe, sacking planets, keeping a sharp look-out for errant pure-strains, and landing at last on the planet Terra, totally unprepared for what they are to find there . . . Young Roan, raised by aliens, is determined to reclaim his heritage and rediscover the legendary, lost human homeworld. But between Roan and home is a dangerous journey He arrived on the planet as a frozen embryo, where he was purchased, gestated, and brought up by the alien couple Raff and Bella. ------------------------- Keith Laumer was born John Keith Laumer in Syracuse, New York on June 9, 1925. Before becoming a full- time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. He is best known for the Bolo stories and Retief series. His other works include The Other Side of Time, A Trace of Memory, Dinosaur Beach, and A Plague of Demons. He suffered a stroke in 1971, which negatively affected the quality of his work and his career declined. He was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News, Flying Models, and Aero Modeler. In 1960, he published How to Design and Build Flying Models. He died on January 23, 1993 at the age of 67.