Thralls Of the Endless Night - Leigh Brackett

Novelette

Number of words : 12000
Percent of Complex Words : 3.9
Average syllables per word : 1.3
Average words per sentence : 9.6


READABILITY INDICES

Fog : 5.4
Flesch : 85.8
Flesch-Kincaid : 3.7



CHARACTERS

Wes Kirk

Angry young man.

Captain's daughter

Young woman and daughter of the Ship master.

Ma Kirk

The mother.

Lil Kirk

His sister.

Pa Kirk

His father.

Captain

Master of The Ship.

First Officer

His second in command.

Second Officer

Next in the chain of command.

Third Officer

Officer Of the Day when Pa Kirk is killed.

Jakk Randl

Rebel, friend of Wes.

Wite

Second son of the First Officer.

Frank

Han man, hunter.

Russ

Han man, hunter.

Samel

Pirut leader.

Sada

Pirut woman.


TECHNOLOGY

Heat stone

Mineral used for warmth.

Attoblast

Powerful explosives.


ORGANISATIONS

Hans

People living outside the ship.

Piruts

Other group of people living outside the ship.


ANIMALS

Shags

"Five squat thick shapes with six legs; four powerful legs with claws and two
slender ones held in against the chest, armed with sucker discs for climbing. Five pairs of black eyes watching, hungry and infinitely patient. Five tucked bellies hurning under pale, shaggy hair."


MEDIA

Treaty of Alliance

"between the Sovereign Earth and the Union of Jovian Moons, providing for Earthly colonization and development of the said Moons, and mutual aid against Aggressor Worlds."


PLANTS

Sucking-plant

Used as a painful disciplinary device.


PLOT

An asteroid with a crashed Ship, and people huddled outside it as well, trying to keep warm with the few heat-stones that are left. As do the Piruts, some distance off. Both groups think the Ship dwellers are hoarding heat and technology. The latter are aggressive enough to organise a ruse and attack, using Wes' father and hunters as diversionary beat.

Wes, fired up by his dead rebel friend gets violent, and is given to the sucking plant. The captain's daughter frees him, and they end up being pursued by shags and captured by Pirut's. Wes organised with them to raid the Ship.

They discover their suspicions are false, but the Ship does contain powerful explosives. The people here are the remnants of a past conflict between a government and pirates in an interplanetary war. Unwittingly deployed, the explosives do heat up the place.


3.5 out of 5