2025 Reading Challenge 12 Plague Ship
Thanks to Ian Cooper, the design lead for Questworlds who ran a brilliant playtest of Pioneer Space, his Rocket Punk genre pack, and introduced me to Andrew Norton. I searched out some of Andre’s golden age of sci-fi books. In particular, I was after something from the Solar Queen sequence. Luckily, in Help the Aged, Market Harborough, I picked up a copy of Plague Ship, it’s book two, but you can read them out of sequence.
These books were written in the 1950s, and though there are some dated terms and technology, they do hold their own in the sci-fi adventure stakes. The hero of the story is Dane, a cargo master-apprentice on the Solar Queen, a free trader spaceship currently on the remote planet of Sargol.
The first part of the story concerns the Solar Queen trying to broker a trade deal with the scent-obsessed Salariki, mainly trying to get their gems and find out what they want in return- as it turns out, catnip, of course, as they’re some kind of cat-human hybrid! Whilst they do this, they try and fend off the “eyesies” i.e. I-S, a much larger trading corporation who try and get one up on them throughout the book.
With trade agreed, the Sneaky Salariki priests sign a final agreement to take on a deal to return in six months. Travelling through space never allows such guaranteed timelines.
The next part is the journey back to Terra but also sees the crew fall victim to a possible “Plague”; all but the most junior folk, including Dane, are rendered senseless. Dane and the remaining two crew members try to find the source of the plague and a cure. They try and figure out where to land. Laws dictate that a plague ship is fair game for all other space farers, usually ending in it being forced into the sun. What will they do? Where will they go? Will they manage to get back to Sargol in six months?
This is a perfect, light adventure with some decent writing and some compelling ideas, yes it does feel dated, but that is also its charm, referencing back over 70 years to a period of history when we knew so little of what was beyond Earth, but Andre Norton definitely makes a sold fist of rendering a believable universe and some likeable characters.
I rated it 7.5 out of 10.
TTRPG Thoughts:
Traveller. Yep, this is Traveller. Solar Queen is a Free Trader, not Beowulf, but the basis for all Traveller adventures. The Salariki are the Aslan. The focus is trade routes, making money, taking risks and survival in the harshness of outer space. A transfer of the three main sequences into a one-shot or multiple-shots would not be too hard; a bit of roleplaying and rolling a few 2d6 bribes plus some blade or Gauss rifle combat with eyesies, then onto the return journey with mysteries and clue solving, before a final… well, no more spoilers.
Plague Ship, I think, could form the basis for a wonderful Dee Sanction adventure. A trip to the new world, negotiations with the indigenous people, then things can get supernatural on the journey home and the standoff with merrie oldye England, who refuse to have a plague ship dock, cannons firing as the Salty Queen desperately considers its options.