Shadow Planet - Hardcover

Shatner, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061051195 ISBN 13: 9780061051197

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 2002

Synopsis

The ultimate destiny of humankind hangs in the balance in the gripping space saga.

A less likely group of saviors has never before jockeyed a great starship across the heavens-but Jim Endicott and the Stone Cowboys are suddenly the last hope of humanity. A street-toughened gang of thugs and hoodlums, they have already proved their mettle, staunching the flow of the killer drug that turned the world-sized intergalactic vessel Outward Bound into a gargantuan battlefield-cum-graveyard. Now, in a ship hijacked from the alien suppliers of the lethal narcotic and renamed Endeavor, the outlaw heroes are rocketing toward a grim confrontation they cannot avoid and, most likely, will not survive: a war to the death that will be waged on the enemy's home turf.

But first a motley group of street fighters-the scum of the galaxy, by all standards of decent people everywhere -- must be molded into a trained and disciplined commando unit. And that's where Jim Endicott comes in. Once hoping to join the Space Academy, now the untried captain of a stolen starship and its misfit crew, he has already altered one past using the astonishing powers of Omega, but the deadly challenge that lies ahead dwarfs any he has previously encountered. And within the Endeavor's close confines tension and unrest are perilously brewing, threatening to erupt in a devastating explosion of blood and mutiny that will have to be dealt with-brutally yet with finesse.

And after that ... the future is a terrifying question mark. For the roots of the fiendish galactic plot to obliterate the human "cancer" and end its expansion to the stars reach deep into dark, unknown, and inescapable places. And the only champions courageous -- and foolhardly -- enough to venture there are Endicott and his small band of cutthroat Cowboys, who have nothing in the universe left to lose.

About this title

About the Author:

William Shatner's career as an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, recording artist, author, and horseman has spanned more than fifty years. One of pop culture's most recognizable figures, he is also a major Hollywood philanthropist. Shatner and his wife and three married children live in Los Angeles.

From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School-In this fifth installment in the series, 40 gang members-teens and younger kids who had hijacked the spaceship of intergalactic drug suppliers in the previous book-have sworn reluctant allegiance to young Jim Endicott. The only gang member from a middle-class background and the only one with pilot training, Jim must first earn the respect of an anarchic group of rebels and then learn how to lead them. He has resolved to trace the drug-which turns humans into homicidal maniacs-back to its planetary source and put a stop to its trafficking. Although the original plan is simply to destroy the planet, the solution proves more complex, and leaves readers ready for a sequel. Shatner handles his characters well; he shows a little of what had turned them into misfits, and then takes them through some surprising turns of character development as they respond, mostly well, to challenges and events in their struggle to save the human race. This story of teens at their best and their worst is set against a future society in which humans are just in the process of bursting upon a universe already peopled with other sentient species. In the spirit of old-fashioned pulp sci-fi, there is plenty of action and highly colored prose, while the gang politics and personal challenges should interest modern teens. A brief bibliography points the way to nonfiction about both space colonization and gang life.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library,
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0061051195
• ISBN 13: 9780061051197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336