Rand Derikic is the captain of the Fe-nix, a vessel constructed for a 300-year mission of exploration and terraforming, and his journey is over. The Fe-nix has returned to its homeworld Sauria after Rand and his crew have experienced failure and the loss of a crew member. Their mission to find another world suitable for the two sentient species that populate Sauria - humans and reptiles - has not been successful. To make matters worse, when Rand awakes, the Fe-nix is empty. His stasis chamber has malfunctioned and he has been left alone whilst the rest of his crew - three humans, one reptile and one android - return to the surface.

This is only the beginning of Rand's troubles. Whilst he and his friends have only aged ten years during their mission, their homeworld is 300 years older, and much seems to have changed. Sauria has experienced Total Civilization Collapse, the worst future scenario ever concieved by the reptile Elites. Their computer simulations could never account for it; always some vestige of civilization should remain. And yet, as Rand and his crew have found, this nightmare has descended upon Sauria.

Rand follows his crewmates, descending to the surface of his homeworld, with the intention of both finding his friends and learning what could have brought about the social and technological collapse of his civilization.

'Sauria' has all the hallmarks of something that was released too quickly. It is peppered with errors. There are grammatical and spelling errors aplenty, along with sentences that, although their meaning can be deciphered, do not make sense due to erroneous repetitions or missing words. This is a shame, as in many ways 'Sauria' works well as an old-fashioned SF adventure story in the vein of the golden age - albeit with the occasional inclusion of some slightly more contemporary hard SF or space operatic elements.

There are a lot of things I like about this story, such as the inversion of the archetypical man/beast arrangement. Men are the bloodthirsty cruel sentients leading quasi-religious pogroms, whilst the reptiles are supposed to be herbivorous and peaceful with a strong sense of humour. Sadly we see little of this in the story as so few reptile characters appear for more than a few pages at a time.

The fate of Nesowa the android is both tragic and poignant. The explanation of what happened to Sauria is satisfying and although not unexpected, was certainly interesting. It provided a certain 'sensawunda' that really drives adventure SF. At times, Pritchard's knowledge of geographical science shines through and tidbits of information about Sauria itself are provided, which are usually interesting.

Sadly, research is otherwise a little sloppy. For example the Fe-nix is supposedly a vast craft - large enough to carry fuel for a 300-year trip, five atmosphere generators of indeterminate but probably large size, tons of equipment, and the living space and stasis chambers of six crew. At one point in the story a reference is made to this ship being constructed on the ground. This is highly improbable, given the structural issues with building a spaceship in atmosphere and a strong gravity field, not to mention the unimaginable amount of energy it would take to lift something that vast into the air (there is no mention of an orbital elevator and besides, with one of those it would be even more likely that such a ship would be built in space). Additionally, although to say too much would be to give something away, there is a lot of technology in the story that by the tale's own reasoning should not be there. Sometimes this is explained, although not always very convincingly, and other times it is just not mentioned.

I was also a little disturbed by the appearance of 'zombots' - corpses re-animated by devices designed to assist those with impaired mobility. The concept is fine and the explanation imaginative, but the name is so corny I had difficulty imagining how the characters could say it with a straight face. These things are supposed to be terror weapons!

These criticisms aside 'Sauria' was an enjoyable enough read, and is a pleasant way to wile away an afternoon if you ignore the inconsistencies and simply read this as 50s/60s era pulp SF. That said, I feel that an updated edition which removed the many text errors would be a very good move.

- Shaun Green, UK