Back in 1967, E. C. Tubb’s Winds of Gath introduced an adventurer who was looking for his home planet.  The adventurer was Earl Dumarest and his homeworld is Earth.  The problem was that mysteriously almost all evidence of Earth had been expunged.  For 33 books, Tubb described Dumarest’s search for his home across a galaxy of planets.  Here and there, Dumarest would find clues that pointed the way to Earth’s secret location.  Of course, there has to be a bunch of Bad Guys trying to stop Dumarest.  Tubb chose the cyborgs called the Cyclan who hunt Dumarest to prevent him from finding Earth.  In addition, Dumarest also possesses the affinity twin, a way to control the mind of anyone he comes in contact with.  The Cyclan want the affinity twin to help them achieve galactic domination.

Yes, the writing is formulaic.  Yes, some of the middle volumes don’t advance Dumarest’s search very much.  But, all in all, the Dumarest series is satisfying space opera.

I felt sorry to see the series end.  DAW Books dropped the Dumarest series in 1985.  Volume 32, The Return, was published by a small press in 1997.  Since then, I’ve dreamed about completing the series.  But now Tubb has done that for me.  I have mixed feelings about Child of Earth.  It concludes the series, but leaves plenty unexplained.  At 89, I’m guessing E. C. Tubb isn’t going to do much more writing so this final volume will have to suffice.