Davidson, Avram. Mutiny in Space. 1964. Prologue, 2012.
Everything about the way this book has usually been packaged is misleading. The title should be something like Castaways on Valentine’s World because most of the action takes place on that planet. The name of the planet suggests a romantic focus that is present but downplayed in the plot. A blurb says the main characters are surrounded by a “howling mob of women,” phrasing that suggests a misogynistic focus that Davidson was at pains to undercut. As Michael Swanwick noted in his 2003 “Introduction to Mutiny in Space” (michaelswanwick.com/nonfic/mutiny.html), Davidson also undercuts the heroic stereotype of the brave, hunky space captain who never makes a mistake, and he suggests a critique of attempts to make colonialism, racism, and sexism morally palatable. The plot does have some pulpy elements, though. A mutiny leaves a captain and the loyal members of his mostly male spacecraft crew stranded on a planet with a nonindustrial culture in which women far outnumber men. When the captain inadvertently leads the mutineers with their megalomaniac leader to the planet, violence ensues. But the loyal crew is also having trouble deciding how to create a viable society. The ones we root for are the ones with the least grandiose plans. Three and a half stars rounded up to four. ( )

Davidson wrote many novels and dozens of short stories. He won SF and Fantasy awards though mostly for his shorter works. This was not one of his better books. ( )

Books like this are largely responsible for giving SF the checkered reputation it has. The characters are bland, the hero is one-dimensional, the setting is standard, yet unlikely: modern technical mankind on a planet with mediaeval leanings. Good people versus bad people. The good fellows win, the bad are destroyed. Not even the native ''primitive'' warrior women are portrayed with anything above sheer routine. The plot is non-existant. Far below par on all levels... ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/961172.html

I confess that I bought this purely because I overheard people sniggering about how Jack Gaughan, the cover artist, had been told to add a very small amount to the costume of the lady on the front cover compared to the original (which is still visible, if more dimly, on the back cover). Also the blurb made this look like it was probably entertainingly bad, particularly given its likely take on sexual politics.

Well, it turned out to be a bad book for quite different reasons. The blurb writer obviously felt that a planet controlled by women must be a Bad Thing; but in the novel Davidson portrays it as a pre-industrial feudal Eden, where men happen to be much shorter and women do the chivalry thing. (The scenes described in the blurb have almost no resemblance to anything that happens in the book.) If anything, I was disappointed by how unimaginative the setting actually was, and the plot is just good Earthmen vs bad Earthmen in Eden. On top of that the characterisation is lousy, and the pacing rather peculiar.

A quick read, though not necessarily a particularly edifying one. ( )

Mutiny takes the internal fight of the crew to a planet full of warrior women and tiny men. While the plot had promise, it was quickly smashed by sheer boredom. I gave it one star for nifty cover art ( )