It was made to look like an accident, as if the victim had been stung by one of the local insects, but Roy discovers that the murder was executed by a very clever trap that apparently had been set for Dr. James.

In the Foreword[1] Lowndes writes, Back in the early 40s, I remember a bull-session that some of us had with John W. Campbell, where he stated definitively that there could never be any such thing as a science-fiction detective story in the traditional “murder mystery” sense.

His reason for this proclamation was that since almost anything can happen in a science-fiction story – the villain can pull any sort of dingus or super-phenomenon out of his hat – the reader would never have a fair chance to solve the mystery.

Of course there can be science-fiction murder mysteries, offering the reader as good a chance to solve the crime as he has in any ordinary murder-mystery where the author is playing fair.

I hope Puzzle Planet will convince you that the murder mystery does have a place in science fiction.The book was reviewed by Notes Sources