D-99

Description

If you are a fan of classic science fiction in the style of H. Beam Piper, you will surely enjoy Fyfe’s D-99. D-99 is a special department of the Terran government that is called 99 because its offices are on the 99th floor of a government building. The department carries out rescue missions to free humans who are trapped on other planets. The narrator of the events is a new recruit, a young agent named Willy Westervelt, hopelessly in love with one of his co-workers, a secretary named Berryl. Strangely, half the plot takes place in the department’s offices, where employees get trapped themselves – by a blackout. The power cut is remedied eventually, so the department can continue seeing to its tasks, the second half of the book being taken up by problem solving missions.

They work on four simultaneous rescue missions – there is a man called Harris, captured by an aquatic race on planet Tridentia and needs help; there is a female reporter imprisoned on a colony called Greenhaven governed by very strict, puritanical moral laws; another man called Gerson is held captive on Yoleen without anyone knowing the reason and two spacemen on a planet called Syssoka who have been imprisoned because they performed an emergency landing that violated local laws. By the end of the book all four rescue missions are completed, with the five humans involved freed and taken to safety.

D-99 was published in 1962 and it features the typical lightweight style and occasional serious message characteristic of sci-hi writings of the period. The book was written by Fyfe towards the end of his career – his active years started in 1940 and he continued publishing stories until 1967. The bulk of his work consists of short stories published in various science fiction magazines, including Astounding and Galaxy, D-99 being Fyfe’s only full-length novel and, according to many fans, the peak of his oeuvre.
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