Murray Leinster's "This World Is Taboo" is a gripping science fiction novel. This captivating narrative transports readers to a distant planet filled with mystery, intrigue, and ethical quandaries. The story takes place in a future in which humanity has constructed a large network of interconnected star systems known as the Interstellar Confederation. Calhoun, a resourceful and eccentric medical researcher, is introduced against this setting. He is charged with studying Dara, a strange and forbidden planet generally known as "Taboo." Dara is noted for its unusual and baffling characteristics: it is home to two intelligent species, an indigenous race and human colonists. However, a mysterious, deadly illness infects the planet, endangering the colonists' lives. Calhoun must traverse a complex web of politics, ethics, and intergalactic diplomacy in order to determine the plague's roots and find a cure. Murray Leinster's tale expertly blends aspects of mystery, medical research, and ethical inquiry. The complex world-building and character development in "This World Is Taboo" captivates readers. In the framework of interplanetary politics, the story explores issues of xenophobia, cooperation, and the repercussions of scientific discovery. Leinster, through the figure of Calhoun, addresses provocative themes regarding scientists' obligations and the influence of their work on extraterrestrial civilizations.
Murray Leinster (June 16, 1896 – June 8, 1975) was a pen name used by William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, primarily science fiction. He wrote and published almost 1500 short stories and essays, 14 film scripts, and hundreds of radio and television plays. Leinster Jenkins, the son of George B. Jenkins and Mary L. Jenkins, was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His father was a bookkeeper. Despite the fact that both parents were born in Virginia, the family resided in Manhattan in 1910, according to the Federal Census. Despite being a high school dropout, he began working as a freelance writer before World War I. His debut tale, "The Foreigner," appeared in the May 1916 issue of H. L. Mencken's literary magazine The Smart Set, two months before his twentieth birthday. Leinster contributed 10 more tales in the magazine over the next three years; in a September 2022 interview, Leinster's daughter noted that Mencken advocated using a pseudonym for non-Smart Set work. Leinster served in the United States Army and the Committee of Public Information during World War I (1917-1918). His writing began to appear in pulp magazines such as Argosy, Snappy Stories, and Breezy Stories during and after the war. He continued to be published in Argosy into the 1950s.
