STATION GEHENNA

Feeble and unpromising alien-contact yarn. Hot, dusty, poisonous planet Gehenna is being ""terraformed"" at the behest of rich, rapacious industrialist R.G. Spooner. Psychologist Victor Lewin travels to the terraforming station on Gehenna in order to replace one of the six-person crew who has died under mysterious circumstances. Various suspects reveal themselves--but could there be sentient life on the planet itself? Well, maybe--Lewin and others have strange dreams; still, suspicion focuses on a possible human saboteur. It emerges that Gehenna is sentient, sort of, and there's a saboteur! Old Spooner, you see, came to Gehenna years ago and aroused the sentience--and since then he's been determined to wipe it out, no matter what. The saboteur comes courtesy of Spooner's son, who wants station Gehenna shut down as a waste of money. Old Spooner eventually arrives in person, and Gehenna deals with him. Indistinguishable characters, vacuous plotting, vaporous aliens: a pallid little nonentity.