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A tattered paperback copy of Andre Norton's Star Rangers, given to me years ago by one of several downsizing friends. It seemed to start a little slowly, but ended up being a good read. This is one of her young-adult books, which I remember fondly from my early teenage years. I had never before read this book, which reminded me strongly in theme of the Foundation trilogy of Isaac Asimov and the Ensign Flandry books of Poul Anderson. It took place during the breakup of a galactic civilization, and focused on the adventures of some members of the Patrol, perhaps equivalent in some ways to the US Marines.

They crash on an unknown planet near the edge of the galaxy. At first they seem to be alone, although they find a trace of a former civilization in the form of a paved road mostly buried in sand. Later, they meet survivors of another crash, and then some natives. The viewpoint character is telepathic, a trait that he shares with a small but noticeable minority of people from his society.

I did find some things a little improbable, such as the fact that the castaways don't have any problem eating the native animals without fear of poisoning. or that bird-like intelligent aliens can communicate with bird-like native fauna. Early science fiction certainly required a lot of suspension of disbelief about scientific matters, but let's just not worry about those problems okay?

Well, I don't want to give the whole thing away, but they eventually find out where they are. They are amazed, but the astute reader will have figured it out long before the end of the book. I also want to say that most of the characters, including nearly all of the important characters, are male, which was fairly typical of Norton's writing. This is a little jarring to the modern literary palate, but the book is a fun read anyway.