The Suns of Scorpio

The Suns of Scorpio

Cover of first edition
Author	Kenneth Bulmer
Cover artist	Tim Kirk
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Dray Prescot series
Genre	Sword and planet
Publisher	DAW Books
Publication date	1973
Media type	Print (Paperback)
ISBN
Preceded by	Transit to Scorpio
Followed by	Warrior of Scorpio

The Suns of Scorpio is a science fiction novel written by Kenneth Bulmer under the pseudonym of Alan Burt Akers, and is volume two in his extensive Dray Prescot series of sword and planet novels, set on the fictional world of Kregen, a planet of the Antares star system in the constellation of Scorpio. It was first published by DAW Books in 1973.

The Dray Prescot series is made of several cycles of novels, each cycle essentially forming a series within the series. In addition to being the second volume in the series as a whole, The Suns of Scorpio is also the second volume in the Delian Cycle and introduces the reader to the fictional continent of Turismond and the Eye of the World.

The 52 completed novels of the Dray Prescot series were written by Bulmer between 1972 and 1997, when a stroke stopped his writing, also the later Dray Prescot books, after 1988, were originally only published in German. The series is in the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series.

The book follows on from the first volume and sees Dray Prescot banished to Earth, arriving in Lisbon. Prescot later takes part in the Battle of Waterloo and eventually travels to India where, shortly after his arrival, he is returned to Kregen through intervention of the Star Lords.

Prescot arrives on Kregen naked and without arms to save a young couple from an attack by rock apes but the two prove ungrateful and leave without thanking him. The significance of this event was later revealed in The Tides of Kregen but unclear to Prescot at the time. He spends the following days with the Todalpheme, an order devoted to calculate the complicated tides of Kregen. He learns that he has been send to Turismond, a continent to the west of Segesthes, the scene of most of the first book. He finds himself to the far west of this continent at an ancient, possibly man made canal, the only link between the open ocean and a Mediterranean Sea-like inland see, the Eye of the World. The local Todalpheme are trusted with closing the canal in case of a severe storm through an ancient dam at the western end.