The Planet Strappers — Reading Companion

From Surplus Suit to Space Voyage

The first excerpt establishes the Bunch as a tight-knit group of hobbyists, not professional astronauts. The Archer Five is obsolete for the U.S. Space Force but plenty-good for them. Gallun emphasizes the tactile reality of equipment: unpacking the suit is a delicate operation watched like hawks. The group includes Eileen, a small, hard, ponytailed member, and Frank Nelsen, a tall, lean nineteen-year-old described as purposeful and studious. Ramos, cocky and physical, drops an arm across Eileen’s shoulders and gets an elbow in the stomach. The dynamic is informal, almost juvenile, but the care for the suit reveals genuine ambition. The setting—Jarviston, Minnesota—and the mention of regular astronautics classes at a technical college ground the story in a specific, modest American milieu. Readers should note how Gallun uses mundane details to make spaceflight feel accessible and homemade.

Ambush in the Asteroid Belt

A later excerpt jumps to a Mars-bound mission. Nelsen and Ramos speed toward Mars in tiny plastic-bubble spacecraft, alert to the outlaws of the void. The prose shifts to a terse, pulpy style: blips on the radar screen, fist-sized chunks of rock flicking through their vehicles, air puffing out. The threat is not natural but human—a catcall in their helmet phones, a voice Ramos recognizes as Tiflin, an old member of the Bunch. The phrase Be cavalier becomes a signature taunt. Gallun builds tension through technical specifics: ion guides, radar, sealing gum in the Archer’s skin. The attack is precise and malicious, using meteors as cover. Nelsen and Ramos fight back until knockout drugs deliver them into unconsciousness. The passage shows how the novel blends hard-SF gadgetry with a personal vendetta, turning space into a lawless frontier where former friends become enemies.

Captivity and Disorientation

After the ambush, Nelsen regains blurred consciousness inside a patched bubb, surrounded by loud laughter, liquor, tobacco smoke, and blaring music. The scene is chaotic and degrading: guys of all sizes, mostly young, some armored, hollering for women. A pimply face stumbles near; a large man with shovel teeth ambles over. Nelsen tries to fight but is knocked out again. Gallun renders the experience through sensory overload—smells of cooked meat, choking smoke—and physical disorientation: Nelsen wakes to absolute silence and the rotation of the whole universe, boots over head. The needle puncture in his hip, the bad smell of old sweat, and the numbness emphasize vulnerability. This section contrasts sharply with the earlier technical competence, showing the characters stripped of control. The reader is left uncertain about the fate of Ramos and the larger mission, as the excerpt cuts off before resolution.

Voice and Structure Across the Excerpts

Gallun’s narrative voice shifts markedly between sections. The opening is leisurely and observational, with long sentences and specific brand names (Archer Five, Hendricks’ Sports and Hobbies Center). The middle excerpt is clipped and urgent, mimicking the rhythm of a space battle. The captivity scene is fragmented and impressionistic, with dialogue rendered as slurred speech (Busht out shummore!). This variation suggests a deliberate structural choice: the novel moves from grounded, character-driven setup to action to psychological disorientation. The excerpts also reveal a recurring interest in the gap between official and amateur spaceflight—the surplus suit, the obsolete equipment, the Bunch’s informal training. Readers should watch for how these tonal shifts reflect the characters’ changing circumstances, and whether the novel maintains this pattern of escalation and collapse.

The excerpts suggest a story less about heroic exploration than about survival in a hostile, lawless solar system where former allies turn predator. Gallun’s attention to the physical details of space travel—the feel of a suit, the smell of a crowded bubb—grounds the adventure in a gritty realism. Readers may find it useful to track how the Bunch’s early camaraderie unravels, and how the technical jargon serves both to create authenticity and to obscure the characters’ true motives. The novel’s structure, jumping from Minnesota to deep space, rewards attention to the small, human moments amid the vacuum.

That Minnesota suit felt like a secret we were all keeping together. The grudges out there on Mars reminded me of how Say "Hello" for Me stays with me—not the action, but the quiet ache afterward. Some stories just settle in your chest. That one does, like a half-remembered train whistle at dusk, and I keep thinking about it weeks later. Say "Hello" for Me — Reading Companion holds that same weight.