Voodoo Planet
book by Andre Norton

Voodoo Planet is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton, first published in 1959 by Ace Books. This is a short novel that was usually published in a double-novel format. It is part of the Solar Queen series of novels.
The story involves two witch doctors who conjure up ghosts and demons against each other. Norton based the wizards’ magic on the use of mildly hallucinogenic drugs, psychological manipulation, and latent telepathy, which place the story within the realm of science fiction.
Plot
On the hot, humid ocean world of Xecho Dane Thorson has just finished his part in preparing the Free Trader (i.e. tramp freighter) Solar Queen to begin her run on an interstellar mail route. While waiting for the ship they are to relieve on the route, Dane, Captain Jellico, and Medic Craig Tau are invited to visit Xecho’s sister planet, Khatka, by Chief Ranger Kort Asaki. A jungle world originally settled thousands of years before by native-African refugees from one of Earth’s atomic wars, Khatka is a safari world, essentially a giant hunting ground where big-game hunters come to try their skill against large, dangerous animals.
On Khatka the three starmen discover that Ranger Asaki is being undermined by a witch doctor named Lumbrilo.
“Voodoo Planet” enters the record as book by Andre Norton. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Voodoo, Planet and book can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Voodoo Planet” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Voodoo, Planet and book provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19049444. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1959.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Voodoo Planet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.