E.C. Tubb 
Spawn of Laban 
Cap Kennedy Book 11

IN THE "DOC" SMITH TRADITIONThe planet was fine for big game hunters. And it was the tradition there that one must have a trophy before one could call oneself truly a man.If that were all, it would hardly interest Cap Kennedy because his trophies consisted of planets saved for Terra and missions accomplished. But there was something on Eriadne which was not just a hunt trophy — something which required the presence of Kennedy and his men to check on. One of these things was a fragment of Zheltyana construction which outdated all civilisation.But the hunt proved to be a double one — Kennedy against an unslayable monster and a lost world of monsters against Kennedy. And if he lost, it would be Terra itself that would be a trophy on some alien’s hunting lodge wall.SPAWN OF LABAN is one of the best — a real edge-of-the-seat science fiction chiller in the tradition of Edward E. Smith and Edmond Hamilton