The Return

Earl Dumarest is a man who left Earth by stowing away on a starship and conitinued travelling further and further away from a post apocalyptic Earth deep into the core of the galaxy colonized from Earth so long ago that most Humans have forgotten Earth's existence and popular theory suggests Humans eveolved simultaneously on different worlds. Each novel can be read by itself - Only Dumarest's quest for the location of Earth ties them together.
Once again Dumarest is stranded on a backwater planet after raiders have stolen the consignment of solar generators he was hoping to sell for a profit in another world.
Having captured a female raider, he persuades her to take him to the raiders who are based on a world where slavery is a way of life.
The Cyclan, who until now believed Dumarest to be dead, receive information to the contrary and so send a Cyber to investigate.
The Cyclan have been unable to replicate the secret formula that Dumarest holds, by which they could control the minds of puppet-leaders of world governments. Furthermore, the brains of cybers that have been stored in a vast underground linked network are going insane.
Thus, the cyclan scientists have been working on artificial minds in cloned bodies into which the consciousnesses of the brains can be transferred
Dumarest, winning the confidence of the raiders, tells them that there will be plenty of wealth to be found on Earth, and they set off in a raider ship.
Dumarest does finally reach Earth, but does not land.
There is a further volume, Child of Earth (2008),the last.
[compiled from readers' opinions on Goodeads]
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Cover art by Ron Turner
First published in French as Le Retour, Vaugirard 1992
"Gryphon first English (revised) edition May 1997" (copyright page)