Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 26, 2022 11:14:01 GMT -8
Four-Day Planet is a 172 page book by H. Beam Piper.
I'm 27% into it and it shows promise...unlike yet another mindless novel I started (and couldn't finish) by the highly over-rated chick writer, Becky Chambers. If you see that name, run. Trust me.
But this one by Piper shows early promise. It's set on a planet, Fenris, that went bust a few years ago. A corporation made a serious attempt to colonize it but the extremes in temperature make it impractical. They evacuated everyone...except a couple thousand hardened colonists who still wanted to try to make a go of it.
It's a hostile planet, and one whose fauna is more than ready to kill you. They have poisonous slugs and actual sea monsters (that are hunted for their fat, basically, and is the planets almost sole source of income).
The planet is a kleptocratic mess, run by a corrupt mayor (mayor of basically the only city on the planet, thus he's the government) and a union boss (who controls the sea monster harvests). They hold absolute power and can do pretty much what they want because Fenris is such an outlier and nobody cares.
Into this mix, the story is told through a yute reporter for the only newspaper on the planet. The kleptocrats are so in control, they'll even tolerate this reporter poking his nose into things...at least so far. But the union boss wants to lower the price of Tallow-wax yet again (the stuff they make from the sea monsters). It is likely they are simply skimming this off the top and this has nothing to do with the price that their single-buyer is willing to pay.
So it's a wild wild west type of place, but with regular service to and from a few major planets, including earth. I forget how long a year is on Fenris, but a year consists of four days, thus the book's title. And it provides for an interesting cycle of life for Fenris' inhabitants. They are either freezing their ass off for months at a time or endure scorching temperatures for the other months. The transition from day to night are the only times of moderation.
I'm 27% into it and it shows promise...unlike yet another mindless novel I started (and couldn't finish) by the highly over-rated chick writer, Becky Chambers. If you see that name, run. Trust me.
But this one by Piper shows early promise. It's set on a planet, Fenris, that went bust a few years ago. A corporation made a serious attempt to colonize it but the extremes in temperature make it impractical. They evacuated everyone...except a couple thousand hardened colonists who still wanted to try to make a go of it.
It's a hostile planet, and one whose fauna is more than ready to kill you. They have poisonous slugs and actual sea monsters (that are hunted for their fat, basically, and is the planets almost sole source of income).
The planet is a kleptocratic mess, run by a corrupt mayor (mayor of basically the only city on the planet, thus he's the government) and a union boss (who controls the sea monster harvests). They hold absolute power and can do pretty much what they want because Fenris is such an outlier and nobody cares.
Into this mix, the story is told through a yute reporter for the only newspaper on the planet. The kleptocrats are so in control, they'll even tolerate this reporter poking his nose into things...at least so far. But the union boss wants to lower the price of Tallow-wax yet again (the stuff they make from the sea monsters). It is likely they are simply skimming this off the top and this has nothing to do with the price that their single-buyer is willing to pay.
So it's a wild wild west type of place, but with regular service to and from a few major planets, including earth. I forget how long a year is on Fenris, but a year consists of four days, thus the book's title. And it provides for an interesting cycle of life for Fenris' inhabitants. They are either freezing their ass off for months at a time or endure scorching temperatures for the other months. The transition from day to night are the only times of moderation.