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Title: The Complete Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper ISBN: 0-441-00581-0 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: December, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Classic SF... for the whole family.
Comment: Capsule Description: A dispute over whether a small creature native to the planet Zarathustra is actually intelligent becomes a gripping drama in and out of the frontier planet's courtroom, in a trial whose outcome could mean life or death for an entire species. Written in a way that's suitable for virtually all audiences aside from very young children, with likeable characters, and starring the title character Little Fuzzy, who makes all of Lucas' attempts at cute sidekick characters look lame. A wonderful feel-good book.
Review: Take a good-hearted, crusty miner-type from any good Old West story -- especially the old miner who used to be a gunslinger -- and you've got Jack Holloway, prospecting for "sunstones" on the planet Zarathustra. Zarathustra's owned by the Chartered Zarathustra Company, so whatever you find there you sell to the Company, at the price the Company sets... but sunstones are valuable enough that even what the Company pays is well worth your while. But one day the independent loner comes home to find an odd, cute little creature has wandered into his house. It isn't long before he decides that "Little Fuzzy" is more than just an animal. What he doesn't think about, at least not at first, is this simple fact: a planet-wide Charter is awarded to a company only for planets which do NOT have a native sentient race. But when word of Jack's discovery reaches one of the Company's executives, they most certainly DO think about it... and get ready to do something about it, as well.
"Little Fuzzy" is one of the SF books that I can read to my kids. It has a warm, engaging prose style, and while there are one or two scenes that are scary or shocking, for the most part it's a story where people deal with each other as people. Even the opposition, in the person of the Zarathustra Company's executives, isn't painted in shades of black and white. It still remains an exciting book, with a number of unexpected twists, and very re-readable as well. I recommend buying "The Complete Fuzzy", which contains three Fuzzy novels in one, showing the evolution of the relationships that are started in the first, "Little Fuzzy".
Rating: 3
Summary: Our fathers' science fiction hasn't aged well.
Comment: H. Beam Piper's implicit worldview invites comparisons with that of his contempories, Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein, in that his stories present a simplistic morality in the service of a individualist and libertarian agenda. I don't have a problem with that, as such. Many SF writers write that way to appeal to an adolescent male readership chafing against adult authority.
I do object that Piper's novels have really dated since their publication. In a universe where Piper's human characters engage in interstellar travel, fly around in antigravity vehicles, employ special machines in court to detect lying and so forth, Piper has them still using typewriters, slide rules, film cameras, firearms and other inventions dating from late Victorian times. On almost every page a character is either smoking or drinking hard liquor. The characters' medical technology still isn't capable of treating aging and obesity. And they seem to reflect Piper's real-world gun obsession and are way too willing to use bullets to resolve disputes. (Any criminal profiler will tell you that an obsession with firearms indicates a disturbed and potentially violent personality. Piper's neighbors were probably fortunate that Piper killed only himself with a gun instead of "going postal" beforehand.) It's almost as if Piper's human characters had in the 1950's somehow hitched a ride from advanced extraterrestrials to the Fuzzies' planet and brought along their primitive tools and habits with them.
This clearly won't do. Science fiction writers produce better stories when they show that technologies usually don't advance in isolation, but often influence developments in other areas, as well change people's social behavior.
Rating: 5
Summary: This is a master of the form at the height of his powers
Comment: Credible, plausible, realistic, and convincing. For my money, the most compelling author in SF. Piper crafts believable stories that *move* and unforgettable characters that live and breathe.
To quote Jerry Pournelle from his preface to another of Piper's novels, Federation, "He knew the grand sweep of history, but he also knew the small tales; the intrigues and petty jealousies, heroism and cowardice, honor and betrayals. This, I think, is why his stories have such a ring of truth... He was a story teller; a man who could keep you up all night with his books and tales... He was a cavalier."
If you never read any other works by H. Beam Piper, do yourself a *huge* favor and read the Fuzzy trilogy. You'll thank yourself again and again!
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Title: The Complete Paratime by H. Beam Piper ISBN: 0441008011 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Fuzzy Bones by William Tuning, Michael Whelan ISBN: 0441261817 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: December, 1981 List Price(USD): $2.50 |
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Title: Space Viking by H. Beam Piper ISBN: 0441777848 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: September, 1983 List Price(USD): $64.50 |
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Title: The Fuzzy Papers: Little Fuzzy & Fuzzy Sapiens by H. Beam Piper ISBN: 0441261930 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: September, 1980 List Price(USD): $2.95 |
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Title: Uller Uprising by H. Beam Piper ISBN: 0441842925 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: June, 1983 List Price(USD): $2.75 |
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