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A review by kynan
Deathworld 1 by Harry Harrison
4.0
TL;DR: Mr Harrison's first published work, and one of his best. Excellent 60's scifi for a younger or adult audience!
TL: I read this a long, long time ago and it's had a nominal 4-star rating since I first shelved it when I started using Goodreads. Surprisingly (given the beat-down that I recently gave [b:The Stainless Steel Rat|64394|The Stainless Steel Rat (Stainless Steel Rat, #4)|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328073906l/64394._SY75_.jpg|824589] series), Deathworld held up really well and has retained its 4 stars!
Deathworld's premise is an interesting one, and one that we only reach circuitously. We start out with Jason dinAlt - professional and, of necessity, itinerant gambler. We meet dinAlt, carefully hiding behind a pseudonym as he arrives on the gambling planet Cassylia. dinAlt's preparations are interrupted when he is ferreted out by Kerk Pyrrus who makes a rather forceful proposition: that Jason gamble with Kerk's money, and win. He will be very, very well paid should he win, and possibly killed should he lose, but he doesn't have a great deal of choice. The plot spirals out quickly from this point and the pace rarely lets up from the very beginning. Much like the Stainless Steel Rat books, the action is both the leading hook (the tension literally starts to build from the very first sentence) and relentless with nary a chapter going past without some kind of relevant, but action laden scene.
Avoiding spoilers, Jason ends up paying a visit to the planet Pyrrus (from whence the imaginatively named Kerk hails). Pyrrus' claim to fame is that it's seriously rich in heavy metals, and seriously antagonistic to human survival. Not just in terms of planetary characteristics (like the 2G gravity and prodigiously extreme and changeable weather) but also in regard to the singularly vicious hatred that all forms of native Pyrran life (both animal and vegetable) display towards humans. Now, the planet itself is the source of my main gripe with this book, so let's get that out of the way first and then get on with listing all of the good stuff! My gripe is that, at some stage, humans decided to colonise Pyrrus with the aim of creating a stupendously wealthy mining colony. This turned out to be difficult as the planet subsequently waged a non-stop war against the colonists, over the course of nearly 300 years! 300. That's how long the Pyrrans have been attempting to live on the surface of Pyrrus, and mostly failing. I'm unconvinced that this status-quo would have withstood this kind of time-span. That said (and veering back into the "things that I like" category), Mr Harrison does his best to address this apparent unlikelihood by describing and expounding upon the single-mindedness of the Pyrrans and how their environment has necessarily molded them into this state, rendering them a little unlikely to spend time on flights of fancy that might result in someone going: you know what, this is ridiculous, time to leave!
The things I really like about this book is the fact that it's a really good story, along with being good, old-school, hard science fiction! There's space travel using chemical rockets and Jumps are made to achieve faster-than-light travel, but that's relegated to the background and that's fine! As was all the rage in the 60's there's an element of psionic-power exploration (something that would be echoed in the Stainless Steel Rats PSImen), but there's also a lot of background and exposition spent on explaining why things are the way they are. I mentioned this above, with regard to the socio-environmental interactions posited for the Pyrran's "doubling down" on maintaining their death grip on their chosen home, but there's also a fantastic scene early in the book where Kerk explains to Jason just how inhospitable Pyrrus is:
I truly love this little exposition because it performs the special magic that is science-fiction's crowning glory: it makes a connection to the real world, it inspires consideration not just on the content of the story, but on the potential way that the story reflects, projects or supposes about the real live universe. It challenges you to reconsider something so ordinary as water, with the simple statement of "Plenty of H2O, the most universal solvent you can find". The whole book is riddled with this kind of thing, and it's not just limited to physical sciences! The entirety of the book is dedicated to empathetic reaction, considering all sides of a conflict and, solutions to problems that don't just involve and equal and opposite reaction.
This is also not a satirical work, as much of the rest of Mr Harrison's books are, which is nice because it gives the main character some maneuvering room when it comes to being subversive, without being tounge-in-cheek satirical. dinAlt is not averse to weaponry (indeed, the opening chapter has him wielding a gun almost immediately) but similarly to Slippery Jim diGriz, Jason dinAlt has a strong moral desire to prevent needless death and this theme runs strongly through the plot. The book also has a limited female cast, although one of the lead characters is a woman, she is basically the only woman who makes it out of the background but she manages to be her own character and isn't just a love-interest for someone or a convenient monologue-support. Also, despite being written 60 years ago this book manages to maintain a credible line on future tech, with only a couple of jarring references to tape as a medium for things, especially ephemeral data like course plots.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Deathworld not only stands up to a modern re-read, I thoroughly (re-)enjoyed it and would happily continue to recommend it as a great gateway to science fiction for a younger audience.
TL: I read this a long, long time ago and it's had a nominal 4-star rating since I first shelved it when I started using Goodreads. Surprisingly (given the beat-down that I recently gave [b:The Stainless Steel Rat|64394|The Stainless Steel Rat (Stainless Steel Rat, #4)|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328073906l/64394._SY75_.jpg|824589] series), Deathworld held up really well and has retained its 4 stars!
Deathworld's premise is an interesting one, and one that we only reach circuitously. We start out with Jason dinAlt - professional and, of necessity, itinerant gambler. We meet dinAlt, carefully hiding behind a pseudonym as he arrives on the gambling planet Cassylia. dinAlt's preparations are interrupted when he is ferreted out by Kerk Pyrrus who makes a rather forceful proposition: that Jason gamble with Kerk's money, and win. He will be very, very well paid should he win, and possibly killed should he lose, but he doesn't have a great deal of choice. The plot spirals out quickly from this point and the pace rarely lets up from the very beginning. Much like the Stainless Steel Rat books, the action is both the leading hook (the tension literally starts to build from the very first sentence) and relentless with nary a chapter going past without some kind of relevant, but action laden scene.
Avoiding spoilers, Jason ends up paying a visit to the planet Pyrrus (from whence the imaginatively named Kerk hails). Pyrrus' claim to fame is that it's seriously rich in heavy metals, and seriously antagonistic to human survival. Not just in terms of planetary characteristics (like the 2G gravity and prodigiously extreme and changeable weather) but also in regard to the singularly vicious hatred that all forms of native Pyrran life (both animal and vegetable) display towards humans. Now, the planet itself is the source of my main gripe with this book, so let's get that out of the way first and then get on with listing all of the good stuff! My gripe is that, at some stage, humans decided to colonise Pyrrus with the aim of creating a stupendously wealthy mining colony. This turned out to be difficult as the planet subsequently waged a non-stop war against the colonists, over the course of nearly 300 years! 300. That's how long the Pyrrans have been attempting to live on the surface of Pyrrus, and mostly failing. I'm unconvinced that this status-quo would have withstood this kind of time-span. That said (and veering back into the "things that I like" category), Mr Harrison does his best to address this apparent unlikelihood by describing and expounding upon the single-mindedness of the Pyrrans and how their environment has necessarily molded them into this state, rendering them a little unlikely to spend time on flights of fancy that might result in someone going: you know what, this is ridiculous, time to leave!
The things I really like about this book is the fact that it's a really good story, along with being good, old-school, hard science fiction! There's space travel using chemical rockets and Jumps are made to achieve faster-than-light travel, but that's relegated to the background and that's fine! As was all the rage in the 60's there's an element of psionic-power exploration (something that would be echoed in the Stainless Steel Rats PSImen), but there's also a lot of background and exposition spent on explaining why things are the way they are. I mentioned this above, with regard to the socio-environmental interactions posited for the Pyrran's "doubling down" on maintaining their death grip on their chosen home, but there's also a fantastic scene early in the book where Kerk explains to Jason just how inhospitable Pyrrus is:
"Mankind doesn't belong on Pyrrus - yet has been there for almost three hundred years now. The age expectancy of my people is sixteen years. Of course most adults live beyond that, but the high child mortality brings the average down."
"It is everything that a humanoid world should not be. The gravity is nearly twice Earth normal. The temperature can vary daily from arctic to tropic. The climate—well you have to experience it to believe it. Like nothing you've seen anywhere else in the galaxy."
"I'm frightened," Jason said dryly. "What do you have—methane or chlorine reactions? I've been down on planets like that—"
Kerk slammed his hand down hard on the table. The dishes bounced and the table legs creaked. "Laboratory reactions!" he growled. "They look great on a bench—but what happens when you have a world filled with those compounds? In an eye-wink of galactic time all the violence is locked up in nice, stable compounds. The atmosphere may be poisonous for an oxygen breather, but taken by itself it's as harmless as weak beer."
"There is only one setup that is pure poison as a planetary atmosphere. Plenty of H2O, the most universal solvent you can find, plus free oxygen to work on—"
"Water and oxygen!" Jason broke in. "You mean Earth—or a planet like Cassylia here? That's preposterous."
"Not at all. Because you were born in this kind of environment you accept it as right and natural. You take it for granted that metals corrode, coastlines change, and storms interfere with communication. These are normal occurrences on oxygen-water worlds. On Pyrrus these conditions are carried to the nth degree."
"The planet has an axial tilt of almost forty-two degrees, so there is a tremendous change in temperature from season to season. This is one of the prime causes of a constantly changing icecap. The weather generated by this is spectacular to say the least."
"If that's all," Jason said, "I don't see why—"
"That's not all—it's barely the beginning. The open seas perform the dual destructive function of supplying water vapor to keep the weather going, and building up gigantic tides. Pyrrus' two satellites, Samas and Bessos, combine at times to pull the oceans up into thirty meter tides. And until you've seen one of these tides lap over into an active volcano you've seen nothing."
"Heavy elements are what brought us to Pyrrus—and these same elements keep the planet at a volcanic boil. There have been at least thirteen super-novas in the immediate stellar neighborhood. Heavy elements can be found on most of their planets of course—as well as completely unbreathable atmospheres. Long-term mining and exploitation can't be done by anything but a self-sustaining colony. Which meant Pyrrus. Where the radioactive elements are locked in the planetary core, surrounded by a shell of lighter ones. While this allows for the atmosphere men need, it also provides unceasing volcanic activity as the molten plasma forces its way to the surface."
I truly love this little exposition because it performs the special magic that is science-fiction's crowning glory: it makes a connection to the real world, it inspires consideration not just on the content of the story, but on the potential way that the story reflects, projects or supposes about the real live universe. It challenges you to reconsider something so ordinary as water, with the simple statement of "Plenty of H2O, the most universal solvent you can find". The whole book is riddled with this kind of thing, and it's not just limited to physical sciences! The entirety of the book is dedicated to empathetic reaction, considering all sides of a conflict and, solutions to problems that don't just involve and equal and opposite reaction.
This is also not a satirical work, as much of the rest of Mr Harrison's books are, which is nice because it gives the main character some maneuvering room when it comes to being subversive, without being tounge-in-cheek satirical. dinAlt is not averse to weaponry (indeed, the opening chapter has him wielding a gun almost immediately) but similarly to Slippery Jim diGriz, Jason dinAlt has a strong moral desire to prevent needless death and this theme runs strongly through the plot. The book also has a limited female cast, although one of the lead characters is a woman, she is basically the only woman who makes it out of the background but she manages to be her own character and isn't just a love-interest for someone or a convenient monologue-support. Also, despite being written 60 years ago this book manages to maintain a credible line on future tech, with only a couple of jarring references to tape as a medium for things, especially ephemeral data like course plots.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Deathworld not only stands up to a modern re-read, I thoroughly (re-)enjoyed it and would happily continue to recommend it as a great gateway to science fiction for a younger audience.