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"Deathworld" centers on Jason dinAlt, a professional gambler who uses his somewhat erratic psionic abilities to tip the odds in his favor. [...] In a fit of ennui, he decides to accompany planetary ambassador Kerk to his home, despite being warned that it is the deadliest world ever colonized by humans...DEATHWORLD!
I idly opened this the other night. Next thing I knew, it was several hours later and I had finished it. I'm not saying this is the best book ever, but it has quite a lot of readability. Especially if you at all enjoy pulp fiction.
The world of DOOM, where everything is attacking you at all times, is a great invention, and the first third, in which it gets talked up and then introduced, is the best part. The rest of the book, while satisfactorily adventurous and producing a reasonably clever explanation for why its so doomful, is a bit of a come-down. It's a slick, fast, breezy tale, but with the concept of a world in which absolutely everything is deadly, I wanted more atmosphere.
I don't expect writers other than C. L. Moore to be C. L. Moore (one of the best at evoking creepy deadly places where the very grass will suck your blood), but I did hope for more description of exactly how everything is deadly and what it looks like. Instead, it's mostly "A thing just leaped at me! Whew, I shot it. It moved too fast for me to get a good look at it but now I can -- uh-oh, another thing! Whew, shot that one. Now another thing! No time to look at any of them because here comes a BIGGER THING! And a thing with tentacles! Fangs! Yikes! More things with tentacles! Get the explosives!"
Fun but doesn't really live up to the delicious premise.
Deathworld
(99 cents on Kindle, including sequels.)
I idly opened this the other night. Next thing I knew, it was several hours later and I had finished it. I'm not saying this is the best book ever, but it has quite a lot of readability. Especially if you at all enjoy pulp fiction.
The world of DOOM, where everything is attacking you at all times, is a great invention, and the first third, in which it gets talked up and then introduced, is the best part. The rest of the book, while satisfactorily adventurous and producing a reasonably clever explanation for why its so doomful, is a bit of a come-down. It's a slick, fast, breezy tale, but with the concept of a world in which absolutely everything is deadly, I wanted more atmosphere.
I don't expect writers other than C. L. Moore to be C. L. Moore (one of the best at evoking creepy deadly places where the very grass will suck your blood), but I did hope for more description of exactly how everything is deadly and what it looks like. Instead, it's mostly "A thing just leaped at me! Whew, I shot it. It moved too fast for me to get a good look at it but now I can -- uh-oh, another thing! Whew, shot that one. Now another thing! No time to look at any of them because here comes a BIGGER THING! And a thing with tentacles! Fangs! Yikes! More things with tentacles! Get the explosives!"
Fun but doesn't really live up to the delicious premise.
Deathworld
(99 cents on Kindle, including sequels.)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Harrison has his strengths, but visual description isn't one of them.
Deathworld and its sequels were never my favorites as a kid, for all that I read them several times. The sequels get heavily into one of Harrison's favorite plots, which is to maroon someone on a world with a primitive culture and abuse them a lot - it gets very Hobbesian.[*]
If you want to read more Harrison (and I would not necessarily recommend that you do), I think his best work is the Stainless Steel Rat series. But stop after the first two books, or maybe the first three. Most of the others are dire.
[*]The philosopher, not the tiger.
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Most of the others are dire.
Case in point. (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2568924.html)
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I mean, I read the first few chapters, and really enjoyed the whole planet-and-culture thing going on, and then...wandered off, I guess, because I cared not a wit for the actual protagonist, just the cool training sessions for coping with the local flora and fauna.
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