What book is this? (SciFi)

[dbt1949]

I remember reading a book or books about some earth colonists living on an alien world that was extremely hostile. The population could never increase much because all the life on the planet was hated humans. It seemed like it was mainly plant life. So the colonists became known as the best people on defense in the galaxy.
Eventually they are put up against a people that were the best on offense in the galaxy.
This book is probably thirty years old or more.

[Holman]

Is it Harry Harrison's Deathworld?

Early summary:

Deathworld centers on Jason dinAlt, a professional gambler who uses his erratic psionic abilities to tip the odds in his favor. While visiting the planet Cassylia, he is challenged by a man named Kerk Pyrrus (an ambassador of the planet Pyrrus) to turn a large amount of money into an immense sum by gambling at a government-run casino. He succeeds and survives the planetary government's desperate efforts to take back the money. Bothered that he may finally have met someone superior to him, he decides to accompany Kerk to Pyrrus, despite being warned that it is the deadliest world ever colonized by humans.

There have been numerous supernovae in a region, meaning that planets in the area are rich in valuable radioactive ores, but Pyrrus is the only even marginally habitable one, and thus the only one that can support sustained mining operations. Pyrrus is no paradise. It has a gravity of 2 g; its 42° axial tilt creates severe weather; it has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; two large moons generate tides of up to 30 meters; and finally, there are high levels of radiation.

Everything on the planet is deadly to humans. The large animals are strong enough to destroy small vehicles, while the small ones have neurotoxic venom. Even the plants are deadly. All microorganisms consume insufficiently protected tissue as quickly as acids. On top of all this, life evolves so quickly that even Kerk and his Pyrran crew have to be retrained upon their return in order to survive.

Because of this harsh environment, the settlers are engaged in a ceaseless struggle to survive, which—despite generations of acclimation and a training regime harsher than that of ancient Spartans—they are losing. The money Jason won is used to buy desperately needed weapons.

While acclimating to the harsh planet, Jason turns his attentions toward solving the planet's mysteries and saving the faltering colony. The few surviving historical records Jason finds show that the settlers numbers have decreased since the planet was first colonized, and they are now restricted to a single settlement. Extrapolating backward, it is clear to Jason that the flora and fauna were once far less hostile to humans. Jason also learns of greatly despised "grubbers", humans living outside the city, with whom the Pyrrans grudgingly trade hardware for increasingly necessary food.

[Holman]

This book is probably thirty years old or more.

Deathworld was published in 1960. Dbt, you've been around a long time.

[dbt1949]

Thanks! I don't remember too many particulars but that sounds like it.

I probably read it in the 80s or maybe the 90s.

[TheMix]

Heh. I have about 30 books by A.E. Van Vogt. I always get a chuckle from them because they talk about atomic powered this and atomic powered that. No nuclear power because it didn't exist when they were written. I too read them years after they were written.

[Holman]

One of the greatest techno-misses comes in 1984's Neuromancer.

The book fully visualizes cyberspace and corporate surveillance and worldwide interconnectivity, and there's a chilling scene where the antagonist (an orbital AI) stalks the protagonist by making a whole bank of payphones ring as he passes by each one.

Gibson was able to imagine a superpowered internet future without realizing that it would involve mobile phones.

[Rumpy]

... without realizing that it would involve mobile phones.

To be honest, I doubt many would have back then. It would have been hard to predict just how small and powerful computer chips would have become. In general it's probably impossible to predict the technological trajectory because it's made up of so many variables.

[Holman]

... without realizing that it would involve mobile phones.

To be honest, I doubt many would have back then. It would have been hard to predict just how small and powerful computer chips would have become. In general it's probably impossible to predict the technological trajectory because it's made up of so many variables.

Gibson has admitted it was a real oversight. Cordless phones were everywhere in the early 1980s, and there were already fully mobile phones on the market. The book is full of people using the equivalent of high-tech walkie-talkies. Molly seems to be able to access visual data at a distance using her mirrorshades. (Holy Crap! Neuromancer missed cell phones but it called Google Glass!)

I guess what Gibson missed wasn't the technology but its widespread consumer application.

[Jaymann]

It's an alternate universe where the phone company suppressed cell phones to keep those payphones rocking.

[Rumpy]

Yeah, it's easier to predict things on a wider scope, but much harder to predict more precisely. I think we tend to predict based on the peripheral of what we're familiar with in our time periods and extrapolate from that. If you look at a lot of predictions of the future from around the 1800-1900''s, you see a lot of hilarious extrapolation on what they predict the future to look like.

It's like the Fax machine in BTTF2's future. So ubiquitous at the time it was written, never stopped to think that something like it wouldn't exist in the future. It becomes a sort of technological blind spot.

Another of my favourite examples of this is in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. A great sci-fi with some interstellar travel and greatly developed aliens. But the way they communicate? Essentially via Usenet. Guy must have used it a lot back in his day We all still use Usenet, right??

Gibson must have spent a lot of time around phone booths

[gameoverman]

... without realizing that it would involve mobile phones.

To be honest, I doubt many would have back then. It would have been hard to predict just how small and powerful computer chips would have become. In general it's probably impossible to predict the technological trajectory because it's made up of so many variables.

I agree. When I was in the third grade our teacher told us that calculators, which then cost hundreds of dollars, would one day be cheap enough that everyone would be able to afford one. None of us believed it. He said electronics get smaller and cheaper and we'll see. Sure enough they got cheap fast, and much smaller and more capable too.

So I think it sounds like a contradiction but it's possible to know how things will play out and yet not know how things will play out. It's one thing to grasp that everything is becoming interconnected but impossible to envision what that really means.

[Rumpy]

So I think it sounds like a contradiction but it's possible to know how things will play out and yet not know how things will play out. It's one thing to grasp that everything is becoming interconnected but impossible to envision what that really means.

Yeah, exactly, and I like the way you said that. I think it's partly how our brain works. We're all surrounded in the immediacy of the moment, and I think for the most part, predictions that end up being correct are more or less flukes. What was it that Clarke said? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." To anyone in the past, anything modern might as well be magic because the concepts are impossible to grasp without certain context. That's not to say they're impossible, but that the understanding for them hasn't reached us.

I don't think Gibson was particularly wrong. I think he may be a little hard on himself as I wouldn't exactly call it an oversight. Calling it an oversight sounds more like something you know is about to happen and should have corrected it. But like everyone else, he was likely steeped in the present while writing it and couldn't see the advent of mobile phones on the horizon. That's not a fault, just human nature. One thing you can't predict is how fast or slow technology will develop. Sometimes things will develop extremely quickly or extremely slowly, or even sometimes fail to be adopted and become a historical footnote. Some things we have now are better than what's been predicted, some not. I think it's also fairly easy to say something in retrospect because we have more context to see clearly than our past-selves.

[Holman]

I've been thinking about it, and maybe the one tech Gibson completely failed to predict (and failure to predict is not a crime, I know) was not cell phones per se but widespread wireless technology in general. Everyone in Neuromancer is always plugging things into other things. What we would call "logging on" in the book is called "jacking in," because it always involves plugs and outlets.

Still, my Dad worked for AT&T in the early 80s and helped plan and manage the first networks of cellular towers. Maybe they just didn't have those in Gibson's Canada.

[gameoverman]

Well, in my case I missed the boat on cellphones. I remember when cellphones started being used by lots of people, one of my close friends got one. Remember those huge bricks? One of those. At that point I had already been using home computers, computers which could talk to each other via phone lines. I already knew about the 'electronics get smaller and cheaper' thing. I already knew this meant cellphones were destined to become small and affordable.

Yet I did not ever imagine that cellphones would merge with computers so that you would essentially be carrying around a computer AND phone with you all in one device, and that device would not only allow you to talk to other people but network with other computers(phones) in the same way you could with home computers. I already knew about store catalogs, which you could use to shop and order items from via mail, but it never occurred to me that everyone would just put their store in a computer and you could do your shopping via computer network instead of snail mail. Yet all these things seem like they should be obvious uses for these items when I look back on it.

[Holman]

Occasionally I go back a look at 1960s/70s SF, and even more glaring than the failed tech predictions are the glaringly retrograde social views. I assume the 50s stuff is even more obvious.

I think it's Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai that features a far-future macho space warrior signing a mercenary contract in an office full of secretaries straight out of Mad Men's first season.

Obviously we can't fault SF writers for failing to anticipate our socially enlightened times, but it's worth noticing when some of them break the mold and seem modern even when writing many decades ago. Samuel Delaney easily wins some sort of award here.

[Jaymann]

The easiest prediction for the future is brain chip implants that will do everything.

[Jeff V]

The easiest prediction for the future is brain chip implants that will do everything.

I thought it was the "kill all humans" subroutine built into every artificial intelligence? Even Elon Musk admitted it's impossible to make a true AI without this directive included in the coding.

[Jaymann]

The easiest prediction for the future is brain chip implants that will do everything.

I thought it was the "kill all humans" subroutine built into every artificial intelligence? Even Elon Musk admitted it's impossible to make a true AI without this directive included in the coding.

You don't eve need that. Some nerd will program a back door brain destruction code into the chips, so all he has to do to trigger it is say, "Fuck you, motherfucker!"

[Jeff V]

Sadly, that never seems to happen. I think it interferes with the subroutine that makes them effective servants at tea time.

[dbt1949]

When I go back to old sci fi I like Poul Anderson and Jack Vance.

[Jeff V]

When I go back to old sci fi I like Poul Anderson and Jack Vance.

I find it hard to get into old sci-fi these days...at least the stuff that is not totally out there. A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable. The problem with old sci-fi isn't that they are off on futuristic advances, it's that they fail to anticipate mundane details that are rendered technically obsolete today when the story is far in our future. One example would be all of the analog controls on Kirk's Enterprise in Star Trek.

[Jaymann]

When I go back to old sci fi I like Poul Anderson and Jack Vance.

+ 1000

[Rumpy]

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

[Z-Corn]

I read Heinlein's Have Spacesuit - Will Travel every few years and still enjoy it but that might be just pure nostalgia since it's the first sci-fi I ever read.

[hentzau]

Time Enough For Love is still one of my favorite books ever. I will reread it every year.

[Jaymon]

This is the perfect summation of reading golden age science fiction

I encounter this many times.

To be fair, not all of them are like this, But enough are that its a stereotype.

[Hipolito]

Deathworld sounds like a cool book, and it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I snagged it.

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

I read the unabridged version of that book in the 90s on the recommendation of a sci-fi-loving friend. It might have been the first sci-fi book I ever read. I was disappointed. Good concept, like you said, but I didn't understand why it's considered a classic. Reading it was like having to listen to a deranged, highly opinionated uncle at a party.

[TheMix]

Heinlein's later books were desperately in need of a good editor. I came so close to throwing The Number of the Beast across the room multiple times. I still hate that book with a passion. I tend to judge his books by thickness/number of pages. The shorter books are generally pretty good, and the longer ones suck. With the exception of Friday. I didn't mind that one.

[Rumpy]

I read the unabridged version of that book in the 90s on the recommendation of a sci-fi-loving friend. It might have been the first sci-fi book I ever read. I was disappointed. Good concept, like you said, but I didn't understand why it's considered a classic. Reading it was like having to listen to a deranged, highly opinionated uncle at a party.

Heh, deranged highly opinionated uncle is a good way of putting it. It's like a series of talking heads with few location changes. It's like wanting to leave the party while the uncle keeps droning on with his life-story and outdated mode of thinking and monopolizing the party. And frankly nothing much really happens in the story other than the philophising. I'd actually be a aghast to see the martian learning to think what he's learning is OK in this day and age.

[Scuzz]

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

I felt that way too when I re-read some Heinlein a couple years ago. I ended up donating most of my Heinlein to a library book sale keeping just two books. He had interesting ideas but there was just so much crap draped around them.

[Scuzz]

Deathworld sounds like a cool book, and it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I snagged it.

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

I read the unabridged version of that book in the 90s on the recommendation of a sci-fi-loving friend. It might have been the first sci-fi book I ever read. I was disappointed. Good concept, like you said, but I didn't understand why it's considered a classic. Reading it was like having to listen to a deranged, highly opinionated uncle at a party.

His books about the guy who traveled thru time (and his cat IIRC) made me feel that way.

[Holman]

Part of Heinlein's problem (especially with Stranger in a Strange Land) is that social criticism doesn't age well. Heinlein almost always has an axe to grind, and it's just gets more and more obvious as he ages.

On the fantasy rather than the SF side, though, it's genuinely amazing how fresh Fritz Leiber still feels. Some of his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories were written in the 1930s and 40s, but they feel almost like modern fantasy.

[hentzau]

Deathworld sounds like a cool book, and it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I snagged it.

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

I read the unabridged version of that book in the 90s on the recommendation of a sci-fi-loving friend. It might have been the first sci-fi book I ever read. I was disappointed. Good concept, like you said, but I didn't understand why it's considered a classic. Reading it was like having to listen to a deranged, highly opinionated uncle at a party.

His books about the guy who traveled thru time (and his cat IIRC) made me feel that way.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls? Rough spot to start with Heinlein, especially if you hadn't read any of his other Future Histories/World As Myth stories.

[Jaymann]

I thought Heinlein was overrated back in the day. But he got me interested enough to find the real classics, like the aforementioned Anderson and Vance, plus:

Roger Zelazny
Clifford Simak
Philip Jose Farmer
Philip K. Dick
Joe Haldeman

[hentzau]

I guess I'm the oddball Heinlein fan. But one of the first sci-fi stories I ever read was Starman Jones and I devoured as many of his juveniles as I could find. (Juveniles is old school Young Adult fiction, ya pervs.) That said, I was never much of a fan of Starship Troopers, but enjoyed almost all of his Future History and some of his World As Myth, along with some of his offshoots like Friday and I Will Fear No Evil.

[Rumpy]

I guess I'm the oddball Heinlein fan.

I don't mean to say that Heinlein is bad, but interestingly, Asimov had a lot of talking heads as well, but I find his work has aged much better than Heinlein's and still managed a lot of social commentary. I think the difference is at least when it comes to Stranger, Heinlein keeps himself grounded in the present which comes out at a disadvantage the more the story ages, while Asimov set his stories out in intergalactic space.

I think the one Heinlein I did like was the YA story where kids rocket to the moon only to find out that the Germans have beat them to it.

[Holman]

At the risk of being glib, it seems to me that the divide between pre- and post- New Wave SF (the 1970s, really) is the divide between having answers and having questions.

Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, etc are all Answer Men. Their faith in technology leads them to evangelize a kind of technocratic superiority, and that stuff wears thin in a world where technology has contributed to problems and inequalities in ways they never anticipated.

[Brian]

Deathworld sounds like a cool book, and it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I snagged it.

A few years ago I revisited some Heinlein and I had to struggle to ratchet my brain back enough decades where the story was even a little believable.

Speaking of Heinlein, I read Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, and it was a painful read. Now, the core concept I thought was great, and it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been revisited, but my god, the novel itself felt so dated with its outdated thinking and philosophizing that I felt it completely derailed any sense of story there was in it, which wasn't much. By the time I was finished with it, I wanted to rip it to shreds. I've never come across a book that made me so intensely dislike it.

I read the unabridged version of that book in the 90s on the recommendation of a sci-fi-loving friend. It might have been the first sci-fi book I ever read. I was disappointed. Good concept, like you said, but I didn't understand why it's considered a classic. Reading it was like having to listen to a deranged, highly opinionated uncle at a party.

His books about the guy who traveled thru time (and his cat IIRC) made me feel that way.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls? Rough spot to start with Heinlein, especially if you hadn't read any of his other Future Histories/World As Myth stories.

Definitely need to have read at least "Number of the Beast" and "Time Enough For Love" to get a good handle on "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls." Follow that up with "To Sail Beyond The Sunset" and you've got my reading list for the last two months. I'm just wrapping up "Sunset" at the moment.

There is another possible Heinlein book for the "dude who time travels with a cat" category and that would be "The Door Into Summer" which combines both cryogenically freezing a man who awakens in the future and then travels back in time....hey, is Futurama based on "The Door Into Summer?"

[Scuzz]

Years ago when I first read them I did enjoy most of it. I never got the reason Stranger in a Strange Land was held in such high esteem. In the last 5 years I have read Friday and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I thought both of those were better than his older stuff, which upon a recent re-read hadn't aged very well.

[Holman]

Normally we read books in their own time. We do it with classic literature without even noticing. No one really holds Shakespeare's or Jane Austen's prejudices against them; we just understand that that's how they thought, because History.

SF's problem is that it purports to show us The Future when it's really showing us alternatives to its own present.