H. Beam Piper


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H. Beam Piper

Another science fiction writer whom I have discovered and enjoyed in the past few years is H. Beam Piper. Part of the reason I like Piper's writing, besides his characterisation, is because Piper, who died in 1964, wrote according to the constraints of his time, and thus avoided much of the gratuitous sex and violence which later and lesser writers seem to consider necessary. Unfortunately, he had a few weird ideas, one of which was a firm belief in reincarnation. Thus, when his debts had piled up to the point where he could no longer pay his bills, he committed suicide, believing that he could thus wipe his slate clean and be reincarnated. Ironically, his agent was trying to reach him with the cheque for his latest sale at the time.

	Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] I first discovered Piper's work when I picked up a reissue copy of Little Fuzzy (because of the cover, which shows a group of small, furry aliens flanking a human being armed with a ray gun) at the airport in Halifax a few years ago, and was quite entranced. Little Fuzzy is a "first contact" novel, but without the usual posing, atmospheric music, and deus ex machina of the cheesier recent reiterations of the formula, and with a nice twist which actually takes three novels to work itself out. The "Fuzzy" of the title is a small, furry alien discovered by a prospector on a supposedly uninhabited planet. Little Fuzzy, as he is named by the prospector, is small, cute, friendly, and intelligent. He and his family then proceed to melt crusty old prospector's heart, and those of just about everyone else they meet. (It becomes a sort of character test: if you like fuzzies, you can't be all bad.) But the complication is that natives would render the world not "uninhabited", and thus licensed for exploitation by the company which is colonising it, but "inhabited", which would place it under a whole other set of rules. There are fortunes to be lost, and so the fight rages over whether Fuzzies are just clever animals, or sentient beings.
	The Complete Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] Sadly, almost all of Piper's works are currently out of print, but Ace has republished Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People in one volume entitled The Complete Fuzzy. Fuzzy Sapiens and Fuzzies and Other People carry on the story after Little Fuzzy, and answer several questions raised in the first book. In fact, Fuzzies and Other People was unfinished at the time of Piper's death, and only edited and published some time afterward.
	Fuzzy Bones by William Tuning Published by Ace, 1982 Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] Since Piper's death, his fans (including me) have been bereft, wanting to know "What happens next?" for their favourite characters. Because people were begging for more, Ace commissioned other authors to write some posthumous sequels to Piper's better-known works. William Tuning produced a work which, while it comes after the first two Fuzzy books, reveals something of the origin of the Fuzzies. (And then, infuriatingly, it stops, just when things are getting really interesting.)
	Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey by Ardath Mayhar Published by Ace, 1984 Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] Another author commissioned to write a "fuzzy" book was Ardath Mayhar. Rather than being a sequel, Golden Dream is a prequel, following Little Fuzzy in the time before he runs into Jack Holloway near the beginning of Little Fuzzy. This work goes into more depth on Fuzzy language and psychology than most.
	Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.co.uk] Probably Piper's most famous work is Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. It's along the lines of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but more realistic in terms of just how much technological progress one person can bring about in a society than most such works. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is one of Piper's "Paratime" stories. The premise is that there are an infinite number of parallel worlds, diverging as choices come up in history. (Thus, there are worlds in which the Nazis conquered Britain in World War II, or in which the South won the American Civil War.) "Lord Kalvan" (his real name is Calvin) is a policeman accidentally transported to one of these parallel worlds, in which the Aryan peoples of Central Asia migrated East instead of West, and ended up in North America. Thus, he finds himself in his own neighbourhood, but the society is completely different, and technologically backwards compared to ours.
	The Complete Paratime by H. Beam Piper Published by Ace, 2001 Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] Some years ago, Ace published another collection of several of H. Beam Piper's short and mid-length fiction, called Paratime. Most of those stories follow the adventures of Verkan Vall, an officer of the Paratime Police, the force set up by the "First Level" culture (which discovered Paratime travel) to prevent abuses like slavery, but also, more importantly, to keep "Outtimers" (like us) from learning the Paratime Secret. Verkan Vall also appears in Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, so the two books go naturally together. Unfortunately, like Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Paratime has gone out of print. Fortunately, Ace has collected Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen and Paratime together into a single volume. Together with The Complete Fuzzy, The Complete Paratime can give you all of Piper's most famous works in two volumes. (They should really put the set into a slipcase, doncha think?)
	The Great Kings' War by Roland Green & John F. Carr Published by Ace, 1985 Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com] Probably the best of the sequels written in Piper's sandbox is Roland Green and John F. Carr's The Great Kings' War. Ace published it in 1985, and for some bizarre reason have let it, too, fall out of print. (This sort of thing goes in cycles: every few years, there is a flurry of interest in Piper's work, as new readers discover him.) Carrying on where Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen left off, this book tells the story of the next war instigated against Hos Hostigos by the House of Styphon. Only in this work, we get more of a picture of the thinking on the opposing side. Definitely a worthy successor.