Customer Reviews

Little Fuzzy

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The planet of Zarathustra sleeps quietly, the outright possession of the Chartered Zarathustra Company. However, something is about to wake it up. When Jack Holloway, a lone prospector out in the bush discovers a small humanoid race that might just be sapient, the company trembles. The company's claim to the planet is based on its classification as a Class III uninhabited planet, and the company is too big to be threatened with impunity.

But, the first of the little humanoids (Fuzzies) discovered knows nothing about charters and the law. Little Fuzzy joins Pappy Jack, and discovers a whole new world, a world full of fun and adventure. These are the adventures of Little Fuzzy, and his turning upside-down of a whole world!

This book was originally published in 1962, but is every bit as good today as it was back then. The story starts out a bit slow, but it picks up speed, and by the end you find that you can't put it down! H. Beam Piper was an author whose suicide tragically cut short what would have been a full and brilliant career. If you like good science fiction, set in a realistic and believable milieu, then I highly recommend this book to you.

This book was created by Ace Books in 1980, and is a combination of two of the redoubtable H. Beam Piper's most popular science fiction books: Little Fuzzy (1962) and Fuzzy Sapiens (1964). Little Fuzzy tells the story of a small, furry humanoid's adventures among the humans sharing his world, and how he came to trouble the counsels of the wise and powerful. Fuzzy Sapiens picks up where Little Fuzzy left off, with man's increase in knowledge about the Fuzzy race, and all the surprises it has in store for humanity.

These wonderful stories, coupled with Victoria Poyser's splendid illustrations make for a great immersion into the world of Zarathustra and the Fuzzies. These are two great stories, both of which should be considered classics in the field of science fiction. So, if you are interested in the Fuzzies, and can get this book, then I highly recommend that you do so.

What happens when an obviously sapient species is discovered on a human colony planet - but the usual rules of thumb used to separate people from animals in law don't apply?

In the Federation, there really isn't a legal definition of sapience, just a handy criterion of talk-and-build-a-fire intended to keep greedy speculators, sadists, and other lowlifes from claiming they couldn't tell that an obviously inhabited planet *was* inhabited. Zarathustra is legally a Class-III planet with no native intelligent species, so the Chartered Zarathustra Company essentially owns it outright, and makes a *lot* of money on its resulting monopoly on sunstones, not to mention a long list of assorted exports the CZC extracts from Zarathustra's virgin ecology.

Then one day Jack Holloway, a freelance sunstone prospector, comes home to find his door open - and a tiny creature, no more than two feet tall and covered in golden fur, in his shower stall. Being an independent-minded bachelor of a certain age doesn't mean one can't get lonely, and Jack's inclined to let the gutsy little guy hang around. Jack names him "Little Fuzzy", and quickly notices that his new friend is bright. So bright that he doesn't need to be shown things twice. So bright that he can generalize.

So bright that he can not only use tools Jack makes for him, but brought some of his own with him.

He and the rest of his hunter-gatherer family just don't seem to be able to talk, and they haven't mastered fire yet. The scientists working for the CZC are soon tasked quietly with "proving" that Fuzzies aren't sapient, and when one group tries to "confiscate" the little family living with Jack, there's a tragedy: Leonard Kellogg stomps one of the female Fuzzies to death, and Jack shoots another of the invaders dead.

The main conflict, though, isn't the shootout but the subsequent pair of criminal cases, which the chief justice of the planet opts to try together almost in the form of a lawsuit since the resolution of either would prejudice the verdict of the other: Leonard Kellogg's trial for the murder of a sapient being, and Jack's trial (where his defence is that he was attempting to prevent someone else's murder). As Jack's lawyer Gus Brannhard puts it, this *is* a lawsuit, in a way, with the CZC's charter hanging in the balance.

Really great story, with a crackerjack legal circus at the end and a lot of Fuzzies throughout (who're much better at having fun than humans are, for all that they're little guys in a very big dangerous world).

IRRELEVANT NOTE: Michael Whelan's Fuzzy cover paintings are famous. However, one point that's sometimes overlooked is that the only human in the group on the cover of *this* book - "Pappy" Jack Holloway - has been depicted by Whelan as a likeness of Piper himself.

Although quite short, the fast-paced, truly moving, and often very comedic "Little Fuzzy" is one of my choices for science fiction literature's truly great novels. The wit, the charm, and the brilliant characters will all stay with the reader long after the final page of this first of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy Sapiens series.

Zarathustra is a planet classed as uninhabited, which means the entire planet can be owned by a corporation, which it is, by the Zarathustra Company, which enjoys a high profit by mining the resources-rich planet. One day gem prospector Jack Holloway comes across a member of a previously undocumented species - a tiny, golden-furred little biped who he dubs 'Little Fuzzy', and shortly thereafter encounters Little Fuzzy's family. The fuzzies are cute, adorable, and often hilarious, and they're also quite socially advanced, including in the use of tools they themselves make. Holloway is convinced, and soon some of his human friends are too, that the Fuzzies are fully sentient and entitled to all the rights of any other sentient species.

Which means the Fuzzies would be the owners of their own planet, and the Zarathustra Company's deed would be automatically null and void.

The unscrupulous Zarathustra Company is determined not to see that happen, at any costs.

And thus we enter into a meeting of the science fiction novel, the legal courtroom drama, and an indepth examination of ethics. The book skillfully tackles these subjects seriously without forsaking the fun, playful side of its other main facet, represented so well by the gregarious Fuzzies themselves. I would say that there's heavy corporate satire at work in much of the book, but I belive satire is supposed to be an exxageration of the 'real' world, and sadly, I can see a corporation behaving this way if this kind of thing were to happen some day off in the future. Although the book is often a ride of wonder and fun, things can get very heavy and dark at times, including a plot thread dealing with the death of a Fuzzy. The courtroom scenes are a pinnacle of their type, not just for science fiction but for any novel.

An excellent tale; extremely recommended.

Little Fuzzy is written by H. Beam Piper and is the first in a series of many books on the fuzzys. The Plot of the book is simple enough, old man finds little furry people, old man keeps little furry people, old man trys to get little furry people recognized as sapient life forms. If you can get past the first 2 pages of scientific mumbo jumbo that has nothing to do with the story the you will be fine. The book is great! I generaly do not read sci fi, but I made an exception for little fuzzy, and you should to!

I picked up Little Fuzzy when I heard about John Scalzi's remake. Even though I've plowed through many of the classics of science fiction I had never come across H. Beam Piper. I'm very glad I gave it a try and will certainly be back for more. I found the story intelligent and thought provoking and I recommend it highly. In fact when my 12 year old picked up my kindle looking for something to read I recommended this story to her and she loved it too.

I wonder how many readers have given attention to how many H. Beam Piper characters are smokers. In "Omnilingual" (_Analog_, 1957), the heroine, Martha Dane nervously chain-smokes cigarettes as she worries about whether she will solve the problem of the Martian language. Her fellow archeologist, Dr. Selim von Ohlhorst, smokes a carved pipe. The head of the expedition, Col. Hubert Penrose, smokes cigarettes from a silver case. In _Junkyard Planet_ (1962), the hero, Conn Maxwell, and his father puff cigars. (They prefer the tobacco from their native planet over Terran tobacco.) In _Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen_ (1965), Verkin Vall and his wife smoke cigarettes, as does Hadron Dalla. In _Little Fuzzy_ (1962), Pappy Jack Holloway, the sunstone prospector, smokes a pipe-- a trait that the Fuzzies find fascinating. (To Pappy Jack's credit, he does not allow the Fuzzies to smoke his pipe.) I invite you to find other examples.

I don't know whether Piper himself was a smoker, nor do I know what were his personal thoughts about tobacco. But certainly many of his characters smoke. I suspect that it was simply a matter of characterization. What his characters smoked and how they smoked dramatised whether they were young or old, insecure or calm, laid-back or aggressive. In the same vein, shaving habits or table manners can reveal something about a fictional character.

In any event, _Little Fuzzy_ is hands down Piper's best novel, and the secret is not hard to find. It lies in the delightful characterization of his little natives of Zarathustra that immediately have you rooting for them from the very begining. Of course, we understand the motives of the Zarathustra Mining Company. They began operations believing that there was no native intelligent life on the planet. Once the Fuzzies have been discovered by Pappy Jack, the company is in danger of losing its charter. So it is in its best interests to get the Fuzzies declared non-intelligent and to quickly exterminate them.

The scenes between the Fuzzies and Pappy Jack are marvelous, and there are some dandy courtroom scenes in which lawyers for both sides draw on an arsenal of dirty tricks. _Little Fuzzy_ probes the question, "What is human?" I am reminded of a story by Robert A. Heinlein called "Jerry Was a Man" that deals with the same theme. Heinlein's story is blatently sentimental. Piper's novel is less so. But I think both authors intended us to see that what makes somebody "human" is something that goes beyond the courtroom arguments, something emotional, something elusive... but nevertheless, something real for all that. If you pass this novel over, you will be cheating yourself.

The Fuzzy Papers, though dated in certain customs of the author's time, is a wonderful book. Dealing with the question, "What makes a species sapient?", is definately something we need to consider, and the development of a rapport between the characters and the audience is wonderful. Of course, it's about the classic struggle between the rights of the "haves" and those of the "have nots", but it's also very funny in parts (like the "scientific" names that the original explores gave to the animals). It may be quaint, but The Fuzzy Papers is totally enjoyable, and the way that the author handles the question of sapience makes this a good book for your list of "must reads".

Little Fuzzy is an easy, very fast read which does not pretend to be extremely important, deeply metaphysical, exceptionally profound or utterly prophetic, all of the above being SF sins which have marred many a good intentions.

There is your typical 1960 culture (with a touch of wild West) transplanted in the year 2600 or so, with all the average 1960 SF embarrassing misses regarding future technology.

Then, there are the characters who feel like they are piano keys, not in the sense that they blend harmoniously, but in the sense that seldom has the reader met so definitely black and white characters regarding good and evil. The good guys are almost unbearably good and the bad guys are almost comically bad.

However, the story of a hairy homunculus possessing sentience is quite fascinating, thought well, fleshed out satisfactorily and presented with a few amusing legal complications.

You could do worse than not reading this Hugo nominee, in which H Beam Piper gives a quite adequate definition of sapience: speech and starting fires. Any singularitarians taking notes?

I treasure my copy. This and other books by this author still remain in my read-again pile although it's been almost 15 years since I first read it. Great story and never so involved with techo-details that you can't keep track of the plot. I still use this book to introduce people to "sci-fi" PS. no, I'm not related