Midworld [Hardcover]

Alan Dean Foster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1975

Born was a child of the rain forest that covered Midworld, part of the primitive society that the peaceful jungle planet had sustained for hundreds of years. He was wise in the ways of his world, and he knew well the precarious natural balance that governed all things.

Then one day the aliens came. Giants.  They knew nothing of the Upper or Lower Hell -- and they cared less. Born had risked his life to save them, to guide them through the myriad tangled boughs, past unseen, unsuspected dangers lurking in the underbrush. But worse than their ignorance of how to survive, the aliens had plans for Midworld, plans that could utterly destroy the globe-spanning forest that his people called home.

As the days passed, Born realized his mistake. And as he had once hunted only to live, he knew now that he would be forced to live only to kill...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Born was a child of the rain forest that covered Midworld, part of the primitive society that the peaceful jungle planet had sustained for hundreds of years. He was wise in the ways of his world, and he knew well the precarious natural balance that governed all things.

Then one day the aliens came. Giants.  They knew nothing of the Upper or Lower Hell -- and they cared less. Born had risked his life to save them, to guide them through the myriad tangled boughs, past unseen, unsuspected dangers lurking in the underbrush. But worse than their ignorance of how to survive, the aliens had plans for Midworld, plans that could utterly destroy the globe-spanning forest that his people called home.

As the days passed, Born realized his mistake. And as he had once hunted only to live, he knew now that he would be forced to live only to kill... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 179 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345253647
• ISBN-13: 978-0345253644
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,212,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Dean Foster's work to date includes excursions into hard science-fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He has also written numerous non-fiction articles on film, science, and scuba diving, as well as having produced the novel versions of many films, including such well-known productions as "Star Wars", the first three "Alien" films, "Alien Nation", and "The Chronicles of Riddick". Other works include scripts for talking records, radio, computer games, and the story for the first "Star Trek" movie. His novel "Shadowkeep" was the first ever book adapation of an original computer game. In addition to publication in English his work has been translated into more than fifty languages and has won awards in Spain and Russia. His novel "Cyber Way" won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first work of science-fiction ever to do so.

Foster's sometimes humorous, occasionally poignant, but always entertaining short fiction has appeared in all the major SF magazines as well as in original anthologies and several "Best of the Year" compendiums. His published oeuvre includes more than 100 books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing world-building, December 21, 2004

By 

Nina M. Osier (Randolph, ME USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midworld (Mass Market Paperback)

No one intended to settle the nameless planet covered by seven levels of steaming tropical forest. A colony ship wound up orbiting it by mistake, giving the stranded passengers no other option except to land and try their best to survive. A few of them did that for long enough to have children. Now, generations later, their adapted descendants include a hunter named Born. He's a curious young man, so much so that his people call him mad. For what good is curiosity, in a place where seeking to see the sky involves going to a place called Upper Hell?

When two giants drop out of the sky, only Born cares enough about the mystery to climb down through the trees and rescue them from their crashed flitter. Although they know less than the smallest child about surviving in this perilous place, Born manages to keep them alive long enough to reach the relative safety of his Home Tree. His tribe thinks it's seen him for the last time when he sets out to guide the strangers to the "station" from which they say they came - no one ever traveled that far before. As Born learns more and more about these fellow humans whose thinking is so very unlike that of his own people, and as he discovers how they mean to use the awesome power they've brought to Midworld, the young hunter's curiosity turns to horror. These invaders have to be stopped from carrying out their plans. But how?

The world-building in this book amazes me. Parable and adventure tale, it works well on both levels; and it ends with a chilling twist that turns what had looked predictable squarely onto its head. Followers of Foster's Flinx books - the more recent ones, especially - will find some delicious foreshadowing in that twist.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, August 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Midworld (Mass Market Paperback)

I actually read this book a long time ago - I think it would have been in the late 70s (Note that it is a re-issue now). My local library had a copy and I re-borrowed it a number of times because I was so enamoured with the imagery of the planet Midworld. It was probably responsible for my ongoing interest in SciFi/Fantasy literature.

The book is filled with vivid images of strange, alien lifeforms that are mind-boggling real. The characters are constantly threatened by death by unusual means, making it hard to find a spot to put the book down. In ways the book is similar to the more recently written "Sentenced to Prism", although set in a quite different landscape. I was also interested by the revisiting of Midworld by the author in "MidFlinx", although I think I prefer the original, Flinx is just too good at surviving so I knew he would make it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll read this one again and again., August 15, 2005

By 

The Mad Rocketeer (Central Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midworld (Mass Market Paperback)

This book, like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, is a book I keep reading again and again over the years, and for similar reasons. As previous reviewers have stated, this book is quite compact, yet rich and complete, and operates on several levels. It's the description of a fascinating world. It's an adventure story. It's a character study. It's a parable. The concept is intriguing, and the characters are multi-faceted. It's a compact classic, and until today I hadn't realized that Midworld had shown up in any other books. Those books (all of them) are going on my Amazon Wish List today.

Read this book, and read Starship Troopers. Both are SO much more than bugs-in-space. They're worth far more time than they actually take to read.