Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic!, September 8, 2000
In the far future, exploration has brought many new worlds into the reach of humankind. To facilitate the exploitation of these worlds, trading companies are established. On the world of Uller, the Chartered Uller Company has been running matters much as the British East India Company ran India in the Eighteenth Century. While local potentates rule, humans profit and attempt to better the lot of the locals, whom they derisively call "Geeks." However, not all of the four-armed reptile-oid natives are pleased about the arrangement. When rebellion explodes, it is up to General Carlos von Schlichten, commander of the Company's army, to hold Uller for the Chartered Uller Company and the Terran Federation.This is an intelligent, and thought provoking book. The action is gripping, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. The author's use of the old trading company paradigm in the future is nothing short of brilliant. As an added bonus, the first chapter of the book contains notes describing the silicone world of Uller and fluorine world of Niflheim, with comments on the chemistry and evolution of life on the world: this written by Dr John D. Clark, scientist and one of the discoverers of sulfa. In certain ways, this book is out of date (the scene involving scientists using their sliderules is humorous), but not in any way that damages the believability of the story. So, if you are looking for a sci-fi book with a gripping story, and a highly exotic setting, then this book is for you!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Of historic interest..., March 25, 2005
Besides being an exciting story told well, this book should be interesting to all SF fans because it was the first real example of what we now call "Military SF." It predated Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" by several years. Jerry Pournelle was strongly influenced by reading this and other Beam Piper works. (I think it is no coincidence that a minor character in this book is named Col. Falkenberg!)
So many aspects of this book are repeated again and again in works by Pournelle, Weber, Drake, etc.: The story is told from the point of view of a dedicated military officer. Military hardware and methods are presented in convincing detail. Military rites and customs, the implicit trust and comradeship between military people, and the natural distrust between military and civilian authorities -- all are implicit to the plot. Military ways of thinking are forever contrasted to their civilian counterparts, so that the civvy ways of thought are shown to be hopelessly fuzzy-minded and soft-hearted, incapable of handling a crisis. Sexuality is repressed to the Boy-Scout level -- well, perhaps that's because it was published in the 1950s.
And above all, aliens are gorily slaughtered in numbers. Much of the fun and the punch to this narrative lies in the fact that it's OKAY to wreak bloody mayhem on enemies, if they are nonhuman and attacked you first. John Ringo is a recent author who uses exactly the same method to add "kick" to a narrative. Ringo's books seem always to be asking, how inventively can we waste a battalion of lizard-headed gooks?
Piper showed how to ask and answer that question first, here in ULLER, where you will find the original pattern for the plot styles of Ringo, Weber, Drake, et al.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Alien Revolt - Piper's first Future History yarn, August 3, 2007
With the transition of much of H. Beam Piper's work into the public domain publishers like Aegypan Press have finally begun to bring Piper's work back into print and for that fans of Piper owe them a debt of gratitude. This short novel was the first story written in Piper's Terrohuman Future History. Sentient natives on the planet Uller are unhappy with rule by the Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company and have been plotting revolution. When the uprising comes it's left to General Carlos Von Schlichten, Federation Army veteran and commander of the Company military forces, to stop the revolt and prevent the human settlers from being slaughtered. Inspired by the historical Sepoy Mutiny against the British East India Company, this is a novel of counter-insurgency that rages across the entire planet. Short on characterization but long on action this story introduces many of the ideas that Piper would use subsequently throughout his Future History.
Originally published as part of The Petrified Planet, a series of three novels written in the same setting, this reprint includes an introduction by Dr. John D. Clark that describes the environment of the planet Uller and neighboring Nifflheim, a hellish world where Terrans and their Ulleran assistants use nuclear weapons as mining tools!
This book uses the cover art from the February 1953 issue of Space Science Fiction in which the novel was first serialized, an odd choice because this is _not_ an illustration from the story.
Also recommend from Piper's Terrohuman Future History are Four-Day Planet, Little Fuzzy, The Cosmic Computer, and Space Viking.
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