Little Fuzzy
Oct. 31st, 2010 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daddytoddEverything by H. Beam Piper that was published before his death in 1964 is now in the public domain, so his most famous novel, Little Fuzzy, is now available from Project Gutenberg (and a bunch of other places, including iBooks) for free.
I originally read it in 1976 -- I still have the first printing of the Ace edition with the awesome Michael Whelan cover art that I bought (new, mind you, not used like so many of my other books in those days) when I was 16. I really liked it, and bought everything from Piper as soon as Ace reprinted it over the next 7 or 8 years.
I thought I'd see how it holds up 34 years later.
Surprisingly well. Not perfect -- Piper has some annoying habits. I agree with John W. Campbell, who turned it down for Astounding stating there were too many characters. Indeed there are, and they sometimes stumble over each other in a book that might - might - have 60,000 words tops.
But Piper's storytelling gifts were prodigious, and this is a fine book. I dug out my copies of Piper's 2 sequels (neither of which were published before his death - and the second didn't get into print until 1984!) and I'm going to jump into them immediately. Wish Fuzzy Sapiens and Fuzzies and Other People were available as legal e-books, but they're not. Too bad!
I'd love to see some talented fans make a Fan Film of THIS book. Hell, I'd love to see a real movie made of this book. The rights are available cheap, I would imagine.
Oh, apparently John Scalzi has written an authorized-by-the-Piper-estate "reboot" of the Fuzzy universe with the working title Fuzzy Nation. Tor has bought it and it's coming out some time next year. I suppose I'll have to buy & read that when it comes out.
I originally read it in 1976 -- I still have the first printing of the Ace edition with the awesome Michael Whelan cover art that I bought (new, mind you, not used like so many of my other books in those days) when I was 16. I really liked it, and bought everything from Piper as soon as Ace reprinted it over the next 7 or 8 years.
I thought I'd see how it holds up 34 years later.
Surprisingly well. Not perfect -- Piper has some annoying habits. I agree with John W. Campbell, who turned it down for Astounding stating there were too many characters. Indeed there are, and they sometimes stumble over each other in a book that might - might - have 60,000 words tops.
But Piper's storytelling gifts were prodigious, and this is a fine book. I dug out my copies of Piper's 2 sequels (neither of which were published before his death - and the second didn't get into print until 1984!) and I'm going to jump into them immediately. Wish Fuzzy Sapiens and Fuzzies and Other People were available as legal e-books, but they're not. Too bad!
I'd love to see some talented fans make a Fan Film of THIS book. Hell, I'd love to see a real movie made of this book. The rights are available cheap, I would imagine.
Oh, apparently John Scalzi has written an authorized-by-the-Piper-estate "reboot" of the Fuzzy universe with the working title Fuzzy Nation. Tor has bought it and it's coming out some time next year. I suppose I'll have to buy & read that when it comes out.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-01 01:59 pm (UTC)But 30 years later I don't remember any of the details. I'll probably end up re-reading them when I finish reading the "canonical" Fuzzy books.