Harry Harrison was a writer who understood his audience. He always gave them what they expected and just a little bit more. Deathworld, Harrison’s first novel, begins by establishing its hero, Jason dinAlt, a gambler with a psionic edge. He also has the aplomb to carry off his bluffs. He would be right at home in an Ian Fleming novel. When the plot takes Jason to the ominously named planet Pyrrus, Harrison gives us something special, a well-worked-out planetary ecology and social system. Harrison still reads well after more than 70 years. 4 stars. ( )

Written as a pair with The Invisible Code.

I did manage after some encouragement from the ranks to get over that and I'm glad I did. It's a good bad-book. The Wildside edition I read was horribly proofread, but not nearly as badly as the academic books I've been reading lately. Nothing, at any rate, that distracted me from a punchy story, good characterisation as sci fi goes and a really interesting idea for world in which the story takes place.

As it happens I next picked up The Invisible Code by Christopher Fowler. I thought this was going to be another good bad-book for a few pages, but it doesn't take long to discover it's a bad bad-book.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/harry-harrison-and-christo... ( )

About as good as HH ever gets, and thus, a pleasant evenings' sojourn in Darwinism, on the planet Pyrrus. ( )

An enjoyable classic of science fiction. ( )

This book contains all three stories in the "Deathworld" series. The first one, which introduces us to the world called Pyrrus. Is a classic and a great read. The other two are weaker. I don't really remember the second story in the series very well, since I read it so long ago.
But the first one is a powerful allegorical tale. Also the main female (Meta) character is not your typical sci-fi sex-doll. ( )