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  • First Cycle

First Cycle

by H. Beam Piper, Michael Kurland
First Cycle by H. Beam Piper, Michael Kurland
★ 10.00 / 1
123456789110

Edited and expanded by Michael Kurland.

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Science Fiction
Release date: 1982
Reviews and Comments (1)

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H. Beam Piper

Henry Beam Piper (1904–1964) was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels.

H. Beam Piper was born in 1904. He had no formal education and, at 18, went to work as a labourer for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Largely self-educated, he garnered an extensive knowledge of science and history. In his later years, Piper, a solitary and guarded man, did not tell his friends of his precarious financial state. In 1964, H. Beam Piper shut off all the utilities to his apartment in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and took his own life.

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Reviews and Comments

05/04/2014
Dave Neil avatar
Dave Neil
1 books, 1 reviews
★★★★★★★★★★ 10 / 10
SPOILERS - click to open
Read more ...

An excellent read. The reader will not fail to note the many levels of historical parallels characteristic of Piper's work, which were not affected by Kurland's finishing. Spanning centuries, it outlines the development and eventual contact of races arising on a binary planet system. One, the Thalassans, develops a totalitarian theocracy, and the other, the Hetairans, never develops either a religion or a government, per se. Their entire culture is based on - in the words of a friend I lent it to - "Knowledge... leads to more knowledge. We LIKE that." -SPOILER ALERT - When contact is made amicable relations gradually sour and both races come to the same decision and implement it simultaneously. Piper hid a joke of sorts in the book which requires special knowledge to catch. The principal god of the Thalassans is Vran. The closest English transliteration of the Russian acronym equivalent to the American MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), is VRAN.

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