Hugo Award: Best Novel nominee (1961).
Jason dinAlt is a gambler whose psi talents enable him to influence the fall of the dice. He is contacted by Kerk, an ambassador from the planet Pyrrus. Kerk wants dinAlt to gamble and win with his money, to raise enough money for him to buy weapons for the Pyrrans to fight a war. They are fighting against their planet, where every plant and animal seems to have a way, and a wish, to kill men.
Intrigued by these circumstances, dinAlt travels back to Pyrrus with Kerk. Here he must learn to survive in the high gravity, and train his reflexes to deal with sudden attacks from the flora and fauna. dinAlt decides to find out why the planet is attacking the Pyrrans.
Total ratings: 32
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey, 1925–2012) was an American science fiction (SF) author, best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and for his novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966). The latter was the rough basis for the motion picture Soylent Green (1973). Harrison was (with Brian Aldiss) the co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.
Aldiss called him "a constant peer and great family friend". His friend Michael Carroll said, "Imagine Pirates of the Caribbean or Raiders of the Lost Ark, and picture them as science-fiction novels. They're rip-roaring adventures, but they're stories with a lot of heart."
Novelist Christopher Priest wrote in an obituary, "Harrison was an extremely popular
