I am trying to remember a SciF series of books I started reading in my early to mid-teens (1980-86) where the main character was searching for humanity's mythical home planet Earth, which I never did finish.
These were generally paperbacks I loanedborrowed from the library or picked up in 2nd hand book shops.
The main character (male) was a mercenary who made his way from planet to planet financing his space fares by taking various contracts, generally each novel's main plot involved a single contract, but with a larger story arc of searching for humanity's lost home planet.
Unique things I remember about the series;
- The main character tended to wear a one piece combat suit, like chain mail covered in some kind of polymer plastic.
- He was a skillful knife fighter.
- Interplanetary travel took time, rich passengers took drugs which slowed down their perception of time and aging. Slow-time?
- Each planet had a shanty town around the spaceport in which lived unfortunates who could no longer pay for passage off world.
- There was a religious order who fed these unfortunates at the cost of brainwashing them against violence.
- Most characters don't believe in the one home world myth, due to the number of races of human.
- At one point the main character gains the spectrum fingerprint of Earth's sun.
Some vague plots I remember from the series;
- Searching for immortality fungus on a world overrun by fungi.
- Hunting giant lizards for gems that grew in their brains.