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Long, long ago (probably early 80's), I read a book which actually contained three stories/books, may be by different authors, I don't recall. This particular (Dutch) edition had their pages colored in three different pastel tints, but that may not be the way they were distributed elsewhere. One of the books was a story about a planet with an extreme human-hostile flora. The human inhabitants needed extreme reflexes to deal with newly evolved species. This might be a Harry Harrison story. The second story was about a space castaway guy who, at the end of his life, prepared the friendly inhabitants of the planet for an invasion of human capitalist types. There is a long legal battle and in the end the aboriginals win by introducing certain tax laws. The third story eludes me at the moment.

I'd love to know the title of this collection as well as the specifics of these three stories.

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  • @Gallifreyan since I asked my question 3 years before the one you referred to, the other one is the duplicate.
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 10:05
  • The other one has a more detailed answer, so I thought it would be better to make it the duplicate target. The current consensus reads that the relative age of the questions doesn't matter.
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 10:07
  • Also, my question was about two books whereas the other one concerns only one.
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 10:10
  • Ah, that is my bad. Close vote retracted.
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented May 30, 2017 at 10:12
  • see scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/108994/… for good details on Lloyd Biggle's "Monument"
    – Otis
    Commented Oct 7, 2017 at 16:59

2 Answers 2

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The first one sounds like Deathworld by Harry Harrison. The second is Monument by Lloyd Biggle Jr.

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  • I've read the plot summary on Wikipedia now and these are indeed the novels I was thinking of. Any clue as to the third book that was included in the bundle?
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 17:16
  • It was not till I thought about it again, that I realize how libertarian the Deathworld series is. Amusingly, my sister was a big fan of that novel. The whole family enjoyed the Stainless Steel Rat series.
    – geoffc
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 17:29
  • @Sjoerd: ISFDB doesn't list any omnibus publication of Deathworld and Monument, and omnibuses with three novels from different authors are pretty uncommon. Putting these three novels together must have been specific to that Dutch edition.
    – user56
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 18:57
  • @gilles I found a three-story omnibus here deboekenplank.nl/naslag/antho/sf130gtxdeluxe.htm. But it's Harness (The Paradox Men), Biggle (Monument) and Laumer (A Plague of Demons), so no Harrison. It might be I was mistaken (it has been 30 years after all). I remember Laumer's story but Harness' only rings a remote bell.
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 19:37
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I agree with Mike that the second is probably Monument.

The first, though, could be any number of stories. Two settings that spring to mind, both by Frank Herbert, are the Pandora series, and The Dosadi Experiment, both set on worlds which are incredibly hostile to human life.

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  • Pandora, as in Avatar? I thought it resonated in my memory. Anyway, I thought the details were a bit different. I remember that the hatred from this planet emanated from a central point. The planet was so hostile planet folk that returned to the planet had to be retrained first before they could re-enter. The central character is an outsider (may be a con artist, not sure) who was recruited for his special abilities or so. There is also a woman involved who is extremely old but disguised as a youth.
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 15:46
  • No, this is a different one (although there are noticeable similarities with Avatar) - it's the series of books starting with Destination: Void, in particular The Jesus Incident. Not sure if your extra details match up very well with that.
    – Daniel Roseman
    Commented May 12, 2011 at 16:41
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    @SjoerdC.deVries Your description is so similar to the Deathworld plot that it's almost impossible for it to be something else. (The hatred of the planet did indeed emanate from a central point, round the colonists landing site).
    – DJClayworth
    Commented Nov 3, 2011 at 18:00

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