Review of Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper

SFFaudio Review
littlefuzzyLittle Fuzzy
By H. Beam Piper; Read by Jim Roberts
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Publication Date: 11 February 2014
[UNABRIDGED] – 7 hours

Themes: / alien intelligence / human intelligence / corporate greed / pipe smoking / science fiction / aliens /

Publisher summary:

On the planet Zarathustra, a sunstone prospector named Jack Holloway receives a strange guest at his door one night – a mysterious, small, fuzzy alien – which promptly makes itself at home. Before long, “Little Fuzzy’s” whole family joins him. Hardened Jack is transformed into their “pappy” and chief protector, and his life is forever changed. The creatures, however, turn out to be quite intelligent. Sapient life on Zarathustra, however, would be disastrous; this leads Jack and his friends on a quest to discover the answer. The quest becomes a matter of urgency when the company that has been growing rich from mining the planet decides to exterminate the Fuzzies to protect their contract. What follows is murder, deceit, kidnapping and intrigue at its best.

Jack Holloway is a human prospector on the planet Zarathustra. As Holloway works his claim, he encounters an indigenous life form dubbed Little Fuzzy. These creatures appear quite intelligent. But if the Little Fuzzy proves to hold sapient intelligence, it’ll cram a giant monkey wrench into the industrial machine that is planetary mining and mineral extraction. It’s Little Fuzzy verses big money in this quaint 1962 SF adventure.

While H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy might show its age, its message still holds an edge. At what point do we as sentient beings stop exploiting natural resources/habitat for profit. Since we are still struggling to come to terms with this question today, it’s fun to examine this problem when set against a distant planet with cute fuzzy tool-wielding prawn-eating creatures.

I discovered Piper’s Little Fuzzy through John Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation. Scalzi wrote his book in tribute to Piper’s work, and I can see why. Piper writes a fun SF story that evokes thought and problem solving. Scalzi’s book possesses more immediacy than Piper’s Little Fuzzy, and Scalzi creates a character in Holloway that is less heroic than Piper’s Pappy Jack. I prefer Scalzi’s interpretation to Piper’s, but that is due to writing style more than anything else. Piper’s work possesses more content while Scalzi’s work holds more character intimacy and action.

Jim Roberts narrates this audiobook, and initially I wasn’t thrilled with his slow-paced delivery. It seemed too deliberate and too aged for my perception of Holloway. But then I realized that my mental image of Jack Holloway was from Scalzi, and Piper’s Pappy Jack is different. When I concluded this, I realized that Roberts was a great match for Piper’s Holloway. And while the POV doesn’t entirely rest upon Pappy Jack’s shoulder, it does for the majority of the story. Roberts and Holloway became one, and I came to truly enjoy the reading style of Jim Roberts.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys classic SF. It’s more thought-provoking than action driven, and in this light, it succeeds.

Posted by Casey Hampton.