“Little Fuzzy” (1962) by H. Beam Piper is the first book in the Fuzzy Series. It is a charming and original read. It is a story of friendship, imagination and the survival of a species. Prepare to meet the most enchanting creatures ever created in Sci-Fi history! I highly recommend it for first time Science Fiction readers. It’s a great introduction to the genre! I give it five stars.
The world is a hard place when you’re small and everything else, especially the predators is big!
What is sapience?
The Federation defines it as the ability to talk and make fire, but is that all there really is to it? What happens when you run into a group of creatures that can do neither, is there such a thing as being just barely sapient?
It all begins with a tiny scared “yeek” in Jack Halloway’s shower stall, Little Fuzzy soon realizes that he is onto a good thing, he retrieves his family and they all settle in.
Zarathustra is a Class-III uninhabited planet, and the Chartered Zarathustra Company owns it lock stock and barrel. They developed it, exploited it, and reaped huge profits without any interference from the Colonial Government. Now the Zarathustra Company has teensy problem (one that’s twenty-four inches tall and weighs only twenty pounds to be precise.)
Out of nowhere, prospector Jack Halloway has appeared with a family of Fuzzies, and a great deal of evidence (low Paleolithic tools for instance) that they are more than just cute little animals.
If the Fuzzies are a race of intelligent beings, then Zarathustra III automatically becomes an inhabited planet and the Company’s Chartered monopoly and privileges will be over!
The Chartered Zarathustra Company isn’t going to allow that to happen . . . whatever it takes!
Now the trial of the millennium is on! Will the Zarathustra Company win or will the Fuzzies be recognized as sapient beings?
The fate of the planet, the Company, and a species hangs in the balance.
Emily
