Deathworld Trilogy

Deathworld #1-3

by Harry Harrison

A legendary science fiction story, this trilogy, brought back into print in one single volume, presents hero Jason dinAlt as he discovers three separate planets. dinAlt finds excitement and intrigue as he investigates Pyrrus, a strange place where all the beasts, plants, and natural elements are out to destroy man; the unknown second planet, where every man has to kill other men or live as a slave; and Felicity, where creatures are bred for thousands of years for a single deadly purpose. Well-known to fantasy and science fiction enthusiasts, this tale portrays exciting adventures filled with the elements of classic characters and plot twists.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Ebooks, Speculative Fiction, Collections

438 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 1, 1974

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey) was an American science fiction author best known for his character the The Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He was also (with Brian W. Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short take:

One thing I really liked about these stories is the speed at which Harrison switches up the plot. Jason will concoct a plan, set about putting it into place and then a sudden curve ball forces him and his band to adapt. The characters are fairly straightforward, with the only major change being the growing acceptance that Pyrran's show towards Jason as he proves himself resourceful and resilient time and again. I myself, liked him more as a protagonist the further that I read.

A few thoughts about each individual novel, plus the included short story, in this omnibus:

"Deathworld 1" -- great beginning, so much so that I was sad to see Jason and Kerk leave the planet and head over to the main setting of the plot. The society Harrison posits is interesting, and I could see a group of humans growing so use to continual threat and combat as to become a different species entirely. The story is not the most riveting, and at it's close I was skeptical about continuing with the sequel.

"Deathword 2" -- Obviously, I read on. The way Harrison plops Jason onto another dangerous, "death-oriented" planet is somewhat contrived, but once the setting is established, the story takes an interesting turn. I've come across the "scientifically trained individual amongst the technically illiterate" plot device before, and Harrison makes it fun. I appreciate that he keeps the other characters human and still allows them to beat Jason at a few turns.

"Deathworld 3" -- Again, I wasn't sure about continuing, but a short, brutal opening scene hooked me as, I'm sure, it was intended to. Yet again, the means by which Harrison maneuvers Jason and a bunch of Pyrrans onto another killer planet is somewhat cheeseball, but once everyone's there, the story picks up. I was surprised by some of the brutality in the warfare scenes, though this violence served to justify Jason's desire to "undo" a barbarian society from within. The ending was a satisfying rush of reversals and desperate stakes. Harrison knows when to fast-forward a plot, and he does so to great effect at the end of the series.

"The Moth-balled Spaceship" -- This was a fun short story and suggested a potential new direction for the series. I wonder if Harrison wrote this and then decided against continuing; if he had chosen otherwise, I would probably be game to continue, as Jason, Meta and Kerk have grown on me and I would enjoy watching them completing jobs and committing capers across a turbulent galaxy.


Altogether, I was entertained by these stories and impressed by Harrison's craft and ideas. These are the kind of stories I read when I'm looking for a fun adventure is punctuated by just the right amounts of humor and darker human acts. I'm very glad that these stories are still in print.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not chosen well when it comes to my reading of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction. I have searched out early honorees by whom I had previously neither read nor been inclined to read anything. BIg surprise. I haven't much liked anything I've come across. Some of it I have admired and found historically interesting, but nothing have I been crazy about,

And now I've done it again with Harry Harrison. Years of working with used books made me familiar with Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series, novels that i knew instinctively I would not find funny. I still have that instinct without ever having so much as opened one of the books, but I think such complete lack of contact with the material gives my opinion a certain purity. Then there was Make Room Make Room, a novel I never read since Charlton Heston had already told me, "Soylent Green is people!"

The Deathworld Trilogy was new to me when I looked into Harrison again. The idea is hard to beat. Here is a planet where every animal, plant. and microbe is out to destroy human life and the gravity is twice that of earth. Humans live there only because mining operations create such enormous wealth that the high mortality rate seems worth it. The novel opens with planet-hopping professional gambler Jason dinAlt receiving an offer he can't refuse. Kerk, resident of Pyrrus aka Deathworld, want dinAlt to turn a 27 million credit bankroll into three billion credits in one night of gambling. He can keep anything over the three billion. Pyrrus needs ships and weapons.

The opening chapters of Deathworld are full of tough talk and action and are really a lot of fun. dinAlt wins the money, the cassino owners want him dead, and he wants to escape with Kerk to get a look at Pyrrus for himself. Why is never really that clear.

Once the action moves to Pyrrus, things slow down. What should be some pretty funny stuff about dinAlt taking survival classes with ten-year-olds before he is allowed outside never realize their comic potential. And dinAlt, for all his wild past and swashbuckling ways, transforms into a one man NGO on Pyrrus, determined to crack the mystery of why everything on the planet is so darn mean. He does so through a series of encounters that are not particularly exciting and completely lacking the comedy of the novel's opening scenes.

I confess I started the second novel in the trilogy but couldn't face it. It promised to be more of the same.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Deathworld Trilogy is old-school sci-fi writing, with plenty of action, derring-do, hard science and hardscrabble living on alien worlds. However, it also features an engaging anti-hero: the gambling, conniving, fast-talking, war-starting, gun-toting Jason dinAlt, a man whose morals shift with every new planet he encounters.

Jason is a realist and pragmatist, a man blessed with infinite reserves of strength, stamina, cunning, intelligence and sheer luck. He manages to pull success from almost every situation he finds himself in, even those that would prove life-ending to another being.

In each story, he’s surrounded by an able-bodied bunch of characters: from the stalwart, tough, skilled, beautiful and lethal Meta to the shrewd, unlettered barbarian Temuchin whose gift at warfare would make Sun Tzu burn with envy. The stories are absorbing, exciting, energetic and lively with robust dialogue, action and settings. Mr. Harrison’s world-building skills are also those of a seasoned author, one who knows how to make other landscapes credible in terms of atmosphere, geography, ecology and climate. I simply couldn’t find any flaw in these books and was really sorry to have them come to an end.

This is one of the rare SF books that not only entertains but teaches as well, in a manner of very diverse subjects. What it doesn’t teach, it makes so interesting that the reader is tempted to go out and learn about these subjects in depth. It also does what R. L. Stevenson novels used to do: they make readers believe that they, too, could survive in a hostile environment armed with nothing more than a flashlight and a Bowie knife…or wish they could.

[John Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the name suggests, this collects three books together, imaginatively titled "Deathworld 1", "Deathworld 2", and (wait for it) "Deathworld 3". Based on the introduction, "Deathworld 1" may have been Harrison's first published work; there are certainly themes that he went on to develop more in his other novels. For instance, the concept of someone tech-savvy being dumped on a planet where they've forgotten how to use most technology came up in a few of the Stainless Steel Rat books, and "Jason dinAlt" (the protagonist) has a similar name to "James DiGriz". Meanwhile, the idea of one man more or less being responsible for the industrial revolution was covered in more depth in The Hammer and the Cross. There's a bit of a lurch in continuity between the first two books, presumably because he hadn't planned the second one in advance (a bit like Back to the Future), but it works out ok. Anyway, these are decent stories, so if you like the author's other work then I think you'll enjoy them too.

[Tim Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun when you're young. Probably does not stand up well if you read it as an adult.

[Simon Fletcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that's something that I haven't done in a while, binge a whole series.

Binge reading was something I used to do regularly, going from one volume of a series to the next seemed to me the obvious thing to do. More recently though I've been unable to do this and always needed a break between stories. Having all of the Deathworld books in one single volume though made it kind of inevitable and a fun experience.

This is my first time reading a Harrison novel, other than the 2000AD adaptation of the Stainless Steel Rat many years ago so wasn't really sure what to expect. Despite that I did enjoy them, they aren't great but they are fun and a nice blast of good old fashioned SciFi.

Many reviews I've read suggest book 1 was better than 2 and 3 but I would disagree. I think I actually enjoyed 3 more than 2 and 2 more than 1.

[scafandr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Я в классике фантастики немного профан, поэтому иногда знакомлюсь с тем, что когда-то будоражило умы любителей фантастики. Это приключенческая фантастика про новые опасные миры, на которых судьба забрасывает главного героя (напрашивается сравнение с героем боевика 80-х:)). Написано просто по современным меркам, но интересно и с юмором. Первые два романа цикла более интересные. Отлично заходит после твердой НФ:)

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a teen. I remember liking it a lot and recommending it to a friend. I can't give a proper review except to say that it was fun pulp sci-fi.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was definitely a case of diminishing returns. The first book in the series was decent. It reminded me of another book I read before, but I can't remember the name off the top of my head. Some of the stuff didn't make sense in retrospect - the Pyrrans had a lot of information about Jason and resources that didn't jibe with their actual situation - small planet, small population, almost nobody goes off-world, how do they have all that?

But, suspension of disbelief, I let it go and thought it a decent story. The second book was worse. Why does Jason keep telling his plans to a guy that betrays him every time? Just to move the plot forward, I guess. This book reminded me a little of Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen which had the protagonist moving into a parallel timestream and then using his knowledge of modern technology to revolutionize the society.

I found it hard to buy that Jason, a gambler originally from a farming world, knows about everything - electricity, oil refining, mechanical engineering, warfare, etc. He seems to be a bit of a polymath, having learned about everything, and then become a gambler. Actually, it just occurred to me that his psychic talents are gone once the first book is finished. We never hear about that power again. Anyway, an OK story, requiring a huge suspension of disbelief, as Jason appears to be knowledgeable about everything, and an expert who can single-handedly change the world.

There are only two female characters in any of the books. Meta, a Pyrran, and a woman that Jason meets in this book, who then becomes his - lover? significant other? - until Meta shows up at the end, then he gives her some money and dumps her off on another planet with the guy who's been the antagonist for the whole book. She doesn't really have much say in the matter.

Third book sucked. Jason decides that he wants to open a mine on a planet with the Pyrrans. To do this, he helps a Genghis Khan-type leader to destroy all his rivals, and then leads him on an invasion to destroy the civilization that exists on a lower plateau that was previously all but inaccessible to him. Why do they need this mine opened? There's no real compelling reason, just that the original miners were all wiped out. That's it. Tons of bloodshed, so Jason and his friends can open a mine.

Along the way, tough Meta discovers love, and decides all she really wants to do is just be a mum. And Jason decides that what-the-heck, his bachelor days are over. The third Deathworld is a piece of crap.

The final story, the coda, "The Mothballed Spaceship," is OK, a slight story that doesn't really have much to say. It's kind of typical of old sci-fi, and doesn't do anything new.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Deathworld Trilogy
Harry Harrison
Berkley Publishing Corporation
1976 (original copyright - 1960, 1964, 1968)

Deathworld
In this first book, Jason, a gambler with a psi advantage is pulled into a plot to raise funds for a mysterious individual and the planet he represents. Eventually Jason ends up on this planet, the most dangerous planet in the galaxy.

Jason, as a character suffers from being better and smarter than everyone else, and he can be rather smug about it. The other characters are rather flat and Jason and the author definitely have a pre-women's lib view of females.

Book 1 seems to be Harrison's "give peace and environmentalism a chance" soapbox.

Deathworld 2
Oh, no! Jason is kidnapped by a religious man who is not willing to see other views. This is Harrison's "The problem with religions" soapbox.

Book 3: [Deathworld 3]
This third book in the series finds Jason and the Pyrrans on a new world battling a barbarian race for the right to colonize and mine the planet.

In this novel, super Jason struggles to have all his plans come to fruition, and just when all is lost, he triumphs.

All in all, a fun read, but predictable and Jason can be annoying with his better than thou attitude.

3 stars.

[Jays · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was good, it is the typical 80's si-fi that one can expect.

There are three books that follow the adventures of a man called Jason, which is funny because that is my name too ( I think that is the reason why a friend of mine borrowed the book to me, and because it is si-fi).

The characters in the book are alright but the thing I found most fascinating is the different societies he encounters on his adventure among the stars and how he uses his wit to solve the different problems that faces him.

The writing style is good because the descriptions and events are long enough to build a good picture in ones mind but not long enough that nothing happens in 100 pages ( I'm looking at you Mr King ). The language is not complicated and the words common, this makes a quicker read.

When I read this book, there was always that pull that made me wonder what would happen next and how would Jason solve the mess he has gotten himself in, this book had a hook in me that doesn't happen often.

All and all if you like the classic 80's si-fi then read this book because my review dose not do it much justice.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it was the slightly dated writing but I just couldn't get into this one. I love the premise but the characters just felt flat and unlikable. I made it about halfway through the first book and just gave up because I wasn't looking forward to reading it anymore.

[Walter Baumann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, but hasn't aged well culturally.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brain dead, rock-em, sock-em, dime store good time.

[Big Enk · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

In full transparency, these opinions are based on my reading of the first of the Deathworld stories, and more cursory glances at the second and third. That, in and of its self, should be some indicator as to what I think about them. At the center of them all is Jason dinAlt a struggling psyonic gambler, whose boredom and hubris land him on the planet Pyrrus, where the environment, the flora, and the fauna are in constant, hellish combat with the dwindling human settlement. This constant state of war has a produced a society that values stoic strength, hard-nose stubbornness, and combat ability above all else. Jason is alone in his skepticism and curiosity about the origin of this war and the mysterious "grubbers", a people who can somehow live outside in the wilds of the planet.

At first my reading experience was surprisingly pretty enjoyable. Deathworld is really smartly self conscious of what it is, cuts all of the fluff out and delivers by going over the top with its central premise, which while pulpy is fun in a youthful sort of way. Jason is also surprisingly incompetent for a leading male character at this time period. He struggles to survive on Pyruss, living by the grace of those around him. Yet he's also the only character able of any complex thought, the only one able to piece the puzzle together after hundreds of years. So, definitely mixed on the character front.

If I were being charitable, I would say that Deathworld does have some standout thematic work. War begetting war, the cycle of violence, humans as the aggressor, humans in the wrong. But, somehow, these themes feel inadvertent, since the rest of the book is written like a pulp adventure flick. It's really obvious that this was a serialized work that was only later collected together. The writing is sometimes surprisingly dark for the magazines, but not so much as to be a defining feature.

After struggling to finish the first Deathworld story, I decided to poke my nose into the sequels to see if the format was changed significantly enough to merit further exploration. Sadly, no. While the setting may change, these stories are really more of the same with lower quality prose work.

Decisively not as impressive as Harrison's main attraction Make Room! Make Room!, but might be worth it if you're interested in campy and self aware action drama with all of the trappings of 1960's SF. Had Harrison limited himself to the one foray with Jason and Pyrrus I might've felt more positively about the whole thing, but the sequels seemed more or less unnecessary to begin with.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

First a disclaimer, although the volume I have is that for the Deathworld Omnibus, which contains all 3 Deathworld novels, I am only reviewing the first one here, as I'm reading though Hugo Nominees, and this was nominated for a Hugo in 1961, while none of the other two were. Also, the first novel is pretty self-contained so there is no real need to read beyond it for me. I just got the Omnibus because that's just the one version that's in print for cheap right now.

It's quite a fun novel, Harrison is a pretty good writer and the central concept is really interesting, although it has been used later it feels pretty innovative for 1960. The main conceit is that our hero, a scoundrely gambler, Jason, goes to a planet that is very aptly nicknamed Deathworld. Everything in this planet is trying to kill him and all the other inhabitants, it's a hard life and it's populated with hard people who just love killing all the native life.

What we learn is that the wildlife is actually slightly telepathic and can sense the violent intentions of the inhabitants. Outside the main city live the Grubbers, an outcast tribe who lives in relative peace with nature. So, the lesson is, violence begets violence. Jason is a pretty compelling character as are the other characters here and Harrison's writing feels much more current than most of his peers at the time. The novel is a really fun adventure with not many pretensions to be much more than that but with an interesting central conceit that makes it worth reading.

[Bill Cooke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I have a vague recollection of reading all 3 of these stories when I was very young. I probably would have given them a 3 or maybe even a 4 star (?) rating back then.

Now, as a certified O. F. past age 70, these 3 RETRO STYLE stories are cringeworthy. They seem very dated. Way past their “sell-by” date.

There is a lot of action, for sure. Some of that is entertaining. Much of it so unbelievable that it popped me out of my suspension of disbelief (SOD).

Like many older action Sci-Fi pulp stories, the cultural representation of women at that time, is very displaced from today’s more enlightened (?) attitudes. Cringeworthy at times in fact. Extremely male oriented.

Lots of character deaths with little written empathy. People in quantity are used as literary action scene cannon fodder and that attitude seemed to prevail in all three short novels. That bothered me a lot.

SOooo… 2 stars in 2024. Maybe 3 or 4 stars back in the 1960’s.

[James]

Deathworld is the first in a series of novels Harry Harrison began in 1960. In it, professional gambler Jason dinAlt who has "psionic" abilities is hired to win a great deal of money for a mysterious and very imposing stranger. When he "breaks the bank" their expertly timed escape gets them off-world just in time. The gambler learns he has helped the dwellers of Pyrrus, otherwise known as "Deathworld" - a planet that appears to be fighting and trying to destroy its inhabitants. Intrigued, he determines to see this world and learn its secrets. He discovers that there are colonists who live outside the embattled city who are not under constant and ever evolving attack from the planet. Jason's efforts to help the city dwellers and re-unite the two planetary groups before they are all destroyed makes for a gripping listen.

[SaberSnail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book a couple of times now. I find it enjoyable in part because Harrison is very good about presenting an overly capable character(s) (that should be able to handle anything you throw at them) and finding situations to put them in that are both challenging and plausible.

Harrison does get a little preachy in the second story, but other than that, the stories are pretty straightforward adventures about solving some unusual problems.[return][return]This is classic (old) sci-fi, with much of its faults and charms, and therefore may not appeal to some people.

[Stephen Cottrill · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may not find this series a grand epic novel that defines its genre. That being said there is something here for everyone. As a writer myself, haven been handed this book by someone who didn't really have any sort of literary (or literacle perspective in my own jargon) taste, found it very inspiring. It is, as the furthest thing from a footnote in its genre, not without inspiration. If you read with nothing more then typographical tastes there might not be much here for you but it will open your eyes in one way or another. Do not be hasty to forget these books as they were written in a time much closer to being burned at the stake then subjected to mockery or ridicule.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was rough. Took me the whole month to read all 3. First one was decent with some good ideas and I was thinking this might not be too bad of a series then I read the second book and oh boy that was the worst book I’ve ever read. Why oh why would you continue to work with a rat. Anyway that killed any desire to read the last part but I did and it was just a mid story. Glad it’s over on to something entertaining

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid reader of fantasy, most Sci-fi are just alright for me.
But Deathworld Omnibus was an epic ride.

A fantastical adventure across three planets with excellent world building,
drawing on the rich store of human nature, culture, history, and technology,
and applying it to the possible conditions that settlers may find in each planet.

In my teens, I read this at least thrice.

[Christopher Key · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space opera at its finest from the Golden Age. Smart, dashing, mouthy, gambler hero who is, of course, irresistible to females of any species. It's a fun read except for the reminder that it was once considered acceptable to invade a new planet, wipe out the Indigenous "savages," and steal their territory and resources.

[Deborah Bodansky]

My dad's recommendation. It's clear reading these books that this is seminal science fiction, and it's certainly interesting to read from that standpoint. Reading these books is like watching a socioecological Sherlock Holmes detective story. They're full of action and fascinating worldbuilding, which probably explains the characters remaining fairly stagnant and familiar throughout.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a humorous and light read. Jason dinAlt was a hilarious main character, and while most of the time it was kind of easy to understand, there were a few instances of allusions which I particularly enjoyed. I'm not sure I'd read it again, but it was a good book and I'd definitely recommend.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Jason dinAlt, a psychic gambler, lands on the planet Pyrrus, he finds himself in a unique position to resolve the conflict between the colonists and the native life, A Science Fiction Book Club selection.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 1: Was a short book. It was a bit dated. Pacing was good and a good conclusion. I'll probably read the other books in this volume at some point. It is inline with what I'd expect from sf of the 50s

[Kevin Jonker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The books get less good with each sequel. I would give the first one five stars, the second one four, and the third three. That averages into four, for what it's worth.

[Lois Matelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun novel (or 3 novels) from the 1950s--one of my favorites from that era.

[Bent Andreassen · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book is a 5 stars, the other two 4 each.
Fact action very well written. Harrison is able to write in way that makes the planets and life on them very real.