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Four-Day Planet and Lone Star Planet
Vintage paperback
- GenresScience FictionFiction
340 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
H. Beam Piper
296 books242 followersHenry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 17, 2023
This book contains two of Piper's better novels. Four-Day Planet was first printed as a hardback original by Putnam in 1961, and Lone Star Planet appeared as half of an Ace-Double paperback in 1958 (bound with Andre Norton's Star Born), under the title of A Planet for Texans. The latter was published as a collaboration with John J. McGuire, but he is not credited on the cover nor on the title page in this iteration, though his name is listed with Piper on the top of the even-numbered pages. Four-Day Planet is a part of his Federation sequence, though no knowledge of that infrastructure is required to enjoy this one as a stand-alone. They're both good adventure novels, with occasional forays into Libertarian philosophies of economics and political policy; Lone Star Planet, particularly, has some amusingly satirical bits. Piper was very good at creating interesting alien worlds, and while they're not as engaging as the Fuzzy books, for example, they're both still good old traditional science fiction reads. It's a shame that Ace didn't present this one in their tete-beche format (back-to-back in reverse to one another with two separate covers), but they did put a nice Michael Whelan painting on this edition. Piper's suicide in 1964 was one of the great tragedies of the field.
November 2, 2012
Just finished the 1984 edition of this 2-for-1 deal. Piper is a surprisibng find for me I knew himm from his Fuzzy works, and had no idea how libertarian/pro-personal responsibility he was.
Four-Day Planet is set on a planet called Fenris, where extremes in climate have resulted in an extremely small population with few offworld contacts. Norse mythology figures heavily but consistently in Piper's novels. His universe always feels coherent and believable. The protagonist is a 17-year-old reporter who fights to overturn the corrupt 'government' and coercive mercantilistic monopoly on 'tallow-wax', the sole export from Fenris (think whale oil derived from tusked and armored pleiseosaurs). The novel feels like it is written by a youthful person, which may have been deliberate. Fun reversals and secrets get revealed.
Lone Star Planet, set on New Texas, where everything from cows to nuts are prefixed: super, is the shorter of the 2 offerings. Silk, the unwilling, banished replacement for the Solar League's former (assassinated)ambassador, must solve the murder and stave off an anticipated invasion by the Srauff (a canine alien race). All this while preventing his own assassination on a planet where the killing of politicans is acceptable, indeed lauded, if they "had it coming."
Extremely libertarian, it raises the problems of united defense, income tax, gun regsitration, and personal responsibility. One thing bugged me, and that was after the hero rancher, Hickock, raided the prison/fortress of Kettlebelly Bonney, he is not recorded as conpensating the owners of the shanties he drove his privately-owned tanks through. That was itself a violation of the NAP, and should be condemned. Favorite character name: Wilbur Whately, for you HP Lovecraft fans...a hero of the people in this offering.
Four-Day Planet is set on a planet called Fenris, where extremes in climate have resulted in an extremely small population with few offworld contacts. Norse mythology figures heavily but consistently in Piper's novels. His universe always feels coherent and believable. The protagonist is a 17-year-old reporter who fights to overturn the corrupt 'government' and coercive mercantilistic monopoly on 'tallow-wax', the sole export from Fenris (think whale oil derived from tusked and armored pleiseosaurs). The novel feels like it is written by a youthful person, which may have been deliberate. Fun reversals and secrets get revealed.
Lone Star Planet, set on New Texas, where everything from cows to nuts are prefixed: super, is the shorter of the 2 offerings. Silk, the unwilling, banished replacement for the Solar League's former (assassinated)ambassador, must solve the murder and stave off an anticipated invasion by the Srauff (a canine alien race). All this while preventing his own assassination on a planet where the killing of politicans is acceptable, indeed lauded, if they "had it coming."
Extremely libertarian, it raises the problems of united defense, income tax, gun regsitration, and personal responsibility. One thing bugged me, and that was after the hero rancher, Hickock, raided the prison/fortress of Kettlebelly Bonney, he is not recorded as conpensating the owners of the shanties he drove his privately-owned tanks through. That was itself a violation of the NAP, and should be condemned. Favorite character name: Wilbur Whately, for you HP Lovecraft fans...a hero of the people in this offering.
November 15, 2023
One of the problems with books written in the 50s is that the back covers have terrible synopses. The editor would lead you to believe that Four-Day Planet is a survivalist tale set on an inhospitable planet. In actuality, this story is about a co-op of hunters fighting for the price of tallow wax, the one and only export of the slow-revolving planet of Fenris. This co-op’s president has been pocketing money from the sales of tallow wax, which is harvested from giant ocean-dwelling monsters. All 20,000 civilians on Fenris make tallow wax their business, and when a new buyer shows up willing to pay top dollar, a literal revolution breaks out.
There’s a lot of little details to love about his book. First off, Bishop Ware, a lovable drunkard who’s in everybody’s ear, is one of H. Beam Piper’s most intriguing characters. There are also these gigantic, flying submarine ships used to hunt sea monsters. Piper’s descriptions of these giant rigs and their enormous engines gave me meglaphobia vibes. But when it comes to the actual exploration of this planet, its oceans, and monsters, Piper leaves much to be desired. This is not an adventure story, but one of politics and detective work.
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As with most libertarians, H. Beam Piper has a fascination with the Old West and Lone Star Planet is his ridiculous love letter to all things Texas; Levi’s, superbeef, barbeques, lots and lots of guns, and because this is a fantasy, the right to assassinate any politician accused of maleficence. Trying to institute a tax law is an example of political maleficence.
This law of the land on New Texas is the real “villain” of this story as our hero, a foreign ambassador, qualifies as a New Texas politician. He has to solve the murder of his predecessor, introduce the independent planet to the Solar League, prepare everyone for a possible invasion, and also fall in love with a local.
As a Texan myself, the cowboy LARPing is comically insane at times, but if you read this short story as a satire, it’s pretty entertaining, spacey-detective noir.
There’s a lot of little details to love about his book. First off, Bishop Ware, a lovable drunkard who’s in everybody’s ear, is one of H. Beam Piper’s most intriguing characters. There are also these gigantic, flying submarine ships used to hunt sea monsters. Piper’s descriptions of these giant rigs and their enormous engines gave me meglaphobia vibes. But when it comes to the actual exploration of this planet, its oceans, and monsters, Piper leaves much to be desired. This is not an adventure story, but one of politics and detective work.
-----
As with most libertarians, H. Beam Piper has a fascination with the Old West and Lone Star Planet is his ridiculous love letter to all things Texas; Levi’s, superbeef, barbeques, lots and lots of guns, and because this is a fantasy, the right to assassinate any politician accused of maleficence. Trying to institute a tax law is an example of political maleficence.
This law of the land on New Texas is the real “villain” of this story as our hero, a foreign ambassador, qualifies as a New Texas politician. He has to solve the murder of his predecessor, introduce the independent planet to the Solar League, prepare everyone for a possible invasion, and also fall in love with a local.
As a Texan myself, the cowboy LARPing is comically insane at times, but if you read this short story as a satire, it’s pretty entertaining, spacey-detective noir.
February 1, 2024
Four-Day Planet is very old-school, the kind that’s about a kid on the verge of adulthood but, while labeled as a “juvenile”, it is like many juveniles not assumed that only Young Adults will want to read it.
Because the protagonist is a kid—the quintessential teen journalist—Piper can get away with him being just not very smart about social interactions. It takes him far longer than the reader (and probably far longer than the adults in his life) to realize that Bish Ware is profoundly, rather than superficially, not what he seems, that he’s playing a role and is doing so for a very serious reason.
The series has gained a reputation for being Texas in Space, but in this first book it’s as much Alaska or the Northwest in space, with the monster-hunters hunting their sea-monsters in advanced ships that still come across as primitive whalers. They spend most of their time at sea, on the water, rather than under it or above it, even though they can both submerge and fly.
Emphasizing the whaling, or at least northern, aspect, the planet itself is named Fenris, which comes from northern myth.
It also comes across as a lot like a role-playing game, mainly because of the names. This is far enough in the future that even though people’s origins on Terra are still recognizable their names are often from wildly different geographical regions.
It’s a very fun book, even if Walter Boyd’s inability to recognize the obvious often detracts from it. I’m looking forward to the second third of the book, “Lone Star Planet”, which, in its original title, “A Planet for Texans”, is likely to be at least partly responsible for the series’s reputation.
Lone Star Planet is in fact much shorter, barely novella. There’s not a lot of mystery in it and what mystery there is gets dispatched quickly by emphasizing an implicit trust in the Solar League’s brainwashing—yes, they called it that, albeit fondly—of diplomats to ensure loyalty. Even the diplomats that move on to local politics remain trustworthy because they were originally Solar League diplomats.
Once the obvious suspicions of embassy workers and former embassy workers is out of the way, it’s a straightforward puzzle: how do they trick the aliens without pissing off the locals? Because the locals are easily pissed off and retain the right to kill politicians that legitimately piss them off.
It helps that the legal system is designed to produce trials that look a lot like television.
Having lived in Texas I recognized a lot of the names that people use in this book. People seem to have renamed themselves to honor important Texans. But what inspired Wilbur Whateley’s parents went unexplained.
These are both fun little stories, and to emphasize the elastic nature of what constitutes a “juvenile”, the first story is generally considered one but the second is not generally considered one. The theme that ties these two stories together is that both are based on similar not-quite-outlaw frontier cultures. The first is legitimately frontier, the second is a reconstructed frontier. To be honest, while Lone Star Planet is an interesting story in its own right, the story of how the people of an entire state uprooted themselves and created an idealized society far from the decadent culture around them sounds far more interesting.
Because the protagonist is a kid—the quintessential teen journalist—Piper can get away with him being just not very smart about social interactions. It takes him far longer than the reader (and probably far longer than the adults in his life) to realize that Bish Ware is profoundly, rather than superficially, not what he seems, that he’s playing a role and is doing so for a very serious reason.
The series has gained a reputation for being Texas in Space, but in this first book it’s as much Alaska or the Northwest in space, with the monster-hunters hunting their sea-monsters in advanced ships that still come across as primitive whalers. They spend most of their time at sea, on the water, rather than under it or above it, even though they can both submerge and fly.
Emphasizing the whaling, or at least northern, aspect, the planet itself is named Fenris, which comes from northern myth.
It also comes across as a lot like a role-playing game, mainly because of the names. This is far enough in the future that even though people’s origins on Terra are still recognizable their names are often from wildly different geographical regions.
It’s a very fun book, even if Walter Boyd’s inability to recognize the obvious often detracts from it. I’m looking forward to the second third of the book, “Lone Star Planet”, which, in its original title, “A Planet for Texans”, is likely to be at least partly responsible for the series’s reputation.
Lone Star Planet is in fact much shorter, barely novella. There’s not a lot of mystery in it and what mystery there is gets dispatched quickly by emphasizing an implicit trust in the Solar League’s brainwashing—yes, they called it that, albeit fondly—of diplomats to ensure loyalty. Even the diplomats that move on to local politics remain trustworthy because they were originally Solar League diplomats.
Once the obvious suspicions of embassy workers and former embassy workers is out of the way, it’s a straightforward puzzle: how do they trick the aliens without pissing off the locals? Because the locals are easily pissed off and retain the right to kill politicians that legitimately piss them off.
It helps that the legal system is designed to produce trials that look a lot like television.
Having lived in Texas I recognized a lot of the names that people use in this book. People seem to have renamed themselves to honor important Texans. But what inspired Wilbur Whateley’s parents went unexplained.
These are both fun little stories, and to emphasize the elastic nature of what constitutes a “juvenile”, the first story is generally considered one but the second is not generally considered one. The theme that ties these two stories together is that both are based on similar not-quite-outlaw frontier cultures. The first is legitimately frontier, the second is a reconstructed frontier. To be honest, while Lone Star Planet is an interesting story in its own right, the story of how the people of an entire state uprooted themselves and created an idealized society far from the decadent culture around them sounds far more interesting.
September 19, 2025
An incredible sci-fi take on the classic sea voyage coming of age, and Space Texas.
January 2, 2016
A pair of short novels, both published originally in the 1950's, both dealing - indirectly but entertainingly - with the complex relationships and economics of colony planets in a galactic union. Each interesting in its own way, Four Day Planet is a better story start to finish, while Lone Star Planet is a quicker and easier read. Half a dozen times you'll be reaching for a dictionary or searching online for references that must have been common knowledge at one point but which now tend to the obscure - unless 'lares and penates' 'the Jukes-Kallikaks' and 'see the happy moron...' are phrases that still pepper you're everyday conversation. And if they do, let me know - there aren't many like us left.
March 8, 2024
The book contains two novellas Four Day Planet and Lone Star Planet. The first is Four Day Planet which is an average sci fi thriller about a young reporter who fights corruption in the wax trade. The story is ok and its worth about a buck on Kindle. I was looking forward to Lone Star Planet since it won the Prometheus award for the Libertarian Future Society. The story is much better polished than the Four Day Planet. It's hard to believe these two stories are from the same writer. Mr. Silk is made an ambassador of Lone Star Texas. Everything there is big including the supercows. Mr Silk must solve the murder of the previous ambassador and stop an invasion of Texas. The story is above adverage, two stars for The Four Day Planet and four stars for Lone Star Planet.
August 23, 2018
This is also available (separately) on LibriVox (free audio books in the public domain).
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August 22, 2008Four-day Planet by H. Beam Piper (2000)
March 11, 2015
1983 grade A
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews