ZB13

A little bit of Australian satire in Norstrilia. e.g. Northern Australia. This is the only place in the galaxy that the sheep who produce an immortality product can be raised. This causes Norstrilia to be the richest place in the g alaxy.

That sort of money will alwa ys cause problems.

The people of Norstrilia are happy as they are, and don't want people coming there, or to go out and take over the universe.

The main character here thinks differently, and hence gets into a ton of trouble, taking his money out into space.

He'll need Lord Jestocost and C'Mell to get him out alive.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2006/12... ( )

The first half of this book, originally published as The Planet Buyer, was very good. The second half, originally published as The Underpeople, just didn't work as well for me. I was pretty bored through most of it. ( )

This is the only full length novel published by Smith, and after reading this you can understand why. As a full length novel Norstrilia is only marginally successful. It's more a series of related short vignettes, that move along in jumps and starts (indeed two were previously published as short stories). There is little sense of structure (although the very ending brings us back to where we started, providing a rather effective as a denoument). The dialogue tends to be stilted, and the descriptive prose is nothing to write home about. So why read it? Smith is an amazingly inventive author, who describes myth-making galaxy changing events that no other author could have conceived. Norstrilia, like virtually all of Smith's fiction, is part of the "Instrumentality of Mankind" storyline, recounting important actions by characters who play key roles in the evolution of that fascinating tale of our future. ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/RUCZX7RB... ( )