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Prolific science fiction dynamo Harry Harrison is perhaps best remembered as the creator of the story upon which the cult classic Soylent Green was based. His popular Deathworld series is also regarded as a masterwork of golden-era science fiction. In the volume The Ethical Engineer, which was also published under the title Deathworld 2, protagonist Jason dinAlt is kidnapped and attempts a daring escape among a primitive civilization for which time seems to have run backward..
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This book is very different to the first Deathworld Book. Jason is kidnapped (almost voluntarily because he's silly) by Mikah who wants him to be held responsible for his crimes. But on the way, Jason crashes the ship on a planet that is inhabited by a planet inhabited by people who follow a slave-based culture. The two are captured and travel the desert in search of food with Mikah wanting to fight for his freedom (to the death if needed) and Jason wanting to figure out a way to exploit the system for his. I enjoyed the discussions around morality, but I do think slavery was a bit of an uncomfortable choice (it gets pretty close to being slavery apologist). Both Mikah and Jason were also incredibly frustrating (in different ways), the show more world bringing out the worst in them. I did find the world building interesting though and wonder where the third book will take us. show less
Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/deathworld-2-the-ethical-engineer/
Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer is the second of Harry Harrison??s novels set on Pyrrus, the planet that tries to kill most humans who set foot upon it. In the first DEATHWORLD novel, space rogue Jason dinAlt discovered the secret of Pyrrus and negotiated a very tense peace between the planet and its two human colonies.
Now Jason has a new problem. A man named Mikah, who represents the religious Truth Party, has arrived to arrest Jason for fleecing casinos across the universe. The purpose is to display Jason�?s decadence and sinfulness so that they can topple the government of Cassylia which has been using �?Jason show more Three-Billion� as a poster child to advertise their casinos. Mikah kidnaps Jason and on their way back to Cassylia for trial by the Truth Party, they are shipwrecked and enslaved on a planet that sports a curious mix of primitive tribal cultures with varying degrees of technological advancement. Jason must use his knowledge and skills to get them off the planet.
Harry Harrison is great when heÂ??s writing pulpy science fiction adventures with roguish protagonists. I loved the first few books of his STAINLESS STEEL RAT series, which were just that. But sometimes Harrison decides to acquire an agenda and whomp us over the head with it. This happened with some of the later STAINLESS STEEL RAT books (I stopped reading them because of it) and itÂ??s happened here in Deathworld 2.
In this case, Harrison wants to show us that people who believe in some sort of Truth are just wrong. That�?s fine. I don�?t agree, but it�?s fine with me if Harrison takes that viewpoint. The problem here is that it�?s so badly done. Harrison makes his point in two ways. First by making Mikah, Truth�?s proponent (and an obvious Straw Man), a ridiculous idiot who gets frustrated with Jason and keeps resorting to calling him names such as �?Limb of Satan.� Second by defending his no-Truth argument merely by having it said over and over by a character we�?re supposed to think is smart and knowledgeable because he�?s suddenly a brilliant engineer. There is no substantial discussion, just a back and forth like this:
Â??There is no Truth, no Life, no Mankind. At least not the way you spell them Â?? with capital letters. They donÂ??t exist.Â?Â
MikahÂ??s taut skin contracted into a furrow of concentration. Â??You will have to explain yourself,Â? he said. Â??For you are not being clear.Â?Â
Â??IÂ??m afraid itÂ??s you who arenÂ??t being clear. YouÂ??re making a reality where none exists. Truth Â?? with a small t Â?? is a description, a relationship. A way to describe a statement. A semantic tool. But Truth with a capital T is an imaginary word, a noise with no meaning. It pretends to be a noun, but it has no referent. It stands for nothing. It means nothing. When you say, Â??I believe in Truth,Â?? you are really saying Â??I believe in nothing.Â??Â?Â
Gosh, it sounds like Terry Goodkind, doesnÂ??t it? Both characters become self-righteous zealots who constantly interrupt the action to bore us with long meaningless lectures about the nature of Truth. This made it impossible to enjoy the story and I ended up skimming a lot of it. I hope DEATHWORLD will get back on track with book 3.
IÂ??m listening to the audio version of Deathworld 2 that Jimcin Recordings produced in 2011 and which was just produced on CD and distributed by Brilliance Audio. Jim Roberts does a fine job with the narration. His rhythm is stilted sometimes, but he has a good voice for this sort of story. show less
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/deathworld-2-the-ethical-engineer/
Deathworld 2: The Ethical Engineer is the second of Harry Harrison??s novels set on Pyrrus, the planet that tries to kill most humans who set foot upon it. In the first DEATHWORLD novel, space rogue Jason dinAlt discovered the secret of Pyrrus and negotiated a very tense peace between the planet and its two human colonies.
Now Jason has a new problem. A man named Mikah, who represents the religious Truth Party, has arrived to arrest Jason for fleecing casinos across the universe. The purpose is to display Jason�?s decadence and sinfulness so that they can topple the government of Cassylia which has been using �?Jason show more Three-Billion� as a poster child to advertise their casinos. Mikah kidnaps Jason and on their way back to Cassylia for trial by the Truth Party, they are shipwrecked and enslaved on a planet that sports a curious mix of primitive tribal cultures with varying degrees of technological advancement. Jason must use his knowledge and skills to get them off the planet.
Harry Harrison is great when heÂ??s writing pulpy science fiction adventures with roguish protagonists. I loved the first few books of his STAINLESS STEEL RAT series, which were just that. But sometimes Harrison decides to acquire an agenda and whomp us over the head with it. This happened with some of the later STAINLESS STEEL RAT books (I stopped reading them because of it) and itÂ??s happened here in Deathworld 2.
In this case, Harrison wants to show us that people who believe in some sort of Truth are just wrong. That�?s fine. I don�?t agree, but it�?s fine with me if Harrison takes that viewpoint. The problem here is that it�?s so badly done. Harrison makes his point in two ways. First by making Mikah, Truth�?s proponent (and an obvious Straw Man), a ridiculous idiot who gets frustrated with Jason and keeps resorting to calling him names such as �?Limb of Satan.� Second by defending his no-Truth argument merely by having it said over and over by a character we�?re supposed to think is smart and knowledgeable because he�?s suddenly a brilliant engineer. There is no substantial discussion, just a back and forth like this:
Â??There is no Truth, no Life, no Mankind. At least not the way you spell them Â?? with capital letters. They donÂ??t exist.Â?Â
MikahÂ??s taut skin contracted into a furrow of concentration. Â??You will have to explain yourself,Â? he said. Â??For you are not being clear.Â?Â
Â??IÂ??m afraid itÂ??s you who arenÂ??t being clear. YouÂ??re making a reality where none exists. Truth Â?? with a small t Â?? is a description, a relationship. A way to describe a statement. A semantic tool. But Truth with a capital T is an imaginary word, a noise with no meaning. It pretends to be a noun, but it has no referent. It stands for nothing. It means nothing. When you say, Â??I believe in Truth,Â?? you are really saying Â??I believe in nothing.Â??Â?Â
Gosh, it sounds like Terry Goodkind, doesnÂ??t it? Both characters become self-righteous zealots who constantly interrupt the action to bore us with long meaningless lectures about the nature of Truth. This made it impossible to enjoy the story and I ended up skimming a lot of it. I hope DEATHWORLD will get back on track with book 3.
IÂ??m listening to the audio version of Deathworld 2 that Jimcin Recordings produced in 2011 and which was just produced on CD and distributed by Brilliance Audio. Jim Roberts does a fine job with the narration. His rhythm is stilted sometimes, but he has a good voice for this sort of story. show less
Professional gambler Jason dinAlt is kidnapped and crash-lands on a primitive, savage planet. He must navigate brutal, warring tribes and degenerate technology, using his wits to survive, reinvent technology, and escape this new deathworld to return to his friends.
Human beings have come to inhabit a world that is completely toxic to them. Gravity is twice normal, weather is brutal, geologically the planet still seems in an early stage of formation with constant volcanic eruptions and frequent quakes, and most importantly, all animal and plant life is venomous and hostile. In the beginning, the novel gives some hints of how society morphs to adapt to such an environment, and I thought that would be an idea to pursue further--but that is not this book.
Turns out this book has an old-fashioned moral to it. It's not a bad moral, and it's one that's relevant to our times (as I'm sure it would have been to many times in the past).
The moral comes in the penultimate chapter, and the book would have been a show more fine one if it had just ended there. We've had plenty of adventure and suspense to this time, and the moral makes a fine capper. But then a final chapter becomes overly preachy. Too bad. It was fine as it was. show less
Turns out this book has an old-fashioned moral to it. It's not a bad moral, and it's one that's relevant to our times (as I'm sure it would have been to many times in the past).
The moral comes in the penultimate chapter, and the book would have been a show more fine one if it had just ended there. We've had plenty of adventure and suspense to this time, and the moral makes a fine capper. But then a final chapter becomes overly preachy. Too bad. It was fine as it was. show less
Another good story by Harrison. In some ways I liked this one even better then the first one. Guess that's why I'm giving this one 4 stars. Great imagination. Our protagonist is in constant conflict with bad and/or unwise characters on less then ideal worlds. This is a theme in which Harrison excels.
This book is possibly better than Deathworld One, although I find Mikah's character intensely annoying. That's probably ok though, because he's meant to be annoying. Oh $DEITY is he successful. This was another good fun light read, the kind of Harrison I enjoy.
http://www.stillhq.com/book/Harry_Harrison/Deathworld_Two.html
http://www.stillhq.com/book/Harry_Harrison/Deathworld_Two.html
I love old school science fiction. These are a little bit dopey, but still a lot of fun. Lots of good gaming ideas.
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Harry Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey on March 12, 1925 in Stamford, Connecticut. He was drafted into the U. S. Air Corps in 1943 and became a sharpshooter, a military policeman, a gunnery instructor, and a specialist in the prototypes of computer-guided bomb-sights and gun turrets. After being discharged, he graduated from Hunter College show more with a degree in art. By the end of the 1940s, he was running a small studio that specialized in selling illustrations to comics and science-fiction magazines. He then moved on to editing some of the magazines. As the market for comics began to shrink, he started writing for science-fiction magazines. He wrote short science fiction stories and novels including Deathworld, Captive Universe, Montezuma's Revenge, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers, Stonehenge, West of Eden, Stars and Stripes Forever. He also wrote the Stainless Steel Rat series and the Bill, the Galactic Hero series. His novel Make Room! Make Room! Was the inspiration for the movie Soylent Green. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Hank Dempsey, Felix Boyd, Wade Kaempfert, Cameron Hall, Philip St. John, and Leslie Charteris. He died on August 15, 2012 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- Deathworld 2
- Original title
- The Ethical Engineer
- Alternate titles
- The Ethical Engineer
- Original publication date
- 1964; 1963 (Analog Jul, Aug) (Analog Jul, Aug)
- People/Characters
- Jason dinAlt; Mikah; Ijale; Meta
- Epigraph
- All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, Universal good;
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One... (show all) truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.
—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man - Dedication
- For John W. Campbell without whose aid this book – and a good percentage of modern science fiction – would never have been written
- First words
- “Just a moment,” Jason said into the phone, then turned away for a moment and shot an attacking horndevil.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)No shots were fired, but a hoarse scream, a thud, and a sharp cracking noise told him that Mikah had lost his last argument.
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Currently known SSNs for this work are:
0722143516; 0722144172; 0722144849; 2277211508; 3453305418;
8085384051; 8787757001; 9637457968; 0441142699.
Alternate titles:
The Ethical Engineer;
Appsala. Le m... (show all)onde de la mort, tome 2;
Die Sklavenwelt;
Druhá planeta smrti : Druhá samost. část světoznámé trilogie o planetách smrti;
Slavernes verden;
Halálvilág 2.
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