Finished Reading 2024: Uller Uprising by Henry Beam Piper 📚

This was a short book that took me a while to read. I’m not a big fan of military SF, and this is indeed that. But the themes in this book deal with colonialism, corporate interest, etc. The thing that was a bit off-putting was the avalanche of character names and places, both human and alien. Really hard to keep track of. But maybe 1/3 of the way into the book you realize most of them are pretty disposable and just keep reading and it all makes sense.

This is the first in Piper’s Terro-Human Future History novels. I’ve not read them in order, but I don’t think it’s that important.

Anyway, some of the details of the “war effort” in this novel are a bit tedious. However, one thing really struck me. In this novel there are some native aliens on a planet being exploited by a human company. The humans refer to the natives as “geeks”, due to a sound they make when vocalizing. A young woman character initially does not use the term but eventually starts to use it regularly. When you first encounter the term in the novel it seems like Piper is endorsing this kind of thing, but later her describes the young woman as now using the insulting and derogatory term. So Piper is describing the insidious way that kind of thinking works its way into peoples minds. He’s not endorsing it. I have found that Piper does that kind of thing a lot in his novels. He doesn’t beat you over the head with it. If you aren’t paying attention you will miss it.

Even with the tedious parts I enjoyed this novel.