First Cycle

by H. Beam Piper, Michael Kurland (Editor)

Vintage paperback

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

201 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Henry 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.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Cycle was a story that Piper wrote a draft of in the early 1950s for a shared-world anthology that never appeared. It was to have been one of three stories in a book from Twayne, but when the deal fell through he never completed the story, although he did leave copious notes with the apparent idea of fleshing it out to novel length. It was found among his papers after his suicide in 1964, and eventually Ace (who owned Piper's literary estate) gave it Michael Kurland to complete. Kurland made an attempt to append it to Piper's Federation series, but it doesn't really fit there, nor to the Paratime or Fuzzy sequences. There are some very dry pages of sociological and economic and political philosophy that seems to be presented as a lecture/discussion rather than as a part of the novel. They can be skimmed over, and the story itself is fine, although it's minor Piper.

[Doris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was completed by Michael Kurland from a draft left behind when Piper died, and therefore does not have the warmth and character development normally found in a book by Piper.

The concept is good, with two planets developing from an interstellar planetary collision, and what happens next is built for us in a parallel documentary of Planet A - a water world, and Planet B - a desert world. The story examines the emergence of two primary bipedal races on these sister planets, one from amphibian lineage on the water world, and one from a mixed feline-anthropod lineage on the desert world.

The Thalassans on the water world are described as somewhat toadlike, and have echoes of another later novel by Alan Dean Foster (in the Spellsinger series) in the discussion of the "Organic State" where the government is the people and the people are the government (but only the most powerful get the most of the good stuff). The people are very much ground down and grateful when they are able to get a promotion, and often do by spying on each other.

The Hetairans on the desert have a group lifestyle, which they refer to as "gangs" of (mostly) related individuals. They have no true government, but decide together on change. However, they are truly a more organic society in that they share ideas, trade, and improvements, but reaction to theft or other misdeeds is instant and permanent.

The story drags through pages of lectures on the different worlds and mindsets, with very little dialogue except at crucial points.

I felt this was probably due to this having been a draft for a series, not a novel, and the final product was produced by Michael Kurland from this draft. The original author was unable to create his stylistic polished, final version. The version that was published was strong on ideas, but because of the rush to bring it to the reading audience, the history of the development of the two races was strongly done, but the character development lagged, and the final ending was obviously added in a "so there" in the face of history, giving an ending to the story as told by humans.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has some fascinating concepts and is unusual for involving humans only tangentially in the frame. Rather it examines two different alien races on sister planets. One, the Thalassans, from amphibian lineage, is probably the most human in its cultural development, eventually developing a totalitarian "Organic State." The Hetairans, from a feline lineage, have not families but "gangs" of related individuals. They're egalitarian in gender and anarchic in governance--not a close parallel, but they're possibly meant to play Americans to the Thalassan Soviets. The book was first drafted before 1964, given it was developed from a manuscript found after Piper's death, and you could certainly see the era's Cold War tensions reflected in the plot.

The problem is this is all tell, not show. That might not be Piper's fault at all. I know from his Fuzzy Sapiens stories the man could write. But this was developed by Michael Kurland from a draft; Piper never had a chance to create a polished, final version. One can tell the major problem with it just by flipping the pages. There's very little dialogue here because except for some vignettes interspersed throughout, this is almost entirely narrative summary of the history of the development of the two races. It might have worked better if like, for instance, Asimov's first Foundation book, it had been worked into a series of stories at key points of the histories, but that's not how it's written, so it's only intermittently interesting. It needed to either be cut and expanded accordingly--or just cut drastically into a short story focusing on the events after First Contact that forms the last chapters. There's just not enough here to make the characters come alive enough to care what happens.

[Pmanderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Perhaps the clearest demonstration I have ever seen that you don't have to know any science to write science fiction - or, indeed, know anything else.

The original idea is cool: A two-star system, with two planets facing each other in tidal lock in one of the Trojan positions. Each planet has a humanoid species. That such a system would be unstable is a detail; the collision narrative, worthy of Edmond Hamilton, in the first chapter, makes up for it.

But Piper claims (and Kurland could have edited some of the nonsense out, and didn't; Ace wouldn't have cared) that

The planets are both in eternal light (although they have two light sources, 60 degrees apart).

That the planets have one tidal bulge each, on the inner face.

That docking with a ship in low orbit takes much less fuel than high orbit, or achieving escape velocity. (the narrative makes clear that Piper imagined this to be a factor of 6 to 10, not 1.5 to 2.)

Piper's infallible laws of economics and sociology are even sillier.

[Joel Hacker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting socio-political though experiment more than it is a novel. Looking at in broad strokes, with some occasional microscoping in at key events, two species first evolving then slowly developing culture and technology on sister worlds. The two are vaguely stand-ins for the US/USSR, though there are some pretty serious deviations from both, and it eventually leads to post-ww2 era nuclear stand-off and nuclear annihilation (other than some survivors off planet).
If you're looking for a good narrative driven scifi novel, you might want to skip this as there are barely characters let alone a 'story' in the traditional sense, but it *is* a good read as long as you know what you're getting in to.
Its got a lot of what you'd expect from a 50s/Heinlein era sf writer in terms of glorification of a really strange (definitely not modern) sort of libertarian-ism that still sees value in community and community building. As well as a lot of fear of certainly not real form of communism that inevitably leads to totalitarianism. But they're both such caricatures here in service to the overall fable it feels a lot less out of place.
Also, as others have noted, it was unfinished manuscript of notes after Piper's suicide, finished by Kurland with rather limited changes.

[Charlie Eckhaus · Rating 2 out of 5]

70 pages on: Interminable history, only mildly interesting, too much distance from actual beings and their interactions, get the feeling that there's not much point to generation or people's, much less individual's, doings, it'll all be swept away in the march of history (and even that will disappear one day.) Wondering how much of what I've read was Kurland's expansion. Will persevere.

Found the inevitablilty of mass executions of the defeated throughout the history to be cynical and depressing (but perhaps realistic!)

Finally some interest generated in the last half, will soon see if there's a coherent plot to get involved with.

Joky ending I guessed, didn't save this from being a disappointment.

[Lee Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked First Cycle because the ideas and writing style are different, which is especially important for keeping science fiction fresh. If you’re looking for a character-driven story, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for something different, or an inspiration to beat writer's block, this is a good book to read. First Cycle teaches a lot about worldbuilding.

Full review at StorybookCat.com

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best, but that's probably the result of post-death fleshing out and publishing. The story isn't exactly ground breaking but I enjoyed the tracing of the development of the two parallel societies. However (without giving too much away) the sudden technological leap at the end of the book to make the ending possible didn't quite make sense.

[John]

I always wondered if this book was based on a Murray Leinster short story called Second Landing published in 1954. That story was also about 2 worlds tidally locked together, one ocean and one desert, which had a massive atomic war due to their differences.

Just curious...

[Pat Belford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it despite the libertarian nonsense.

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little like listening in on the imaginary shower arguments of a militant libertarian.