Trader's World

by Charles Sheffield

A young man raised by the powerful Trader's Guild in a world drastically changed by nuclear war discovers that his business of negotiation masks a hidden agenda. (Library Journal)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

280 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 12, 1988

About the author

Charles A. Sheffield (June 25, 1935 – November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.

His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.

For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.

He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.

Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.

He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.

He was married to writer Nancy Kress.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trader's World is a fix-up novel that includes stories that were originally published in Analog magazine in the mid-1980's, revised and updated for the novel format. It's a pretty good post-apocalypse story, with some interesting puzzles and challenges, but the characterization isn't too memorable.

[Raja99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps my favorite Charles Sheffield book, which is saying a lot. It's a fixup of six stories, four of which were previously published in somewhat different form as standalone stories in Analog. Two were cover stories.

(Sheffield shifted two of the stories from first-person to third-, created a few recurring characters, and added an important "second agenda" plot.)

It's set on, and around, a rather colorful post-holocaust Earth. By the standards of Sheffield's works, it's a fairly dark novel, but it's all sweetness and light compared to Frederik Pohl's Jem , to which it bears some resemblance.

[Geoffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that ended abruptly.

[Michael Rhode · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good old-fashioned hard core sf bildungsroman. Slightly dated but holds up well enough to enjoy.