SOLVED. Adult Sci-Fi; Group of people forming a new colony on a planet that is home to unintelligent flora and fauna, one of characters is crippled, they defend the colony from lizard monsters. [s]

[Jesse]

This book was read in the early 2000s but it was older scifi, possibly ranging from the 60s to the 80s. A paperback with a reddish cover, one of those iconic old scifi covers, possibly featuring a red planet? A colony ship is sent to a new world containing unintelligent life, including fish-like creatures in the nearby river. The book contains quite a bit of relationships formed throughout the story, connecting all of the colonists together. One of the characters is crippled from the waist down. His wife forms a close relationship with another colonist but her husband, the cripple, asks for her to not sleep with him. She agrees, but when he dies at the end of the book, she curses him for having her make such a promise.

The lizard monsters are a key component of the story. I believe they attack the colony at the beginning, but are driven back and killed. With fewer lizard monsters to eat the fish, this drastically increases the number of fish spawning in the river. It's later revealed that the fish and the lizard monsters are the same creature at different stages in their life cycles. This leads to the swollen population of fish becoming lizard monsters and attacking the colony.

[Bryn]

It was a long time ago that I read it, but I think this might be The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle -- it came out in 1987 and has the plot point about the lizards/fish being the same thing.

[Jesse]

Bryn (Plus Others) wrote: "It was a long time ago that I read it, but I think this might be The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle -- it came out in 1987 and has the plot point about how the liza..."

This is it, thank you!