What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
► UNSOLVED: One specific book
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Short Story Colonization ship crashes on planet where tides are very strong
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This rings a bell... I'll investigate my collections, but I'll almost bet that I borrowed it from a library... I read my books often enough to know... I'll get back to you. I wanna say it's a short and not a novella... keep your fingers crossed.


I do think it may have been in a collection of short stories about colonization.
Thanks for the suggestion.


They had cold weather gear for the poles of this planet. Maybe they moved there instead of the staying on the equator? I think that the migratory lifestyle was meant for later in the establishment of the planet.

One of the stars the planet orbits flares up and scorches the planet every 80 years ("The Burning" ); everyone has to trek to a frozen crater near the North Pole that shelters them enough for survival. The first colonists lost pretty much everything when the bottom of the crater flooded with boiling water in the first Burning.
The main part of the story involves Lars, who's trying to put together this mostly-forgotten history, and finally meets a man called Brian who says he's part of a rescue mission from Earth and Lars needs to shut up because they don't have the facilities to evacuate everyone before the next Burning and they need everyone to focus on survival for now.
(view spoiler)
There was a colonization space ship heading to a perfect planet for settling when it began having trouble and had to crash. (view spoiler)[We either find out or suspect that the ship was actually meant for this planet because the flora and fauna were perfect for it. (hide spoiler)]
The equator of the planet seemed to be a perfect spot to land and that's where they set up, but then they figure out that there's a huge ocean moving around the planet because the tide is so strong that it just draws the ocean around the planet. You'd think they would have figured that out before landing. Not sure why they didn't.
They end up having to set up a migratory lifestyle where the first people plant and then the next care for the plants and the last harvests it. I guess the food is then run up to the other people, I don't remember.