Four-Day Planet

H. Beam Piper

★★★☆☆

A fun frontier/sailing adventure in a throwback sort of way, but nothing really special. Sort of a mashup of Moby Dick…IN SPAAAACE with everyone based out of a corrupt frontier town. The title refers to the planet’s slow rotation, only four day/night cycles in a year, which makes the surface uninhabitable during the long, boiling days and freezing nights.

Characters include the scrappy teen reporter, the town drunk with suspiciously good reflexes, the corrupt union boss colluding with the corrupt corporate representative, rugged sea captains, and the school principal who figures if he can handle a bunch of kids, he can handle an unruly mob.

It appears to be set in the same universe as Little Fuzzy, but it’s more interested in telling an adventure than asking big questions. Which is fine – I probably would have liked it a lot more at, say, 10 or 12.