Golden Dream

H. Beam Piper (1904-64) enjoyed a brief career as a science-fiction author, which ended with his suicide in 1964. In 1963 he published Little Fuzzy, which revolved around the discovery of a race of small humanoids on a human-colonized world and the battle to get them recognized as a sapient race. In 1964 he published The Other Human Race as a sequel. Though there were reports of a nearly completed third book, it was not found after his death, so in 1981 Ace Books printed a sequel written by William Tuning, Fuzzy Bones. In Fuzzy Bones, we find out that the Fuzzies are actually marooned members of a star-traveling race, whose ship had crashed on the planet generations previous. In this book, Ardath Mayhar takes the Piper/Tuning story, and presents it from the Fuzzy's perspective. The narrative moves from Fuzzy to Fuzzy (Gashta in their own language), showing the reader their trails, as they try to survive on a hostile and dangerous world, always looking to the stars for rescue. Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable work, even though Tuning's story was overturned when Piper's third Fuzzy novel was found and published in 1984. The narrative, though somewhat choppy, was interesting, making me really feel for the Fuzzies. But, what if you haven't read the earlier Fuzzy books? Well, I do believe that you will find the story fragmented and ultimately unsatisfactory. So, I guess I would say that I highly recommend this book to any fan of H. Beam Piper and his Fuzzies, but do not really recommend it to anyone else.

I just finished this book and really enjoyed it! I'll have to go back and reread mr. Piper's novels, I think ardath ties into them very well.It's my second favorite book by this author, the world ends in hickory hollow is first. Found out she's written about 60 books under various names and so far I have enjoyed those few I've gotten my hands on.

I'm a *big* Piper fan. When I got this story I devoured it in a single sitting. It's not Piper's style, at all, but the story of how the Fuzzies survived a thousand years of being stranded was utterly engrossing. Strongly recommended.

This is a wonderful story! I have read the H.piper books, It is the 'Life' of a fuzzy, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the fuzzies and science fiction.

This book was one that I had pick up every night, lest I suffer from withdrawal. It combines the histories of previous books, written by two seperate authors, and fuses them into a future so real that you feel for and understand its characters. I strongly recommend this book to everyone that can get ahold of it.