Midworld

This is the first sci-fi book I read in the 70's. I never forgot it and I want to read it again.

No one intended to settle the nameless planet covered by seven levels of steaming tropical forest. A colony ship wound up orbiting it by mistake, giving the stranded passengers no other option except to land and try their best to survive. A few of them did that for long enough to have children. Now, generations later, their adapted descendants include a hunter named Born. He's a curious young man, so much so that his people call him mad. For what good is curiosity, in a place where seeking to see the sky involves going to a place called Upper Hell? When two giants drop out of the sky, only Born cares enough about the mystery to climb down through the trees and rescue them from their crashed flitter. Although they know less than the smallest child about surviving in this perilous place, Born manages to keep them alive long enough to reach the relative safety of his Home Tree. His tribe thinks it's seen him for the last time when he sets out to guide the strangers to the "station" from which they say they came - no one ever traveled that far before. As Born learns more and more about these fellow humans whose thinking is so very unlike that of his own people, and as he discovers how they mean to use the awesome power they've brought to Midworld, the young hunter's curiosity turns to horror. These invaders have to be stopped from carrying out their plans. But how? The world-building in this book amazes me. Parable and adventure tale, it works well on both levels; and it ends with a chilling twist that turns what had looked predictable squarely onto its head. Followers of Foster's Flinx books - the more recent ones, especially - will find some delicious foreshadowing in that twist.

I actually read this book a long time ago - I think it would have been in the late 70s (Note that it is a re-issue now). My local library had a copy and I re-borrowed it a number of times because I was so enamoured with the imagery of the planet Midworld. It was probably responsible for my ongoing interest in SciFi/Fantasy literature.The book is filled with vivid images of strange, alien lifeforms that are mind-boggling real. The characters are constantly threatened by death by unusual means, making it hard to find a spot to put the book down. In ways the book is similar to the more recently written "Sentenced to Prism", although set in a quite different landscape. I was also interested by the revisiting of Midworld by the author in "MidFlinx", although I think I prefer the original, Flinx is just too good at surviving so I knew he would make it.

I usually am a hard science fiction reader. But my brother recommended that I read this one. WOW! This was one of the best stories I have ever read, I thought I was actually there on Midworld. Loved it!

I first found interest in ADF when my father told me he was a friend of Mr. Foster. Aparently, dad actually had the honor of building Foster's garage. It's true. This was the first of his books that I read, and I loved it. The concept of a world where the defining line between the plant and animal kingdom is faint is an excellent one. And there is also a valuable lesson to be learned from midworld. I'll leave that to the reader to find out, though. I reccomend anyone who likes Sci/fi reads it.