Uller Uprising

Classic sci-fi story loosely based on actual historical events which is an H Beam Piper speciality

This is my second copy of this book as I have worn out the first copy from rereading so many times. It is classic SF but it holds up very well in todays world.

Besides being an exciting story told well, this book should be interesting to all SF fans because it was the first real example of what we now call "Military SF." It predated Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" by several years. Jerry Pournelle was strongly influenced by reading this and other Beam Piper works. (I think it is no coincidence that a minor character in this book is named Col. Falkenberg!) So many aspects of this book are repeated again and again in works by Pournelle, Weber, Drake, etc.: The story is told from the point of view of a dedicated military officer. Military hardware and methods are presented in convincing detail. Military rites and customs, the implicit trust and comradeship between military people, and the natural distrust between military and civilian authorities -- all are implicit to the plot. Military ways of thinking are forever contrasted to their civilian counterparts, so that the civvy ways of thought are shown to be hopelessly fuzzy-minded and soft-hearted, incapable of handling a crisis. Sexuality is repressed to the Boy-Scout level -- well, perhaps that's because it was published in the 1950s. And above all, aliens are gorily slaughtered in numbers. Much of the fun and the punch to this narrative lies in the fact that it's OKAY to wreak bloody mayhem on enemies, if they are nonhuman and attacked you first. John Ringo is a recent author who uses exactly the same method to add "kick" to a narrative. Ringo's books seem always to be asking, how inventively can we waste a battalion of lizard-headed gooks? Piper showed how to ask and answer that question first, here in ULLER, where you will find the original pattern for the plot styles of Ringo, Weber, Drake, et al.

In the far future, exploration has brought many new worlds into the reach of humankind. To facilitate the exploitation of these worlds, trading companies are established. On the world of Uller, the Chartered Uller Company has been running matters much as the British East India Company ran India in the Eighteenth Century. While local potentates rule, humans profit and attempt to better the lot of the locals, whom they derisively call "Geeks." However, not all of the four-armed reptile-oid natives are pleased about the arrangement. When rebellion explodes, it is up to General Carlos von Schlichten, commander of the Company's army, to hold Uller for the Chartered Uller Company and the Terran Federation.This is an intelligent, and thought provoking book. The action is gripping, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. The author's use of the old trading company paradigm in the future is nothing short of brilliant. As an added bonus, the first chapter of the book contains notes describing the silicone world of Uller and fluorine world of Niflheim, with comments on the chemistry and evolution of life on the world: this written by Dr John D. Clark, scientist and one of the discoverers of sulfa.In certain ways, this book is out of date (the scene involving scientists using their sliderules is humorous), but not in any way that damages the believability of the story. So, if you are looking for a sci-fi book with a gripping story, and a highly exotic setting, then this book is for you!

The Chartered Uller Company is making a nice profit from Uller, and improving the standard of living about 1000% (except for those few "geeks" who used to make a living raiding caravans)...until Rakeed the Prophet preaches Znidd suddabit! (kill the Terrans)...and it turns out one of the rebels has been working on Niflheim, helping to make nuclear bombs for volcano-mining...