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"ZNIDD SUDDABIT!"So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and a seemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands in the governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks" have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialist Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war is everywhere.
How it will end is in the (merely) two Terran hands of the new governor-general, a man shrewd enough to know that "it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." The problem is, the particular piece of knowledge he needs hasn't been used in 450 years. . . .
H. Beam Piper (1904-1964)
Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction writer and gun collector. He was largely self-educated and went to work at age 18 as a labourer at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona yards; he also worked as a night watchman for the railroad. Piper's first published story was "Time and Time Again", with Astounding Science Fiction in 1947. He remained primarily a writer of short stories until 1961, when he made a productive foray into novels. Piper committed suicide in 1964, using one of his own handguns.
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