Little Fuzzy
The Fuzzy Sapiens series, Book 1
H. Beam Piper
Audio Realms
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: On the frontier world of Zarathustra, a seemingly endless supply of natural resources is making a lot of people - particularly the Chartered Zarathustra Company that controls the Class 3 world - very rich. Jack Holloway is hoping to be one of them; a lone prospector, he works his claim for sunstones, gemlike fossils of an extinct native jellyfish, that fetch a hefty price on many worlds. He never expected to find anything of true interstellar significance... but then he discovers the strange, fuzzy little biped hiding in his home. Since the planet has only been inhabited for a couple decades or so, there are numerous native animals yet to be discovered, and at first Jack thinks this is just one of those. But "Little Fuzzy" seems unusually clever to be just another animal, even using basic tools - and after the rest of the creature's family shows up, Jack soon has no doubts that they're sapient, if very primitive, people. If true, this would have ramifications across Zarathustra: worlds with native sapient species are Class 4, not Class 3, and an exploitative monopoly contract like the one held by the colony company would be rendered null and void. Of course, that would only happen if word got out to the interstellar human Federation - and the Chartered Zarathustra Company isn't about to let that happen, even if it means eliminating a troublesome prospector and his little fuzzy "pets"...
REVIEW: This is something of a genre classic, but, as it was first published in 1962, it definitely shows its age, and not in any good way. The parallels to colonialism and efforts to reduce native cultures to lesser or even flat-out inhuman status (efforts driven by profit potential at least as much as racism, the two motives frequently combined) are quite clear, which makes it extra cringeworthy how the author and the protagonist Jack treat the Fuzzies (no prizes for guessing whether or not they're sapient). The old prospector immediately adopts a patronizing, fatherly role with his new little friend, calling himself "Pappy Jack" and consistently talking down to the Fuzzies, treating them as something between a pet and a small child. This treatment is echoed by most every "good" human throughout the story, and the Fuzzies continually live up to (or rather, down to) this expectation, apparently wanting nothing more than to abandon their native lifestyle and live like glorified pets at the feet of the wise and powerful human invaders - invaders who, incidentally, have already damaged the planet to the point of altering the climate, a little throwaway subplot that's never followed up on. It's also yet another very white, very male, very mid-20th century vision of an interstellar future; women exist to be secretaries or wives almost exclusively, while men smoke like chimneys and always have alcohol near at hand while doing all of the hard, important work of civilization. Beyond that, it does earn some marks for trying to tease out a solid definition of what makes a being sapient, when examples on numerous worlds keep contradicting every definition humanity comes up with. There are some echoes here with more recent studies that reveal just how little we understand the inner workings of animal minds here on Earth, and how little of what we used to think of as exclusively human actually is unique to our species. The plot at least moves fairly well, for all that the ending involves pulling a few plot twists out of thin air.
The rating I gave it takes into account the fact that it was written in an entirely different era, and for an entirely different audience, than I embody. Even given that, there are some things that happen after the climax and the resolution of the sapience issue that just induced one too many cringes for me to overlook. (Potential Spoiler: when the very judge who, moments ago, ruled that Fuzzies were people and not mere animals, then inquired about acquiring a pair of cute little Fuzzies for his pampered wife much as he might ask for a pair of Bichon Frise puppies, followed by Jack deciding he needed to start an adoption service to home all the natives with human homes without even thinking to ask the Fuzzies what they thought of the plan ('cause of course the human Pappy Jack knows best) - blatantly treating them like the dumb animals they were just ruled not to be, and with terrible echoes of how colonizing people throughout history considered that native cultures should be "grateful" to be taken from their homes and raised with white people in "superior" white ways... yeah, there are some things I just can't overlook because "things were different then".)
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