Sinister Barrier is an English language science fiction novel by British writer Eric Frank Russell. The Waitabits - a similar story by Russell involving Earth bureaucrats encountering unusual aliens.The magazine version of Sinister Barrier was the cover story for Unknown No.The officials have to get the ship back into space before they lose so many that the ship will never fly again. Many find reasons to stay on the planet, refusing to return to the ship. As the planet's population are demonstrably non-hostile, the officials have to approve shore leave, which brings the crew into contact with the anarchist natives. To perform a service for somebody "lays an ob" on them they can then "kill the ob" by returning the favor. The population call themselves Gands (after Gandhi) and practise a form of classless, philosophically anarchic libertarianism, based on passive resistance ("Freedom - I won't!" and " Myob!") and a moneyless gift economy based on barter and favor-exchange, using "obs" (obligations). The final planet, K22g, has developed an unusual social system. They decide not to land on the planet, because the captain fears that the colonists could have been killed by a disease and he doesn't want to endanger the crew. The third planet, Kassim, was colonized by a religious group, but when the ship arrives, the Terrans cannot find any human life, only empty villages overgrown by jungle. The second planet, Hygeia, is populated by health and fitness fanatic nudists.
The first planet was a penal colony it is now many independent kleptocratic despotisms preying on each other. Things do not go entirely as hoped, as the incompetent military authoritarians of the ship encounter three very different societies.
The ship contains two thousand Terrans including many pompous officials, an army of bureaucrats, a military force and the ship's crew, including some misfits. Four hundred years after the diaspora (the "Great Explosion" of the title), a spaceship from Earth visits three of the planets, the first steps to unifying the galaxy under a new Empire. Each planet has become home for a particular social group. The Blieder drive, a faster-than-light drive system, has permitted the population of Earth to colonize the galaxy. Twenty-three years after the novel was published, it won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. The final section is based on Russell's 1951 short story ".And Then There Were None". The story is divided into three sections. The Great Explosion is a satirical science fiction novel by English writer Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. Print ( Hardback, 1962, Paperback, Avon 1975)ġ87 (first edition), 160 (first paperback printing)
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