H Beam Piper Popular Books

H Beam Piper Biography & Facts

Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 – c. November 6, 1964) was an American science fiction writer. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales. He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper. Another source gives his name as "Horace Beam Piper" and a different date of death. His gravestone says "Henry Beam Piper". Piper himself may have been the source of part of the confusion; he told people the H stood for Horace, encouraging the assumption that he used the initial because he disliked his name. On a copy of Little Fuzzy given to Charles O. Piper, Beam's cousin and executor, he wrote "To Charles from Henry." Biography Piper was largely self-educated; he obtained his knowledge of science and history "without subjecting myself to the ridiculous misery of four years in the uncomfortable confines of a raccoon coat." He went to work at age 18 as a laborer at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona yards in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He also worked as a night watchman for the railroad. Piper published his first short story, "Time and Time Again", in 1947 in Astounding Science Fiction; it was adapted for the radio program Dimension X and first broadcast in 1951, and was re-produced for X Minus One in 1956. He was primarily a short story author until 1961, when he made a productive, if short-lived, foray into novels. He collected guns and wrote one mystery, Murder in the Gunroom. In 1964, his career apparently on the skids, and prevented by reticence and his libertarian principles from asking anyone to assist him with his financial difficulties, Piper committed suicide. The exact date of his death is unknown; the last entry in his diary was dated November 5 ("Rain 0930"), and according to his Pennsylvania death certificate his body was found on November 8. According to Jerry Pournelle's introduction to Little Fuzzy, Piper shut off all the utilities to his apartment, put painter's drop-cloths over the walls and floor, and took his own life with a handgun from his collection. In his suicide note, he gave an explanation that "I don't like to leave messes when I go away, but if I could have cleaned up any of this mess, I wouldn't be going away. H. Beam Piper."Some biographers attribute his act to financial problems, others to family problems; Pournelle wrote that Piper felt burdened by financial hardships in the wake of a divorce, and the mistaken perception that his career was foundering (his agent had died without notifying him of multiple sales). Editor George H. Scithers, who knew Piper socially, has stated that Piper wanted to spite the ex-wife he despised: by killing himself, Piper voided his life insurance policy, and prevented her from collecting. An unpublished story, "Only the Arquebus", was missing after his suicide; it is probable that he destroyed it along with many of his personal papers. His output was eventually purchased by Ace Science Fiction and reprinted in a set of paperbacks in the early 1980s. Many of these have since gone out of print, though his two best-known arcs were again reprinted by Ace in 1998 and 2001. Late in his career, Piper corresponded with Pournelle, who was the Ace editor who helped reprint some of his novels. Many of his earlier copyrights have been allowed to lapse, permitting Project Gutenberg to distribute his work online. Themes and hallmarks Piper's stories fall into two groups: stark space opera, such as Space Viking, or stories of cultural conflict or misunderstanding, such as Little Fuzzy or the Paratime stories. A running theme in his work is that history repeats itself; past events will have direct and clear analogues in the future. The novel Uller Uprising is the clearest example of this, being based on the Sepoy Mutiny. A similar example is the very title of Space Viking, although the novel is not a direct reinterpretation of a specific historical precedent. A later theme in the book involves the takeover of a planet in a manner reminiscent of the rise of Adolf Hitler. Piper's characterization was rooted in the notion of the self-reliant man, able to take care of himself and both willing and able to tackle any situation that might arise. This is exemplified in a bit of dialogue in his short story "Oomphel in the Sky" (1960): He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. As a result, his stories tend towards the heroic, and the conflict is usually driven externally.Piper was interested in general semantics. It is explicitly mentioned in Murder in the Gunroom, and its principles, such as awareness of the limitations of knowledge, are apparent in his later work. Major storylines Terro-Human Future History The Terro-Human Future History is Piper's detailed account of the next 6,000 years of human history. 1942, the year the first fission reactor was constructed, is defined as the year 1 A.E. (Atomic Era). In 1973, a nuclear war devastates the planet, eventually laying the groundwork for the emergence of a Terran Federation, once humanity goes into space and develops antigravity technology. The story "The Edge of the Knife" (collected in Empire) occurs slightly before the war, and involves a man who sees flashes of the future. It links many key elements of Piper's series. Most of the stories take place during the next millennium, during the age of the two Federations. Most notable among these novels are the three Fuzzy novels (starting with Little Fuzzy), which concern the recognition of a peculiar alien species as sapient, and the efforts of the two species to learn to live together on the Fuzzies' home world of Zarathustra. The Federation collapses in the System States War and following Interstellar Wars (a bit of which can be seen in The Cosmic Computer), leading to a lengthy interregnum, during which there is no central human power. Space Viking is set in this chaotic period. The interregnum ends with the founding of the first Empire. At least five empires rule humanity during the next four thousand years, but only a handful of short stories (collected in Empire) depict this period. Piper generally portrays these empires as benign, ruled by enlightened despots. Piper's future history resembles in some ways Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, and was probably influenced by it, especially since both authors wrote for John W. Campbell. Paratime A much shorter series of alternate history stories is Piper's Paratime sequence, collected in Paratime, followed by the novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. These stories concern the Paratime Police, a law enforcement outfit from a parallel world which has learned how to move between timelines. They jealously guard the secret, even as they mine other worlds for their resources. Notably.... Discover the H Beam Piper popular books. Find the top 100 most popular H Beam Piper books.

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  • The H. Beam Piper Archive synopsis, comments

    The H. Beam Piper Archive

    H. Beam Piper

    An incredible collection of some of H. Beam Piper's most mindmelting sci fi! From the pen of the master himself, featuring over 600 pages of awesome: The Answer Crossroads of ...

  • Classic Science Fiction Collection synopsis, comments

    Classic Science Fiction Collection

    Edwin A. Abbott, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Wood Campbell, Raymond King Cummings, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tom Godwin, Andre Norton, H. Beam Piper, Mack Reynolds, Mary Shelley, E.E. Doc Smith, Jules Verne & H.G. Wells

    Table of Contents Edwin Abbott Abbott Flatland Edgar Rice BurroughsThe Chessmen of Mars The Gods of Mars .... J. W. CampbellThe Black Star PassesInvaders from the Infinite.... Ra...

  • The H. Beam Piper Anthology synopsis, comments

    The H. Beam Piper Anthology

    H. Beam Piper

    31 incredible science fiction novels and short stories, collected here and presented in full awesomeness! If you love scifi, you NEED to read H. Beam Piper, one of the greatest sci...

  • The H. Beam Piper Anthology synopsis, comments

    The H. Beam Piper Anthology

    H. Beam Piper

    The H. Beam Piper Anthology contains 33 separate works by this legendary ScienceFiction writer, including novels, novellas and short stories such as the famous "Space Viking", and ...

  • The Greatest Works of H. Beam Piper - 35 Titles in One Edition synopsis, comments

    The Greatest Works of H. Beam Piper - 35 Titles in One Edition

    H. Beam Piper

    Musaicum Books presents to you a carefully created collection of H. Beam Piper's Dystopian Novels, SciFi Books and Supernatural Stories. This ebook has been designed and format...

  • The Family Trade synopsis, comments

    The Family Trade

    Charles Stross

    A bold fantasy in the tradition of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, The Merchant Princes is a sweeping new series from the hottest new writer in science fiction!Miriam Beckstei...

  • Only the Arquebus, by H. Beam Piper synopsis, comments

    Only the Arquebus, by H. Beam Piper

    Daniel Eness

    "Just after Halloween 1964, H. Beam Piper, the nowfamed science fiction author and the writer of a "locked room" mystery titled Murder in the Gunroom was discovered dead in his own...

  • Works of H. Beam Piper synopsis, comments

    Works of H. Beam Piper

    H. Beam Piper

    Table of ContentsThe Answer The Cosmic Computer Crossroads of Destiny Day of the Moron IllustratedDearest The Edge of the Knife IllustratedFlight From Tomorrow FourDay Planet Genes...

  • Coplete Terro-Human Future History Series of H. Beam Piper synopsis, comments

    Coplete Terro-Human Future History Series of H. Beam Piper

    H. Beam Piper

    An American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive TerroHuman Future History series of stories and a shorter ser...

  • Fuzzy Nation synopsis, comments

    Fuzzy Nation

    John Scalzi

    From New York Times bestseller and Hugo Awardwinner John Scalzi, an extraordinary retelling of the SF classic Little FuzzyZaraCorp holds the right to extract unlimited resources fr...

  • The Greatest Works of H. Beam Piper - 35 Titles in One Edition synopsis, comments

    The Greatest Works of H. Beam Piper - 35 Titles in One Edition

    H. Beam Piper

    eartnow presents to you a carefully created collection of H. Beam Piper's Dystopian Novels, SciFi Books and Supernatural Stories. This ebook has been designed and formatted to ...

  • The Essential Works H. Beam Piper synopsis, comments

    The Essential Works H. Beam Piper

    H. Beam Piper

    Collected works of classic science fiction author H. Beam Piper with active table of contents.Works include:The AnswerThe Cosmic ComputerCrossroads of DestinyDay of the MoronDeares...

  • The H. Beam Piper SF Collection synopsis, comments

    The H. Beam Piper SF Collection

    H. Beam Piper

    This meticulously edited SciFi collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The TerroHuman Future History Series: Uller Uprising FourD...