The Ethical Engineer

Description

The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison

The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison is one of the most exciting and masterfully written science fiction novels of the 20th century. The novel is also known as Deathworld II, being a sequel to Deathworld I, the first novel introducing Jason dinAlt, a gambler turned into a hero, promoting peaceful co-habitation between the originally hostile species of Pyrrhus, a planet surrounding colonists with a deathly environment.

The Ethical Engineer features Jason as the protagonist once again. This time he is allegedly kidnapped to be tried for the crimes he committed earlier on (Deathworld I starts with Jason gambling and winning huge money, then escaping the planet where his wins have come from to avoid persecution, and that’s how he got to the hostile planet). The kidnapper pretends to be acting in the name of the government, but in fact he intends to use Jason to overthrow the government. Jason manages to get away, landing on another strange planet.

While Deathworld I takes the reader to a hostile planet dwelled by powerful and dangerous creatures, in The Ethical Engineer the protagonist must survive in a regressed, primitive environment where technology degraded to the level of magic and mystery and life is made difficult not so much by the outside threats as by the hostility among the clans that inhabit the planet. Jason is a hero and a true gambler at the same time – he is well aware of the importance of reaching consensus, so he uses his communication and negotiation skills as well as his knowledge of engineering to achieve his goals.
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