Police Your Planet

Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 251K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Police Your Planet by Lester Del ReyAuthor: Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 29, 2006

Editor's review

Lester Del Rey was an important twentieth-century American writer of science fiction and fantasy, and Police Your Planet belongs to his early science fiction, made available to readers as a free e-book through Project Gutenberg. The work has a clear flavor of adventure science fiction, imagining planetary governance and the maintenance of order, and it reflects how mid-twentieth-century science fiction engaged with questions of colonization, power, and institutions. For readers familiar with Golden Age science fiction, it offers a sample for understanding the genre's evolution; for readers new to English-language science fiction originals, its length and language difficulty are relatively approachable. As a public-domain e-book, it is better suited to research reading or casual reading out of interest than to readers seeking high literary quality or contemporary narrative technique. While reading, consider Del Rey's era to appreciate how early science fiction handled the relationship between social institutions and individual action.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in mid-twentieth-century American science fiction who wish to understand the genre's development
English learners who need free public-domain English e-books for extensive reading practice
Science fiction fans interested in planetary governance, order, and institutional imagination

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking contemporary science fiction narrative technique and complex character development
Beginning readers who want a Chinese translation or need extensive annotation

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the main storyline, then revisit passages dealing with institutions and order to appreciate the author's social imagination.
Read alongside background material on Del Rey's era to understand how early science fiction handled colonization and governance.
For English extensive reading, read one or two chapters at a time and guess unfamiliar words from context rather than looking up every word.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?

This is the original English text, from the Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book project, with the language marked as English. Chinese readers need some English reading ability, or should use a dictionary and reading aids.

Is this book suitable for science fiction beginners?

It can serve as one introductory text for understanding early science fiction, but note that it is a mid-twentieth-century work whose narrative pace and ideas differ from contemporary science fiction. For English extensive reading, its length is relatively approachable; for readers seeking strong plotting and a modern feel, it may not be suitable.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

No specialized prior knowledge is required, but familiarity with mid-twentieth-century American science fiction magazines and the background of public-domain e-books helps in understanding the work's context. An interest in planetary governance, colonization, and institutional questions will make it easier to enter the text.

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About the author

Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993 Author

Lester Del Rey (1915-1993) was an American science fiction writer, with 11 of his works held in this collection. Public information is limited, and details of his life are difficult to verify, but the surviving works show that his writing spanned novels and short stories, often dealing with space adventure, the ethics of technology, and catastrophic crises. Representative works include Badge of Infamy, No Strings Attached, Dead Ringer, Let ‘Em Breathe Space!, The Sky Is Falling, Operation Distress, Earthbound, and Victory. These titles suggest a concern with social order, identity, and the human condition, with narratives that carry reflections on the consequences of technology through tight plotting, in a popular style that nonetheless retains tension. His works had a certain influence among mid-twentieth-century American science fiction readers, and some pieces are still selected for science fiction anthologies, offering readers a view of the genre in that era.