History Literature / Deathworld

* ImprobableAimingSkills: The Pyrrans (junkmen and grubbers alike) are very good at shooting things. The junkmen train from childhood with their {{Hand Cannon}}s, while the low-tech grubbers use wrist-mounted crossbows.

* PsychicPowers: Jason has low-level psi-powers and is able to sense and, to a degree, communicate with the Pyrran lifeforms. The grubbers have the "talkers", who communicate and tame animals, and "quakemen" who can predict natural disasters. All native life on Pyrrus is also psychic to a degree.

All native life is predatory, capable of killing any human without warning. Large animals can crush vehicles, while small ones are invariably venomous. All plants are carnivorous. Even microorganisms act like acid on insufficiently-protected tissue. Natural selection is so rapid that the speed of evolution is taken UpToEleven, so much that all Pyrrans returning home (even after a few days) have to be re-trained to survive.

* ContemptibleCover: See that ''Deathworld'' cover above showing an unarmed female cringing in fear while her partner fends off the fearsome flora with his RayGun? It's more like the other way round with Meta and Jason.

* BadassGrandpa: Kerk is one of the oldest Pyrrans (where the average life expectancy is ''16''). Like all Pyrrans, he is a crack shot and can easily kill anyone in hand-to-hand combat. Rhes, the leader of the grubbers, also qualifies. Neither of them are stated to be actual grandfathers, as all of Kerk's children are dead.

* * QuickDraw: The junkmen use [[HandCannon powerful handguns]] kept in a holster on the upper arm with a chip inserted in the gun hand that senses when certain muscles tense. The gun then jumps out into the hand and immediately fires (the gun has no trigger guard), then returns to the holster. All this can take less than a second.

* PyrrhicVictory: The life on the aptly-named planet Pyrrus is such that, no matter what the Pyrrans do, they're just delaying the inevitable. [[spoiler: And in the third novel, their city is finally overrun, and the survivors relocate to a new world.]]

* QuickDraw: The junkmen use [[HandCannon powerful handguns]] kept in a holster on the upper arm with a chip inserted in the gun hand that senses when certain muscles tense. The gun then jumps out into the hand and immediately fires (the gun has no trigger guard), then returns to the holster. All this can take less than a second.

* ContemptableCover: See that ''Deathworld'' cover above showing an unarmed female cringing in fear while her partner fends off the fearsome flora with his RayGun? It's more like the other way round with Meta and Jason.

* IUhYouToo: "You fight well." is how a Pyrrhan says "I love you." This gives Meta problems as her love interest Jason does not in fact fight particularly well and she admits that that isn't at all what she wants to say to him.

* HandCannon: The junkmen use powerful handguns kept in a holster on the upper arm with a chip inserted in the gun hand that senses when certain muscles tense. The gun then jumps out into the hand and immediately fires (the gun has no trigger guard), then returns to the holster. All this can take less than a second.

* DistressCall: While on a degraded LostColony in the second novel, Jason ends up in the hands of a clan that controls electricity and decides to help them TakeOverTheWorld in order to break the guild-like structure and kick-start the scientific progress. One of the devices he makes is a small box with a crank. When the crank is turned, the box emits sparks in a certain sequence. Jason convinces the ruler that the box is, in fact, announcing to the world the ruler's glory, when it's actually sending a primitive distress call using a universally-known code. The ruler sets up a special room where his subjects can turn the crank (for a fee, of course) to pay respects to their sovereign. At the end of the novel, Meta, who's out looking for Jason, stumbles on the planet and picks up the signal in orbit.

* UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage: Harrison's love for the language is evident in the fact that he puts it into many of his "distant future" sci-fi stories. In-universe, it the language of the [[TheEmpire Old Empire]] and the lingua franca on most worlds.

* LostColony: Tens of thousands of worlds were settled during the days of the [[TheEmpire Old Empire]]. After its collapse, many were forgotten and have degraded to barbarism. Some were re-discovered since then. Two such worlds are the settings of the second the third novels.

* ObstructionistPacifist: Mikah Samon is a "pacifist" who opposes Jason's plan to foment revolution (and later a war of consolidation) on [[Film/StrandedInSpace the planet they've crashedlanded]], even though in the existing political system most people are slaves and all the factions are too busy keeping a tight grip on their own technological monopolies for anyone to actually make any progress. His "principled resistance" led him to betray Jason twice (once to the gang he was undermining and again later to his chosen victors' enemies), the second time causing Jason to take a wound he [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow wouldn't have survived if rescuers from his homeworld hadn't found them.]]

'''''Deathworld''''' (first novel published in 1960) is a series of three novels and a short story by the American science fiction author Creator/HarryHarrison. The novels are set in the distant future. The hero, Jason [=dinAlt=], is a ProfessionalGambler who possesses erratic PsychicPowers which he uses to cheat at casinos (he justifies that the casinos stack the odds in their favor, he's just making it fair). While on a gambling trip to the casino on the planet Cassylia, he is approached by a man named Kerk Pyrrus, the ambassador and de-facto leader of colonists on planet Pyrrus. Kerk wants Jason to turn a large sum of money (27 million credits) into an immense sum by gambling at the government-run casino. Using his MindOverMatter abilities, he is able to win over 3 billion credits. Kerk and Jason manage to get off the planet just in time, despite the officials' efforts to take back the money. Intrigued by Kerk's description of his homeplanet as the [[DeathWorld deadliest world ever colonized]], Jason decides to follow Kerk.

* AntiAdvice: At the end of ''Deathworld 2'', Jason tells former barbarian/slave Ijale that her life in civilization will go reasonably well as long as she sticks with Mikah, listens carefully to what he tells her and then does the exact opposite.

* PyrrhicVictory: The life on the aptly-named planet Pyrrus is such that, no matter what the Pyrrans do, they're just delaying the inevitable.

* NamingYourColonyWorld: Jason's long-abandoned home world of Porgorstorsaand. In one novel, Jason is reading the encyclopedic entry on the planet, which appears to have been settled by Russian-speaking colonists, which proposes three theories on the strange name of the planet:

** The third version has to do with a later stage of the planet's development, when it became a brothel known throughout the galaxy. The brief period ended when a man named Saand, the owner of the planet-wide entertainment complex was overthrown and either exiled or crucified. His followers resisted for awhile, first openly, and then in secret. Supposedly, they were the ones, who gave the planet its eventual name: ''"'''Por'''nograficheskaya '''gor'''dost' '''stor'''onnikov '''Saand'''a"'' (translation, "Pornographic pride of Saand's followers").

"The Mothballed Spaceship" (1973) is a short story set in the same 'verse. A hostile armada is on its way to Earth. The Earth government contacts the Pyrrans and asks them to reactivate an ancient [[TheEmpire Imperial]] battleship that was mothballed after the First Galactic War, which is cheaper than building a fleet from scratch. Unfortunately, the ship's defense systems are programmed to destroy any object approaching it. Since no one knows the code to deactivate the defenses, Jason and Kerk must use other means of getting aboard before the armada arrives at Earth. Jason and Kerk direct a swarm of meteors past the ship in order to trigger its defenses, while approaching on small rocks in order to get past the cannons' firing arcs. Once aboard, Kerk dispatches the onboard defense systems, which try to fight off the intruders. When they get to the control center, the ship initiates a self-destruct sequence to keep it out of enemy hands. Jason and Kerk are unable to stop the countdown. Meta saves the day by figuring out the correct code just in time, as Jason has told her that it would have to be something simple and straightforward (just like the mind of an Imperial soldier). Meta realizes that the word is "haltu" ([[UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage Esperanto]] for "stop").

* NamingYourColonyWorld: While the original novels never stated the name of Jason's home planet, the sequels call it Porgorstorsaand. In one novel, Jason is reading the encyclopedic entry on the planet, which appears to have been settled by Russian-speaking colonists, which proposes three theories on the strange name of the planet:

* AntiAdvice: At the end of ''Deathworld 2'', Jason tells former barbarian Ijale that her life in civilization will go reasonably well as long as she sticks with Mikah, listens carefully to what he tells her and then does the exact opposite.

* BerserkButton: Don't ever tell a Pyrran that he or she is losing, or mention the declining population of the city, or even say the word "grubber". This is likely to be the last thing you say. Jason makes that mistake and is nearly killed by Kerk, but the leader of the junkmen has been offworld and knows how to keep his temper in check. Before telling the same thing to Meta, Jason asks her to unload her gun. As soon as he speaks the words, he sees her furiously pressing the trigger on her gun in his direction.