Review: “Letter of the Law” by Alan E. Nourse (1954)
Posted on January 16th, 2008
Short story that catches up with a con man, Harry Zeckler, after he’s caught fleecing the sheep (well, bears at least) on Altair I. Zeckler makes an appeal to the Terran Consulate, expecting extradition, but the Terran Trading Commission is unwilling to jeopardize the lucrative trade to this newly-opened planet. Complicating things, it turns out that a land swindle like Zeckler pulled happens to be a capital offense on Altair I.
The kangaroo (bear again, actually) court is set to string him up before before hearing the evidence. Zeckler manages to put his best skill, lying, to good(ish) use in securing both his freedom and his ill-gotten gains.
For me, this story stood head and shoulders above Nourse’s “A PRoblem.” On an odd note, the characters’ actions kept this reader’s loyalties shifting, and I don’t know if it was on purpose. For example, the story was told from the Terran Commission representative’s perspective, who viewed Zeckler as a slimeball. Yet by the end of the story, the rep seemed priggish and this reader was rooting for Zeckler to make a clean getaway. I don’t know if that’s because I’m not relating to a straightforward 1950s morality tale or the author was commenting on the tension between the individual, the government, and political expediency.
Fair to recommended. You can talk the good folks over at Project Gutenberg into giving it to you in a couple formats or the folks at Manybooks.net into providing it in more.
Tags: free science fiction, public domain science fiction, Review, speculative fiction
Filed under Free Stuff, Nourse, Alan E., Review, Science Fiction & Fantasy (SFF) |