H. Beam Piper 3 hr 48 min read

Sunstone prospector Jack Holloway comes home to find a small, furry, golden creature in his cabin, and slowly realizes his charming new friend may be a person, with all that implies.

H. Beam Piper's 1962 novel is a beloved colonization and first-contact classic about the legal and moral question of sapience. Warm, sharp, humane. Read it for a wonderful, big-hearted tale where the fate of adorable aliens turns on the definition of what it means to be a people.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

3 hr 48 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).