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The Paradise Game

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Everyone seeks paradise. If the explorers of the planets could find a world that answered the description, it could be a holiday world beyond price.

When the HOODED SWAN landed on Pharos, it was indeed all that paradise could be. They came to investigate, they stayed to protect. For unless they played the role of the angel with the flaming sword, very soon this softest and gentlest world of all men's dreams would become another gaudy hellhole of exploitation.

But as Grainger and the crew of the HOODED SWAN were to learn, this world, like the original paradise had a serpent of its own. And the apple of its tree of knowledge might be found too late to save its star-borne invaders... including its would-be defenders.

Cover Art by Kelly Freas.

Published in 1974 by DAW.

Dedicated to Barbara Carlisle

  In a galactic economy, the sheer abundance of everything makes tangibles almost worthless. The real fortunes, that buy and sell worlds and suns and peoples, are not founded upon the trading of things but on dealing in services. The Paradise Game was a golden stairway to power because it sold ways of life.

I t was easy to see why Pharos was a pawn in the Paradise Game. The planet was the incarnation of all that people were conditioned to think of as beautiful an unpolluted Earth, a perfect environment that a few botanical beauty surgeons and several billion dollars could tailor to meet every need, want and dream.

Caradoc had adopted Pharos as part of the Paradise drive, had produced what it claimed was an agreement with the natives humanoid, gullible and all female. Charlot, New Alexandrian expert on alien/human understanding, sends Grainger to investigate the operation. But as the pilot of the Hooded Swan is soon to learn, this world, like the original paradise, has a serpent of its own.

Cover by Bob Marchant

Published in 1977 by Dent.
ISBN:0-460-04308-0

  Pharos - a planet that was the incarnation of all that people were conditioned to believe beautiful.

Its environment unpolluted and perfect, its inhabitants humanoid, gullible and female - Pharos was the natural pawn for the Paradise Game.

Charlot, New Alexandrian expert on alien/human understanding, despatches Grainger and the starship Hooded Swan to investigate the world of Pharos.

There, Grainger discovers that this Paradise also has a serpent of its own...

Cover by Angus McKie.

Published in 1978 by Pan.
ISBN:0-330-25268-2

 

In omnibus Swan Songs.
Translated into French as: Un Petit coin de Paradis.
Translated into German as: Die Paradies-Prinzip; also in omnibus Die Saga vom Raumpiloten Grainger.
Translated into Japanese.

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Grainger, Titus Charlot, Eve Lapthorn, Keith Just, David Holcombe, Trisha Melly, Kerman, Srinjat Merani, Johnny Socoro, Varley, Captain Ullman and the wind.

Here we find Titus Charlot has involved Grainger in a political stand-off between New Alexandria and the Caradoc Company.

The action takes place on Pharos; a world with no large predators, no parasites and no disease. It is a planet perfect for the paradise game, in which Caradoc changes a world to suit human tastes and then sells it off in lots to the extremely rich.

Charlot tips Grainger into a frantic race against time. He is desperate to find a legal reason to exclude Caradoc, who in turn are itching for an excuse to make a show of force. However, events overtake everyone.

What is very interesting is how Brian has played the various interest groups off against each other: Caradoc wishing to seem co-operative while at the same time trying to block Titus' investigation and also fending off campaigners from the environmental group Aegis.

Brian also allows himself a little fun, calling the sole officer of New Roman law on Pharos, Keith Just. A nice touch, I'm sure you'll agree.

This has to be my favourite of the Hooded Swan books with the tension between civilisation and business portrayed with what seems like chilling prescience.

The Brian Stableford Website