But the President of Sumor XI was embarrassed on his visit. He and Burl are both hunters, and they are highly congenial. But the President of Sumor XI was upset on his last flight to the lowlands. Burl got out of the atmosphere-flier alone, and for pure deep personal satisfaction he fought a mastodon-sized wolf spider with nothing but a spear.
He killed the creature, of course. But the President of Sumor XI was embarrassed. He wouldn't have dared try it. He felt that, however sporting it might be, it was too risky a thing for a Planet President to do.
But Saya took it for granted.
You're missing the big thrills in science-fiction if you miss any of the
ACE SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS
For instance, here's what the New York Herald-Tribune (just one of the many applauding reviewers) said about Ace Book D-103:
SOLAR LOTTERY by Philip K. Dick and THE BIG JUMP by Leigh Brackett
"The latest Ace double-volume offers, for the first time, two new books at one low price, and both well worth reading. Solar Lottery, a first novel by one of the most striking young magazine writers, creates a strange and fascinating civilization for the year 2203, a culture based upon Heisenberg's idea of randomness and Von Neumann's Games-Theory.... Against this background two plots develop, one of intricately deadly and suspenseful palace politics, one of an ambitious attempt to rediscover our sun's once-glimpsed tenth planet.... As elaborately exciting as vintage Van Vogt—with an added touch of C. M. Kornbluth's social satire.
"The Big Jump is more conventional ... the battle of a monopolist family to hold the secret of interstellar flight makes a lively melodrama, with a virtually compelling finale of alien life on a remote star."