/lit/ - Literature

Starhaven - Robert Silverberg (1958)
The protagonist, John Mantell, was a bum for seven years. When he accidentally kills someone it's time to leave the planet, for if he stays he'd have to undergo Rehabilitation, where the authorities erase your personality and substitute it with one more acceptable. His only option is Starhaven, a planet fully enclosed in a metal sphere, whose almost twenty million residents are all criminals who have sought sanctuary from Space Patrol. Here they can find refuge as both its offensive and defensive capabilities are unmatched making its planetary defenses nigh invincible.
To ensure there aren't any spies that come inside, all entrants must be psychoprobed, which reveals their life history and all their personality traits. The protagonist immediately catches the eye of the founder and tyrant as well his fiancée, Myra Butler, with whom he immediately becomes infatuated with. She's described as: "..a girl with hair the color of Thurdan's shirt [dramatic purple] and eyes the color of blue-white diamonds or blue-white suns." See the image in the next post to see what came to mind for me. Being that they are a society of criminals, the only real laws can be summed up as: Don't do unto others what you can't afford them doing unto you and The Founder Must Always Be Obeyed Without Hesitation Upon Pain Of Death. The currency is gambling chips. Thurdan warns Martell that he will be killed instantly if he even thinks of cucking him.
Reminded me a lot in general of The Las Vegas Strip in Fallout: New Vegas. Also reminded me a bit of Harlan's World from Altered Carbon, but I doubt this was any influence on it. Myra reminded me somewhat of Ramona Flowers and Art3mis (Samantha Cook) in various ways.
Plot spoilers: Mantell has intense headaches and flashes of memories that he doesn't understand. Myra Butler, the fiancée,is part of a conspiracy to assassinate Thurdan so that they can have a democracy instead, with Mantell being the first leader because he's new and because she became instantly infatuated with him as well. At the end it's revealed that Myra isn't a criminal. She came here voluntarily to be Thurdan's fiancée. Thurdan is assassinated, but the events leading up to that is a complete derailment to me. Mantell is a secret undercover agent, but it worked too well and he's unable to remember his "real life", which was the cause of the headaches. Mantell now faces the same choice that the protagonist from the previous post and novella faced. Does he chose differently? No, of course he doesn't. Turns out it's better to rule criminals with your waifu who failed at using a knaifu, for your entire laifu, than it is to serve in Space Patrol. The main thing that bothered me is that he had the same name as both identities.

Rating: 3
A fun wish-fulfillment story in an interesting society that was hampered by the events leading up to its ending as well as other noted detractions.