Uller Uprising

Author: H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper was one of the most important authors of the 1940s and 50s. Before his suicide in 1964, he had published many important novels, especially in the Paratime series that helped to launch Alternative History as its own subgenre. One that sometimes gets overlooked is his classic Uller Uprising, a fantastic novel that helped set-up what military science fiction would become over the following decades. Like many of the 1950s science fiction pieces you’ll find, this isn’t exactly enlighten thinking, but the story Piper creates is an allegory for the Bengal Uprising of the 1850s, and one that is told with an amazing economy of language. The planet of Uller, and the Uller Corporation that maintains control of it, are so fully realized, and the way Piper works with both the central concepts, and the characters caught up in it, make it even more impressive. While it might not be the level of impact that Dorsai leveled on the burgeoning field of military science fiction, it is certainly a novel that brought the idea of taking actual military conflicts and applying a science fiction overlay to achieve an incredible effect. Why it’s on the list A fine example of taking reality and managing to make it feel more real by putting it in a science fiction universe.