No-risk Planet

Terran insurance salesman Sammy Trumple lands on Halcyon expecting an easy market, only to find a gorgeous planet where air-raids are routine, danger is shrugged off, and life insurance seems almost incomprehensible. In frantic letters to his relentlessly profit-minded boss, Herman Spottsworth, Sammy describes his growing terror and the comic absurdity of trying to sell protection to people who barely recognize the need to be protected. Even after witnessing bombing survivors and being sent to a smaller town for "grass roots" selling, he makes no progress. The Halcyonians remain indifferent, and Sammy learns that another salesman, Lar Luk of Fomalhaut, failed too—though Luk prospered by starting a munitions business instead. As Spottsworth cheerfully pushes for ever-bigger deals, Sammy's last-ditch plan is to sell a general, then the whole military command, turning this sharp science-fiction satire into a darkly funny portrait of war, bureaucracy, and the business of survival. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.