Deathworld
by Harry Harrison
Deathworld focuses on Jason DeanAlti, a professional gambler who uses his somewhat unbalanced psychic skills to turn odds in his favor. He is challenged by a man named Kirk Pirrus (who turns out to be an ambassador from the planet Pyrrhus) to turn a large sum of money into a large sum by playing in a government casino. He succeeds and relives the planetary government's desperate efforts to steal money. Fittingly, he decides to accompany Kirk to his home, but is warned that this is the deadliest world colonized by humans. WORLD OF DEATH! It is one of the classics of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, born in the pages of Impressive Science Fiction edited by John W. Campbell Jr.
