Books Front Lines and Frontiers Colonialism and Conquest: Federation by H. Beam Piper, edited by John F. Carr A collection of Piper’s short fiction explores his Terro-Human Future History setting. By Alan Brown | Published on March 17, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement. The recent record-breaking storm that hit New England had me searching my shelves for what I call “comfort reading,” old books I know well, but enjoy reading again. And one of my favorite comfort-read authors is H. Beam Piper, whose work I first discovered in Analog magazine during my early teens. The book I chose this time around is a collection, part of the effort from Ace Books to bring Piper’s work back into print during the 1970s and 1980s. They had reprinted his novels, and sales were successful enough to warrant volumes of some of his shorter works. This collection, published in 1981, came out in a trade paperback edition, a format that was just becoming popular at the time, sporting a nice cover from Michael Whelan, whose work had helped make the previous Piper reprints so successful. The re-read started well, as the tale “Omnilingual” is one of my favorites, and has held up well over time. But the remaining tales are stories of colonial expansion, in which the perspective is very much that of the colonizers. And in recent years, I, like many other people, have begun to look at colonialism from the viewpoint of those being colonized and to question both its morality and its underlying assumptions. In the end, my comfort reading turned out to be a bit more uncomfortable than I had anticipated. About the Author H. Beam Piper (1904-1964) was an American science fiction author whose career was cut short by suicide before his work found its greatest success. I have reviewed his fiction before, including Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, and The Cosmic Computer, and those reviews include additional information on his biography and the Terro-Human Future History that formed the background for so much of his work. Those stories are based on the idea that historical forces tend to follow patterns that repeat over the centuries, creating cycles of growth, destruction, and renewal. They follow human society through the creation of a planetary Federation, through human expansion into interstellar space, through dark ages after the collapse of the Federation, and through the formation and fall of series of empires. The stories tend to celebrate individual self-interest and capitalism, paired with exciting plots involving exploration, adventure, and warfare. You can find a great deal of additional information on Piper at the fan website. Piper’s copyrights were not renewed after his death, and as a result, many of his works are available to read for free from Project Gutenberg. About the Editor John F. Carr (born 1944) is an American science fiction author and editor, best known for the anthologies he edited in partnership with Jerry Pournelle, for shepherding the long-running War World shared universe series, and for his efforts to collect the work of H. Beam Piper. Carr wrote two biographies of Piper, H. Beam Piper: A Biography, and Typewriter Killer, as well as editing collections of Piper’s work; he also wrote a number of sequels to Piper’s novels, including seven sequels to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, two to Space Viking, and one to the Little Fuzzy novels. [Note: I am friends with Carr, and contributed stories to the War World series.] Colonialism and Its Impact Most readers will already be acquainted with the concepts of colonialism and postcolonialism, as we’ve attempted to understand the legacy of colonial rule and its impact on subjugated peoples and cultures. Historically, colonialism is most frequently associated with the actions of European nations like Spain, Portugal, England, France, and others in the 15th through the 20th centuries, sending military forces into the Americas, Africa, and Asia to establish dominance over the Indigenous populations, and extract wealth and resources for their own benefit. The spirit of colonialism is at the heart of the American ideology of Manifest Destiny, and at the time H. Beam Piper was writing, science fiction writers frequently assumed that space would be the next frontier for American expansion. It’s no surprise, then, that there have been numerous science fiction stories written from a colonialist and/or imperialist perspective—stories which feature space colonies, colonial revolts, and the formation and collapse of empires. As time has passed, however, more and more stories have pushed back against the assumptions and beliefs that fueled the colonialist project, critiquing and rethinking both the practice and its morality. Federation The Introduction to the collection was written by John F. Carr, describing the beginning of his research into the work of H. Beam Piper, and his growing appreciation for the author and his work. “Omnilingual” is not just one of Piper’s best stories, it is one of the best science fiction stories ever written. It first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in February 1957. The story follows Martha Dane, a junior archaeologist on one of the first human expeditions to Mars. The explorers find Mars was inhabited by a human-like race that was in decline at about the same time we were learning to draw on cave walls. Martha’s job is to try to decipher the Martians’ written language. Most on the expedition consider her task impossible, as there will be no Rosetta Stone available for a language developed independently from those on Earth. Piper does a good job describing the expedition, which is mostly made up of military members of a Federation Space Force. The primary drama comes from the interaction between Martha and her two fellow archaeologists. She has the support of senior archaeologist Selim von Ohlmhorst, but draws mostly scorn from the young and ambitious Tony Lattimer. The expedition finds an ancient city whose taller buildings still emerge from the dust. After breaking into the upper stories and finding many of them looted, they finally find one that is furnished. And when they realize that building is a university building, full of books and murals, they begin to tease out the meaning of a handful of words. That handful becomes a flood when Martha and some others discover there is something that can function as a type of Rosetta Stone, after all. The story is well structured, the characters are believable, and the use of a female protagonist was unusual for its time. While the future envisioned by Piper has slipped into alternate history, the tale is still worth a read (and is available for free here). Like “Omnilingual,” the story “Naudsonce” hinges on deciphering an alien language. In this case, a Federation Space Navy/Colonial Office expedition has discovered a lucrative planet whose ecology is fully compatible with Terran life. But it has a sentient (although primitive) population, and regulations require the expedition to establish friendly relations with the inhabitants and gain permission to settle through a treaty with local officials. So, the expedition must learn how to communicate with the inhabitants, odd creatures whose behavior is often inexplicable. And while they speak, what they say does not appear to reflect any discernible patterns. Things get dicey along the way, and the Marines in the expedition are spoiling for a fight, fixing bayonets at the first sign of trouble. Figuring out how a species can communicate using sound, but without language, is the key to success, and the title of the story is the word the Terrans coin to describe that process by which they learn to communicate. “Oomphel in the Sky” is another tale of Federation colonization of an inhabited planet. In this case, the Terrans have been around long enough to have trained locals to assist them; the Terrans call these native soldiers “sepoys,” a term which first came into Western use under the French East India Company and British East India Company to refer to locally recruited Indian soldiers. The Terrans have established plantations, but there is unrest, because local priests have decided that the periodic approach of a binary star is a sign of the end times. The Federation bureaucracy has become a larger part of the colonization effort, and there is a Native Welfare Commission that has been doing as much harm as good. A representative from Terra has arrived, full of neo-Marxist theory about how the world should work—theory that unfortunately has little to do with reality. The story is a heavy-handed morality tale that argues that the self-interested actions of capitalists are more effective than the actions of a government. And the solution to the Terran’s problems turns out to be lying to the locals and manipulating them through their religious beliefs. It is at best a morally ambiguous tale that has no real heroes. Its one saving grace is the introduction of a young Captain Foxx Travis, a character who will go on to be a hero of the System States War, a conflict where colony worlds begin to revolt against a stagnant Terran Federation. “Graveyard of Dreams” turns out to be a short story version of Piper’s novel The Cosmic Computer, where Conn Maxwell has been sent from the planet Poictesme to Earth to study computer science and determine the location of a mythical supercomputer that supposedly decided a recent war almost single-handedly. There are no indigenous sapients on Poictesme to dominate, so this story is not a description of the imposing of colonial rule as much as it is a description of how colonial empires tend to fall apart over time. Conn’s home planet is filled with military equipment abandoned by the interstellar Federation after the System States War, and recovering that surplus is the largest industry on the otherwise impoverished world. Conn has discovered the supercomputer did not in fact exist, but he and his father come up with a plan to search for the computer in ways that encourage the inhabitants to rebuild their economy and become a space-faring world. And while the novel goes on to explain what happened next, the short story ends there. “When in the Course—” is another germ that grew into a different story, and in this case, a whole different series. Those who know Piper’s work will immediately recognize aspects of the tale Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, but there is no Kalvan, and instead of taking place in an alternate timeline, the story is set on another planet. In this case, the colonial expedition is not a governmental operation, but instead is sponsored by a private chartered company. And the expedition is stunned to find that the locals are not just sapient bipeds, as is common, but are indistinguishable from human beings (something they suspect might be the result of parallel evolution). They stumble across the land of Prince Ptosphes of Hostigos, who is hemmed in by enemies. He has drawn the wrath of the priests of Styphon, whose control of the secret of making gunpowder, and willingness to pit local leaders against each other, allows them to control most of the planet. So, Prince Ptosphes, desperate for help, is delighted to give the expedition the treaty Federation regulations require in return for their assistance. The expedition uses their contragravity vehicles to help the Hostigos forces retake a vital castle with an airborne assault, and then to attack armies that are massing on their borders. They share the secret of gunpowder, and also help in the construction of wooden vessels that are turned into airships by equipping them with jet engines and contragravity gear. Before long, they have helped establish Prince Ptosphes as ruler of the entire planet, and in the process, two members of the expedition fall in love with, and marry, locals. The idea of an expedition creating a world government they can then make a treaty with is morally ambiguous at best, and after reading about the slaughter they unleash with their advanced technology, the reader begins to feel sorry for their opponents. This previously unpublished story did not work nearly as well as the version that became Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, in which a single protagonist, Pennsylvania State Policeman Calvin Morrison, is swept into an alternate history (replacing the expedition to another planet). This felt much more plausible than the idea of parallel evolution independently producing inhabitants identical to human beings on another planet. And it increased the jeopardy for the protagonist and his allies, who take on their opponents with only the secret of gunpowder and an advanced knowledge of strategy and tactics. While it was interesting to see another approach to a familiar story, it was easy to see why that version was abandoned and reworked. Final Thoughts Federation is a collection of entertaining stories, and also proof that the future history that formed a framework for most of Piper’s works was a remarkable creation in and of itself. By offering us an early version of stories that became the novels The Cosmic Computer and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, it also gives us a glimpse at the author’s creative process. The generally favorable attitude toward colonialism does take away some of the enjoyment, but the stories are still worth reading. And now, I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on the book and the stories it contains, or your thoughts on any of the work of H. Beam Piper.[end-mark] The post Colonialism and Conquest: <i>Federation</i> by H. Beam Piper, edited by John F. Carr appeared first on Reactor.