Eric Frank Russell: Wasp (1971, Bantam Books)
154 pages
English language
Published Feb. 12, 1971 by Bantam Books.
You could summarize this story as action/adventure and still do it a disservice. This is about an agent dropped on an enemy planet with one goal: to disrupt, distract, and generally raise hell with the planetary administration in a textbook example of unconventional psychological warfare. Russell had a theory that one man can, with minimal support, completely discombobulate a planet to the point where its military effectiveness would be severely diminished. This book is his theory expressed as a novel.
A fun book about someone selected to overthrow an enemy regime on another planet by performing acts of sabotage or by spreading propaganda - the title refers to the huge impact a small wasp can have.
There's no real character development or background story, which is great because too much of that bores me.
I really got into this story. It had a bit of a golden age of sci-fi feel to it, which was great, and was well paced and fun to boot. I haven’t read anything of this author before: an error I must fix!
