Jack Holloway is a prospector on Zara XXII, con­tract­ing for the giant ZaraCorp. On one momentous day, he is fired, discovers a huge seam of sunstones worth trillions, and meets the first members of a new species, the fuzzies. Since he was fired before he discovered the sunstones, he now has an en­force­able claim—and he’s a disbarred lawyer, so you can bet he’s following through. The fuzzies are delightful and they’re pretty smart—so smart that they might just be sapient. And if they are, that’s a huge problem for ZaraCorp, since the fuzzies would own the planet and the profits. Even if Holloway didn’t have the sunstone claim and the po­ten­tial­ly sapient fuzzies, he would never be ZaraCorp’s favorite person because Holloway can be a major jerk, who delights in getting under people’s skin.

Fuzzy Nation is a “reboot” of H. Beam Piper’s novel, Little Fuzzy. It’s a fun read, with an en­ter­tain­ing if ex­as­per­at­ing lead character.