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A Place Called Firstworld

First edition cover
Author	Jamie Woosley
Cover artist	John Schoenherr
Country	Template:Country data Estmere
Language	Estmerish
Series	Firstworld
Genre	science fiction
Published	August 1967
Publisher	Broadleaf Publishing
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages	341
Followed by	The Nearest End

A Place Called Firstworld is a science fiction novel by Estmerish writer Jamie Woosley. Published in 1967, it became immensely popular and won numerous literary awards, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of Estmerish science fiction. It is the first major installment of the Firstworld, a series of novels and short stories by Woosley. Much of the setting was described in previous works and are extensively referenced throughout the novel.

The novel follows the story of a young civil servant named Jed, who is sent as a delegate on behalf of his community to negotiate the creation of the Ekumen, a state that would encompass the entire planet of Oisat. Oisat is populated by refugees from all over the galaxy after the instantaneous collapse of interstellar civilizations across the galaxy. Jed’s mission to help forge a union is stymied by a lack of understanding of the different cultures of the participating people.

The novel is widely considered to be a classic example of "soft" science fiction, and is one of the most famous examinations of anthropology and political science in the genre. The major theme of the novel is the effects of culture on politics and society, explored in particular through the characters' attempts to build a state. In particular it examines how institutional memory guides a society and shapes their politics, and compares how different worldviews of the various peoples shapes their ideas. The novel also explores Jed's interactions across cultures, the struggle between duty and morality, and the richness of cultural diversity.

Firstworld has been reprinted numerous times, translated into over a dozen languages, and received high praise from critics. It has won numerous literary awards such as X and X. It is considered one of the best fantasy books ever written and continues to be widely influential in the genre. It achieved a degree of literary recognition due to its exploration of themes not usually found in science fiction, such as democracy and revolutionary societies, capitalism, colonialism, and individualism and collectivism.

Background

Woosley was born in 1921 in a multicultural district of Morwall, Estmere. Jamie Woosley's father, John Edward Woolsey was an anthropologist and her mother, Julie Suryanto Woolsey was a political activist in Kingsport; both of her parents' experiences would influence all of her works. The protagonists of many of Jamie Woosley's works are anthropologists or outsiders of some kind, who have to navigate through unfamiliar societies and cultures. The stories of the Firstworld Cycle frequently explore the effects of differing social and political systems in a complex world and her characters are interested and open minded in exploring them. When she was eight years old, Morwall fell to Gaullican forces during the Great War. The occupation of Estmere and the chaos and hardship that followed left a great impression on her life. Themes revolving around great societal changes and the coming of age are often featured in Woosley’s works, especially the Firstworld series.

The early concepts for the Firstworld setting were developed in a short story in the form of a fictional historical chronicle after she was inspired after reading about the Solarian Empire. Although she developed the concept of the series early on, at first it was a series of disjointed short stories without a specific setting or timeline. During her education at the University of Morwall, she published additional short stories that established the world of Firstworld and its important concepts. At least two "thought experiments" are explored in each Firstworld novel. The first is the idea that all humanoid species had a common origin from Earth and no aliens exist. The second idea is unique to each novel and forms the basis of the work.

Setting

Firstworld is set in the Khani cycle universe in the year 10243 CE, which was originally introduced in various short stories. In her future history humanity discovers a faster-than-light drive that allows humanity to colonize the entire galaxy through the use of hyperspace. Although there is theoretically no limit to its capabilities, faster-than-light travel remains a time-consuming and expensive journey that requires destinations to be marked with interstellar transponders. As a result, humanity is scattered across the entire galaxy and interstellar travel beyond a few dozen light years is rare. Longe distance travel is largely limited to periodic contact between systems or colonization expeditions to unexplored systems. The sheer distance ensures that societies are almost completely isolated except for their nearest neighbors and societies can rise and collapse from hunter gatherer tribes to extremely advanced planet-spanning states. Furthermore planets habitable for human life are extremely rare and are almost always very different from Earth; thus through evolution and genetic engineering humans have adapted to fit their local environmental conditions. This led to an incredible level of biological diversity between the stars and even between planets, although they are still recognizably human. Woosley does not establish the entire history of the universe in a single story, instead letting readers piece it together from various works.

Approximately 25 years prior to the setting of the novel, the galactic transponder network suddenly shut downs without explanation stranding all ships in hyperspace and unable to find their destination or return to their launch point. It leads to the near instantaneous collapse of interstellar civilization after nearly several thousand years of progress. Inexplicably an inactive transponder is able to be activated for a brief period that allows tens of dozens of spacecraft to arrive in the Oisat system safely. The refugees settled across a small rugged planet with arid landscapes and thin atmosphere. The largest refugee ships formed settlements across the planet in the most hospitable regions.

Oisat is an Earth-like planet but with subtle differences; compared to Earth, Oisat is cooler with more extreme temperatures, thinner air, and lower gravity. Oisat is dominated by one contiguous landmass that straddles the equator known as Sarhel. It is largely covered in deserts, mountains, shrublands, and savannah, broken up by several shallow salty seas and fully surrounded by a massive ocean. The world is inhabited by refugee populations that came to Oisat after the collapse of the galactic civilization. The societies of Oisat of are described as late modern but with advanced technology in certain fields brought by refugees. The continent is diverse with many different refugee peoples with different physiologies that were adapted for their home environment.