The Great Explosion
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The Great Explosion is a satirical science fiction novel by Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections. The final section is based on Russell's famous 1951 short story "...And Then There Were None." Twenty-three years after the novel was published, it won a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.
[edit] Plot
A cheap FTL drive system has permitted the population of the galaxy. Each planet has become the home for a particular social group. Four hundred years after the diaspora, a spaceship from Earth visits three of the planets, the first steps to unifying the galaxy under a new Empire. Things do not go entirely as hoped, as the incompetent military authoritarians of the ship encounter three very different societies.
The first planet was a penal colony; it is now a kleptocratic despotism. The second planet, Hygeia, is populated by health and fitness fanatic nudists. The third planet, Kassim, was colonized by a religious group, but when the ship arrives, they can't find any human life, only empty villages overgrown by jungle. They decide not to land on the planet, because the captain fears that the colonists could have been killed by a disease and he doesn't want to endanger the crew. The final planet, K22g, has developed an unusual social system. The population call themselves Gands (after Gandhi) and practice a form of classless, philosophically anarchic libertarianism, based on passive resistance ("Freedom - I won't!" and "Myob!"); and a money-free economic system based on barter and favour-exchange, using "Obs" (obligations).
