First published in 1962, Little Fuzz is probably H. Beam Piper’s best-known novel. It was nominated for, but did not win, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the only of Piper’s works to be shortlisted for the awards. A sequel, Fuzzy Sapiens was released in 1964. These two books were gathered in an omnibus called The Fuzzy Papers, which I reviewed HERE. I stand by what I said in that review, but will note that while the sequel is decidedly weaker, my enjoyment of the original Little Fuzzy increased on a recent reread.

Piper committed suicide in the latter half of 1964 amid concerns over his finances. The copyright of his work was allowed to lapse and the author was largely forgotten by the world. Then, in 1984, something incredible happened. Among Piper’s papers was discovered a completed manuscript. A third Fuzzy novel.

Fuzzies and Other People, gathered with its predecessors in The Complete Fuzzy, continues the story of Jack Holloway and his Fuzzy friends, now recognised as sentient beings and allowed to live on their own world in relative piece. The major development in this novel is that much is told from the perspective of the Fuzzies, giving them dialogue and expanding on the way they see the world. It’s a step up from the middle volume, and offered a posthumous last hurrah from one of science fiction’s forgotten greats.

Yet the Fuzzy legacy did not end with Piper’s tales. In 1981, William Tuning wrote Fuzzy Bones, a third volume subsequently contradicted by Piper’s own final manuscript. In 1982, Ardath Mayhar published Golden Dream, which reimagined the extra-terrestrial origins of the Fuzzies, building on the works of both Piper and Tuning

By this time, control of the Piper literary estate had fallen under the purview of Joh F. Carr, who would see the publication of four posthumous short story collections, containing all of Piper’s short fiction. Later on, a new trio of Fuzzy novels arrived from the pen of Wolfgang Diehr. Fuzzy Ergo Sum, Caveat Fuzzy, and The Fuzzy Conundrum, kept Piper’s creation alive in the twentieth century, between 2011 and 2016.

However, the Piper estate also approved an unrelated Fuzzy novel in 2011. Noted science fiction author John Scalzi, had an idea. At the time, reboots of film and TV were all the rage. Scalzi specifically calls out the 2009 Star Trek film as an example of this trend. With this in mind, Scalzi reasoned, why not reboot a book? Why not take the nearly five-decade old Little Fuzzy and reboot it for the modern era? Thus was Fuzzy Nation born.

Fuzzy Nation (2011) retells the basic story of Little Fuzzy, while also including developments from later in the series, notably the Fuzzes ability to speak coherently. Other updated include the Chartered Zarathustra Company becoming ZaraCorp, and an increased emphasis on the ecological and environmental effects of the companies operations. Jack Holloway becomes a marginally less sympathetic character, and more emphasis is placed on the political wranglings than on the originally pivotal court case.

Scalzi’s reboot is successful in its aims of updating the original, but in doing so some of the original charm is lost. It was also written before Scalzi had found the voice for which he become known, so while there are more jokes than the original, they come from the characters rather than the narrative itself. It’s up there with some of Scalzi’s best works, but Piper’s original is a classic for a reason.

There’s more Fuzzy out there for me to read. Those William Tuning sequels for a start. This years marks the sixtieth anniversary of Piper’s death, but his legacy lives on in those who have followed in his footsteps. And I dare say there’s more still to come. Good stories are hard to keep down.