Farmer In The Sky by Robert Heinlein
Hardback
Published by Victor Gollancz
Date of printing 1962
CONDITION - VG+
GRADING NOTES - Ex-library edition - various Liverpool Library stamps. Plastic dust jacket has been fitted. Library card holder on inside front cover. Library record sheet has been removed from first page and price has been pencilled on. Light wear to all edges. Some spotting to top and leading edge of pages
ISSUE NOTES - Imagine that you and your family are setting off, with many others, on the spaceship Mayflower. Food has become increasingly scarce on Earth in the 21st century, and you are going to try scientific farming on Ganymede one of Jupiter's moons.
This is what happens to Bill, and he tells the story of the two months' flight to Ganymede through interstellar space, of hardships that the new colonists have to endure on arrival and how in the end he wins a plot of barren land of his own to cultivate.
The process of planetary farming is fascinating; soil has to be newly created and even insects must be imported from Earth. Life on Ganymede is hard, but has its compensations - not the least of which is the beauty of Jupiter's many moons - and through trial and error, the soil is made to provide fruitful crops
Then comes the Great Disaster. Can the colonists survive ad stay on Ganymede or should they cut their losses and return again to Earth?