Legal Eagle
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The law-books were thick, comprehensive—and all written in Lurarian. Armstrong cursed as he tried to wade through them, and then gave up in disgust. His speaking knowledge of the language was excellent; he could even write and read it sufficient for normal purposes, but since when have legal books been written for the understanding of the common man? And with legal phraseology being what it was, he dared take no chances on hit-or-miss translations. Not when his entire future could depend on the exact meaning of a word. Armstrong was a man of sense; he went out and hired a professional. The lawyer, or the Lurarian equivalent, was a battle-scarred veteran of the courts who’d had the sense to quit before his slowing reflexes caught up with him. “It’s quite simple,” he said. “The basic rule is that all disputes shall be tried by combat, the winner proving the justice of his case by his victory.”
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Legal Eagle by E.C. Tubb
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3G93RSGKPFNS4?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
This story was written in 1955 by the author of the Dumarest saga. The story has quick culture-building associated with “Golden Age” stories. In this case, the culture is one, which decides lawsuits through trial by combat. A scrappy Earth company is bullied by the rules of this legal system, but finds a loophole.
This is a quick, fun read.
[a:EC Tubb 17093421 EC Tubb https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (15 October 1919 – 10 September 2010) was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas, Tubb is best known for The Dumarest Saga (US collective title: Dumarest of Terra), an epic science-fiction saga set in the far future. [a:Michael Moorcock 16939 Michael Moorcock https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424079041p2/16939.jpg] wrote, “His reputation for fast-moving and colourful SF writing is unmatched by anyone in Britain.”Much of Tubb's work was written under pseudonyms including Gregory Kern, Carl Maddox, Alan Guthrie, Eric Storm and George Holt. He used 58 pen names over five decades of writing, although some of these were publishers' house names also used by other writers: Volsted Gridban (along with John Russell Fearn), Gill Hunt (with John Brunner and Dennis Hughes), King Lang (with George Hay and John W Jennison), Roy Sheldon (with H. J. Campbell) and Brian Shaw. Tubb's Charles Grey alias was solely his own and acquired a big following in the early 1950s.Authentic Science FictionAuthentic Science Fiction was a British science fiction magazine published in the 1950s that ran for 85 issues under three editors: Gordon Landsborough, H.J. Campbell, and E.C. Tubb. The magazine was published by Hamilton and Co., and began in 1951 as a series of novels appearing every two weeks; by the summer it became a monthly magazine, with readers' letters and an editorial page, though fiction content was still restricted to a single novel. In 1952 short fiction began to appear alongside the novels, and within two more years it completed the transformation into a science fiction magazine.As for the story itself, Tubb transports the reader to an alien planet. The Lurarian legal system was perfectly straightforward, albeit based on combat. While it was perfectly workable our protagonist, Armstrong, turned into an amateur lawyer. Then all hell breaks loose.I enjoyed this tale and it hasn't dated at all. The story highlights Tubbs inventive flair for taking an idea (legal loopholes, and exploitation of these), to its logical conclusion.Get a copy here.
