Planet of the Damned
1962 novel by Harry Harrison
Planet of the Damned is a 1962 science fiction novel by American writer Harry Harrison. It was serialised in 1961 under the title Sense of Obligation and published under that name in 1967. It was nominated for the Hugo Award.
Plot
Planet of the Damned follows Brion Brandd, a character who lives on the planet Anvhar, which, due to an extremely elliptical orbit, experiences a year with a long cold winter and a short hot summer, to which the population have become adapted. To avoid social problems during the winter period, Anvhar has initiated a planet-wide series of mental and physical games called the Twenties. The novel starts with Brandd winning the Twenties. As he recovers from the games, Brandd meets Ihjel, a previous winner of the Twenties, who manages to convince him to join a mission on the desert planet of Dis. The ruling class of Dis, the magter, have threatened to transport cobalt bombs onto the neighbouring planet Nyjord if they refuse to surrender. As a result, the planet is being blockaded and under threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Ihjel fears that this seemingly inevitable genocide, if not avoided, will render the peaceful civilization of Nyjord dysfunctional, also.
The public source identifies “Planet of the Damned” as 1962 novel by Harry Harrison. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Planet, Damned and novel.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15033625. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1961 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Planet of the Damned” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.