The planet was called Pyrrus...a strange place where all the beasts, plants and natural elements were designed for one specific purpose: to destroy man. The settlers there were supermen...twice as strong as ordinary men and with milli-second reflexes. They had to be. For their business was murder... It was up to Jason dinAlt, interplanetary gambler, to discover why Pyrrus had become so hostile during man's brief habitation...

The stakes were slavery - or the life of Jason dinAlt. The planet was unknown... a savagely primitive place where every man had to kill every other man - or live as a slave. Inhabitants lived in the early Bronze Age one minute, and in the early Machine Age the next. Technology had degenerated into a number of mysteries jealously guarded by separate brotherhoods. But Jason dinAlt was a gambler. He realised that if he was ever going to get a winning hand in this game, the brotherhoods would need a shuffle...

Note: The 1991 Orbit edition uses the same ISBN. The planet was called Felicity. The name was a joke...except for those compelled to live there. Inhabiting it were beings bred for thousands of years for a single purpose: to attack and destroy. Jason knew this. But he also knew the planet on which he lived was moving towards certain disaster. And Felicity was the only spot in the universe where he and his companions could survive. He thought he had worked out a perfect plan. But what awaited him on Felicity went far beyond his wildest imagings...