Midworld

Midworld by Alan Dean Foster. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780345253644.

It was a world with no name, a brutally hot planet circling close to its sun somewhere in an obscure star-system. It did not support life. Rather, on its surface, like exploded, erupted, multiplied and throve beyond imagination. One very important bit of life inhabiting the orb was Born, a descendant of a long-forgotten colonization ship forced down there centuries ago. Born, like the rest of his tribesmen, lived the live of a savage - there was no other way to survive on this planet where weird growth thickly blanketed the entire surface. The perilous jungle was so dense that it was divided into seven individual levels - each with its own particular dangers. Borns clan had chosen a huge tree branch on the third level as their dwelling place. Only the bravest, like Born himself, ever made the harrowing climb to the top to feel the warm, dry rays of the sun. But Born had no time for such pleasures when the strangers landed. Born and his Furcot, an intelligent bearlike native species with three eyes and green fur, had risen early to hunt for food. The morning mist had all but vanished when a thunderous crash suddenly cut the jungles stillness. Hurrying to investigate, Born found the charred wreckage of a flying machine and a pair of shaken but uninjured pilots - both human like himself. Taking them back to Home Tree, Born could scarecely have known that they were just two crew members from a giant starship that had landed illegally many miles away. Their mission: exploit the planets boundless resources. Their goal: to do so - at any cost.