Stopping at Slowyear

Stopping at Slowyear
1st edition
Author(s)	Frederik Pohl
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Axolotl Press
Publication date	1991
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	150 pp
ISBN	0-553-29487-3
OCLC Number	25808833

Stopping at Slowyear is a 1991 science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl.

Plot summary

Stopping at Slowyear tells the story of an interstellar cargo vessel which runs between out-of-the-way worlds, as it visits a planet called Slowyear after its 19-year-long revolution around its star.

The crew explore the local culture and find several odd customs. Among these is of a sort of death lottery as a punishment for crimes. If someone commits a crime, they are sentenced to take a pill, which depending on the severity of the infraction will have a different probability of being lethal poison.

Slowyear's principal industry is raising sheep. During their isolation, their sheep have developed a form of scrapie which is lethal to humans without immunity, such as the crew of the interstellar cargo ship. The crew die from the disease and the story ends.

Stopping at Slowyear is interesting in that it addressed prion diseases years before public awareness of mad cow disease was widespread.

Novels by Frederik Pohl

Undersea Trilogy (with Jack Williamson)	Undersea Quest (1954) • Undersea Fleet (1956) • Undersea City (1958)

Heechee series	Gateway (1977) • Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980) • Heechee Rendezvous (1984) • Annals of the Heechee (1987) • The Gateway Trip (1990) The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway (2004)

Eschaton trilogy	The Other End of Time (1996) • The Siege of Eternity (1997) • The Far Shore of Time (1999)

Mars series	Man Plus (1976) • Mars Plus (1994) (with Thomas T. Thomas)

Saga of Cuckoo (with Jack Williamson)	Farthest Star (1975) • Wall Around A Star (1983)

Starchild Trilogy (with Jack Williamson)	The Reefs of Space (1964) • Starchild (1965) • Rogue Star (1969)

Space Merchants series	The Space Merchants (1953) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth) • The Merchants' War (1984) • Venus, Inc. (1985 Omnibus)

Other	Search the Sky (1954) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth) • Gladiator-At-Law (1955) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth) • Preferred Risk (1955) (with Lester Del Rey) • Slave Ship (1956) • Presidential Year (1958) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth) • Wolfbane (1959) (with Cyril M. Kornbluth) • Drunkard's Walk (1960) • A Plague of Pythons (1964) • The Age of the Pussyfoot (1965) • Jem (1979) • The Cool War (1981) • Syzygy (1981) • Starburst (1982) • The Years of the City (1984) • Black Star Rising (1985) • The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986) • Terror (1986) • Chernobyl (1987) • Land's End (1988) (with Jack Williamson) • The Day The Martians Came (1988) • Narabedla Ltd. (1988) • Homegoing (1989) • The World at the End of Time (1990) • Outnumbering the Dead (1990) • Stopping at Slowyear (1991) • The Singers of Time (1991) (with Jack Williamson) • Mining the Oort (1992) • The Voices of Heaven (1994) • O Pioneer! (1998) • The Last Theorem (2008) (with Arthur C. Clarke) • All the Lives He Led (2011)