Perseus Spur: Julian May

Book I of The Rampart Worlds. 'I was living in pleasant anonymity under the name of Helmut Icicle on Kedge-Lockaby, a freesoil planet out in the boondocks, taking sport-divers on holocam reef trips. Fourteen thousand light years from Rampart Starcorp, where I used to work - and my father. So one minute I'm watching the piscoids finning through the underwater forests, drinking a little rotgut whiskey now and then - and the next thing I know some giant sea toad has eaten my house and I'm caught up in a galactic conspiracy!' Cover art by Stephen Bradbury.