Planets Above & Below: Grues & Kirns - Will Schmitz - Bog

Bomby would rather spend the day lounging amongst the branches of his favorite lant tree, but being a servant of the Grues has its responsibilities, and all of them are boring. Too bad he didn't see the great fireball falling from the heavens. He would have had a great story to tell, but it probably wouldn't have made much difference since the Grues never listen to him anyways. Generations of venerated leaders have led the planet's inhabitants though interminable war guided by a philosophy of blood and stone, but in a society where the wheel is little more than a curiosity, weapons forged of metals emerge as the heart of a nascent technology. When a pirated starship of immense capability is haplessly marooned amongst the population of fierce idol-worshippers, the malevolent tide of evolution threatens to wash clean the slate of planetary sovereignty. If Bomby could have just stayed up in his favorite tree ...