The Forgotten Planet

This is another book I read for The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s challenge I'm doing. This is from 1954 and the story line is actually pretty good, even by today's standards, though the writing is still somewhat dated. I enjoyed this.

The premise is of a planet that was partially terraformed and then forgotten about before the process was finished. The only thing alive on the planet were insects and lower life-forms, and they have grown to monstrous dimensions. Imagine a beetle the size of a pick-up truck, or spiders of similar or even larger dimensions.
Now comes an ill-fated pleasure craft that was "taking a short-cut" through this part of the galaxy and they became disabled and forced to land.

Fast forward a hundred generations, man has degenerated to savages barely ekeing out an existence, always hunted and they've even forgot how to hunt. They were the hunted. Until Burl, our hero, by mischance and a bit of bravado does something no other human had in untold generations. This is the beginning of our story.