Christopher Anvil's "Revolt!" (novelette, humor, machine monster, free)

First half is a hilarious turf war between two government departments. Later half is a fast paced drama to overcome massive machine monsters running amok; less interesting than first half but readable.

Story is set in Cygnus system in orbit around a high gravity world. Humans want to mine it for some ore, but cannot normally get down because of high g. They must "wear" state of the art "delGrange suits" to go down. But the catch is, these suits are too perfect...

Note.

There is a bit of Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" (download an audio, or a comic book adaptation) & Clifford Simak's "Desertion" (download as part of a larger package) here (a variant was filmed in "Avatar"). A man can get down to an environment normally impossible to man only in a different body. Only he starts liking his new body better than the original one...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, April 1958.
Download full text from Baen Books, or as part of the scans of Astounding (British Edition), July 1958 where it was reprinted.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Christopher Anvil.