The Planet of Shame, by Bruce Elliott, is a semi-comical science fiction novel written in the early 1960s. Set in the quasi-distant future on a penal colony planet far enough away to be isolated, it relates the adventures and misadventures of James (Jimmy) Comstock and a small group of his associates who possess more heart than head, as they confront an anti-science and anti-intellectual power structure that has ossified and threatens to fall under its own weight. Many of the mores and norms of the earthbound home have been inverted, leading to a society that barely functions. “You don’t spit in the wind, you don’t pull the beard from the… - Summary by Bob Cherny