Four Day Planet by H. Beam Piper (American, 1961)

Summary:
Many years ago, humans made an expedition in order to find a planet that would be similar to Earth and they almost made it. Fenris is a planet that has a lot of monsters, 2000 hours a day and 8000 hours a night, a stormy weather, and a lot of political problems. However, Fenris is important to the universe because there they hunt monsters out of which they extract a wax that is the fuel of almost everything in the universe. Nonetheless, the monster hunters are worried because rumor has it that they are going to get paid less for the wax. 
 Walt, our main character is at the port waiting for Glenn Murell, a famous writer that is about to write about Fenris. Walt is the local journalist and, along with his father, owns the only paper in the planet. Nevertheless, things don’t go as expected when Walt, his father, and friends find out about a conspiracy in which a big company is planning to pay lower prices to hunters for the wax, while continuing to sell it at the same price to manufacturers. Angry at the situation, Walt and company decide to call for a rebellion; yet, they find it is not that simple since there are a lot of bomb attacks, his friends are being injured, and, every step of the way, someone else is ahead of them. This leads them to think that perhaps there is a traitor among them. They are partially correct since a friend of Walt and his father, known as Bish, turns out to be part of the executive special agents who are after a man named Steve Ravick whose true name is Anton Gerrit, an old famous slaveholder who knew that he was being tracked down and decided to begin a new life in Fenris. 
 Now Fenris has power over what it is going to happen to the wax and everything related to it, while Walt’s paper is universally known. Now Walt is going to go to Earth and study journalism in a university and later return to Fenris in order to help his father with the paper.

Another summary:
Living in Fenris is hard. With a low rotation rate, which is completed after four days, the inhabitants of this place struggle with the scorching heat from a thousand-hour day followed by the chill of another thousand hours of night. The planet of Fenris was supposed to be a major human colony but its extreme climate led most of the colonisers away; the few who stayed developed Extreme Environment Suits and built a city underground. Against all odds, the people in Fenris have thrived.
 When the novel begins, Fenris has already established its economy on the sale of tallow wax. This product is harvested from the sea monsters that inhabit the planet, and then is exported to Earth. However, the prices have kept diminishing as of late in spite of the Union of Hunters' protests.
 Seventeen-year-old Walter Boyd is the star reporter of the only paper in Fenris. Since the paper is owned by his dad, Walt is very knowledgeable about how the media works. Moreover, he has developed a quick and inquisitive mind. After the newspaper catches a report that a well known writer from Earth is arriving to Fenris on the next space ship, Walt decides to interview the famous character. Intrigued by the reason why someone would choose to write a travel book about Fenris, Walt does a thorough research but is unable to find any information on the mysterious author Glenn Murell, which leads him to conclude that the man's alleged identity is fake. Walt also wonders if his friend Bish Ware is hiding something. Bish arrived to Fenris a few years ago, refusing to talk about his past; and in spite of being unemployed, he always manages to have money to keep nourishing his alcoholism. As a member of the lowest rank of society, Bish often tips Walt and his father on what is brewing in the city bowels.
 When Walt arrives to the spaceport to wait for Murell, he runs into his friend Tom Kivelson and his father Joe, Captain of the Javelin and a prominent member of the Union. When introducing himself to Walt, Murell is attacked by a poisonous snail. Luckily, Bish Ware shoots the creature before it has the chance to kill the author. The writer is then taken to the hospital to treat the wounds he sustained, for which Walt chooses to follow the Kivelsons to the Union's gathering so as to have a story. Steve Ravick, the officer who called the meeting, informs the cooperative of hunters that the prices on Earth have dropped yet again; when a wave of protests arise, Walt receives a communication from Bish stating that what Ravick and his government plan to do is to cause a riot so they can later arrest the hunters, particularly the Kivelsons. Walt manages to flee with Tom, his father, and other hunters, taking refuge in the paper's office. Once Murell is reunited with Walt and the others he reveals to be an agent sent from Earth by another wax company; his purpose in coming to Fenris was to inform on the corrupted government officers profiting for pocketing half of the planet's money and to offer the Union a new contract with his own company. The few captains and crewmen agree to sell the wax directly to Murell's company. Given that the police is looking for the Kivelsons around the city, the group decides to run to the Javelin and go on a hunting expedition. Shortly after the ship sets sail, its lower levels start to burn, forcing the whole crew to flee in a rescue boat. The group then theorises that the crewman who coincidentally reported injured before leaving the docks must have been bought by Ravick all along and stuffed the ship with explosives before it took off.
 The group is rescued hours later by a fellow hunting ship who caught their distress signal. Once back in town Walt and the others tell the Union what has really happened with their money; all Captains agree to make business with Murell but they also resolve to get rid of Ravick and his subordinates once and for all. Once they start to organise, the Union realises that the warehouse in which the highly flammable wax is stored has been set on fire. This is a diversion created by Ravick to allow him to take cover at the Union's building. In order to avoid bloodshed, Bish volunteers to infiltrate the building at which Ravick and his henchmen have taken refuge so as to get the leader out of the building so he can be imprisoned. However, when the hunters and fellow citizens arrive to judge Ravick, they found that Bish has betrayed them and taken Ravick to the heavily guarded spaceport. By doing so, Ravick is now untouchable. Walt realises that, as a journalist, he can gain access to both traitors. The guardian at the spaceport’s gate agrees to let Walt in along with other four unarmed men; once the group finds Bish and Ravick they confront them, but Bish surprises all by revealing that he is an executive special agent of the Terran Federation who has been undercover on Fenris in order to catch Ravick for his previous crimes in other planets.
 Bish formally arrests Ravick and awaits a spaceship that brings them to Earth while Walt's dad offers him to continue his studies in the mother planet.

Another summary:
This book centers around Walter Boyd, the seventeen year old sole reporter of the Times, the local and only newspaper in Fenris, the planet he lives on. This planet is six hundred and fifty light-years away from our solar system. This planet has the particularity of having four-day years. Which means each day lasts about 2000 hours. This makes the climate of the planet incredibly extreme. This caused the company that originally settled there to go bankrupt in only 10 years. The colonists stayed behind and have prospered, becoming a very tough crowd and living underground. They sustain themselves through their only export, tallow-wax, which is obtained from local water beasts by monster hunters. These hunters ran a co-operative that is tyrannically lead by Steve Ravick, who is currently pretending that the one company that has monopolized the tallow-wax market pays less than it really does. The planet is also run by a pseudo-government with a man called Morton Hallstock as mayor. These two men, Ravick and Hallstock, have occupied their positions for way too long, keeping them thanks to their group of goons and police, respectively. 
 Walt is hoping to interview Glenn Murrell, a travel book author who is going to write about Fenris, and is just arriving to the planet presently. Walt meets up with an old friend called Tom Kivelson, who is a monster hunter in the Javelin, the boat where his father, Joe Kievelson, also works. Tom accompanies Walt aboard the ship that has brought Murell in. In the ship they see Bish Ware, the local drunkard, who is there to meet with a friend, which Walt finds unusual. Walt interviews Murell but finds him suspicious since he doesn’t seem to know a lot about his job, and later on, seems to be in cahoots with Tom. All three of them go to the bottom levels of the port, where Murell is nearly stung by a highly venomous slug. He is saved by Bish Ware but has to be taken to the hospital so that the vemon that splashed onto his skin can be taken out of his system. Tom takes Bish and Walt to the editorial building of the Times, which is also where Walt and his father, the editor of the newspaper, live. Bish stays over for lunch and Walt is pleased to see that, for once, he decides not to drink. That night there was to be a meeting in Hunter’s Hall to discuss the current underpayment of the hunters. Walt goes but things go south as Steve Ravick is aware that Joe Kievelson and his crew are intent on having him sacked. Joe, Walt, and other members of the crew manage to escape but are being looked for by the police. As Murell gets better and is discharged of the hospital, he and Walt join Joe’s crew and they are taken on a hunting trip while things calm down in Port Sanders. While out at sea they manage to hunt a beast and Walt learns that Murell was never actually a writer but a possible buyer of tallow-wax who had to be undercover. As they are on the trip something explodes in the main engine that forces the whole crew to evacuate. They use the emergency boat but they are so far away from everything that there does not seem to be any salvation. The weather has become very hostile and they are forced to stay underwater where they will eventually run out of air. In a last attempt to do something, when the air has nearly run out, they resurface, finding things to be less harsh than anticipated but also finding themselves completely lost. Eventually, they are found; all the other hunting boats were out looking for them and they are taken back to Port Sanders, where they blame Steve Ravick for having rigged Joe’s boat. As a scuffle beings between Steve Ravick and the hunters, various piles of wax catch fire, which causes great chaos. After much working and moving around things, they finally manage to stop the fire but Tom has been severely burnt by the wax; he is sent to the hospital in a critical state. A plan was formed to have Bish Ware trick Steve Ravick into captivity but they have somehow managed to escape. The hunters are now furious because Tom was hurt in the fire that was probably caused by Ravick and because Bish seems to have betrayed them. They arrive to the port where the men apparently are and after some negotiating with the port militia they are allowed to go see Bish and Ravick. It turns out Bish was and undercover agent all the time and Steve Ravick was an interplanetary wanted man whom he had been following for years. The book ends with Tom recuperated of his wound and both him and Walt preparing to go study college in Terra. The Co-Op has got a new and fairer management and a better mayor has been elected.

World view: Describes in a variety of aspects and with some consistency an imaginary state or society which is regarded as better, in some respects at least, than the one in which its author lives.
Future projections: Sees the future as potential to reform a reality that once seemed unchangeable.
Ideology: Portrays the enforcement of justice in a positive manner and has faith in human capacity to build a better future.
Characters, plot and writing style: The story features a rebellion against the adverse circumstances (revolutionaries may exploit newer technologies for these ends).
Classification: Non-dystopia