Philip Jose Farmer 
Green Odyssey 

In Peril on an Alien Planet… Alan Green was not a hero – he liked the quiet life as much as the next man. Not that he was exactly afraid of the fearsome hound, Alzo, or his hot-blooded owner, the Duchess Zuni. After all, one expected violence on this primitive planet and a man could manage to stay alive, provided he was alert twenty-four hours a day. But when he heard of a spaceship about to leave for Earth, Alan persuaded the merchant-captain of a windroller to take him to it. And hence to the peaceful green hills of home. He had reckoned without the vagaries of the windroller, pirates, the ‚travelling islands‘, the rascally captain, and various peculiar local flora and fauna – all of which, it seemed, regarded Alan with unnerving malevolence…