Day 10 today and I thought I’d focus on just one author !
Looks like a cannon and a mean aimer there in the indomitable Rose.
Larry Niven and cohorts today.
First up is The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steve Barnes. It’s set on a distant colony world, indeed the first colony dispatched from Earth arriving at Tau Ceti after 100 years of travel.
The colonists arrive at their new planet Avalon and set up a base on an island, isolated from the mainland. Start somewhere defensible, then spread out later as colony growth demands. However, there is an immediate problem. The imperfect suspended animation technology has caused a phenomenon they call “Ice on their mind”, where their once top of their field intelligence has been damaged by ice crystals forming during their unprecedented period of coldsleep. Some are more affected by others and the colonists battle to overcome their new disabilities and isolated position to build up the colony.
And then all hell breaks loose as super crocodiles find the colony and attempt to adopt it as their new food source. It so happens to be breeding season for these Grendels too and the humans are in the nest.
How much do I remember of this book ? Perhaps a little bit of a slog to get to its end but it was good enough to spawn a sequel where the colonists have expanded enough to start a foot hold on the mainland where they discover …. something that eats the near invulnerable highly intelligent Grendels.
Next up – Neutron Star.
This one is a series of short stories set in the Known Space universe that Larry Niven is probably most famous for. This is the universe of the Ringworld. Yes. The original proper stellar class Rimworld and not the idea stolen for a game. This is the universe that the Kzinti live in, bipedal sentient cats with opposing thumbs and an appetite for any sentient race not their own. There are also the Pierson’s Puppeteers, a race of introverted tripedal cowards who’s defense mechanism is to turn, tuck their two heads between their legs and kick backwards.
Neutron Star opens with a short story about an investigator who is hired by the Puppeteers to covertly find out why two researchers have died while performing a close fly by of a Neutron star in a Puppeteer ship that should be invulnerable to all attack. They didn’t just die though, they were ripped apart.
People who know lots of physics have probably guessed what happened to them ! Lots of gravitational stresses when you go that close to something heavy. After all, Neutron Stars are stars that exploded with not quite the mass to compress down and become a black hole. The rest of the book has a series of short stories that circle back to the start again.
Recommended. As are the Man-Kzinti Wars novels and very definitely, Ringworld and its sequels Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld Throne and Ringworld’s Children.
Last up – Lucifer’s Hammer. This one is a collaboration between Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
This one tells the story of the end of civilisation.
An asteroid is heading our way. At the start of the book, the chance to hit is very low. But then an unexpected collision tips the asteroid just enough to nudge it a little. As the book goes on through its first act, the chance to hit gets higher and higher as the impact day approaches.
But it’s worse than that. Instead of staying as one big object, the asteroid calves (breaks up) into many smaller but still devastating lumps.
The first act sets up quite a large cast and a couple of important locations. You then have the inevitable calamity as bits of asteroid pepper the Earth with devastation. One of the scenes that sticks in my mind is the tsunami that hits the West Coast of the USA. Surfers are waiting for it, believing that if they are skillful enough, their best chance to survive is to surf the 100 foot high tsunami. One by one they fall.
A decent end of the world book. Perhaps a bit depressing as it portrays that middle act of the calamity and then goes a bit silly as an army develops to threaten where our protagonists are heading to.
A great start and middle but I’m not convinced they knew how to end it …
That’s it for today ! Who knows who it will be tomorrow :-D.
Oh ! One last thing – honourable mentions to :
The Mote in Gods Eye – what happens when we find a race of superlative engineers who can see what we have … dismantle it and then build something far better. Can our people escape with the secrets of Earth ? Great book. There is a follow up to this one as well which I haven’t read.
Footfall – aliens invade the Earth and are very confused by the Earthlings. This one has a stunning concluding act which I won’t spoil here.