Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

So, let’s talk about Larry Niven.

I think I was about thirteen when my uncle gave me a paperback copy of Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall. It was the first thing that I’d read by either man. For about a month I struggled through the first 80 or so pages, feeling like it was just beyond me, and was about ready to give up, when all of a sudden the Fithp hit with a vengeance. The remainder of the book was devoured over a long, sleepless night. Since then, I’ve read it a couple of times, and as I get older (though not necessarily smarter) I’ve come to enjoy those hard first 80 pages as much as the rest of the book. World building, man.

Over these intervening years I’ve gone on to read everything that these two men—along with Steven Barnes and Michael Flynn—have written together, and although I admit to finding The Gripping Hand to be the least of their works, have never been outright let down by their words. It seems to me that with most co-written books (though not all) the default mode for so many creators is to unintentionally showcase what their faults are rather than their strengths. There are some obvious exceptions to this, however: Smith and Zelman come to mind. The greatest exception to the rule, however, for me anyway, is Niven and Pournelle, who although they wrote some great stuff individually, were never better than when they were working together. Though each did indeed do many books, short stories, etc. solo.

Which, in a roundabout way, leads us to Ringworld.

Niven’s Ringworld is an award-winning classic of science fiction, and filled with so many large concepts that when reading it the first time my eyes must have been bugging out. Set firmly in his Known Space series, it works as a kind of epic culmination of everything that he’d been writing about for years. By the end of the initial four book series, he’d managed to tie together most, if not all, of his related KS stories into a coherent whole, driving the narrative with such a fierce push that readers were left breathless, even through scenes where nothing more exciting happened than four characters riding sky bikes around looking at things for 30 pages.

It’s been years since I last read any of the Ringworld books other than that first, and in truth, lots of the fine details of books 2-4 have left my increasingly addled memory, leaving only the bigger swaths of narrative behind. But I’ve had some very fond reminiscences of the stories, even the ones that I felt were too cleaver by far. So when, a few months back, trolling the stacks of my local library looking for some new and interesting science fiction my eyes crossed over a copy of Fleet of Worlds by Mr. Niven and Edward M. Lerner, I got a mad case of the “Gosh-wow”s and picked it up.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Fleet of worlds is the first of a four (or five) book series, each one building on the breadcrumbs of the others, until the story becomes large enough to encompass the whole of Niven’s Known Space. The first book gives you a more inside look at the social and personal lives of the Puppeteers, one of the forefront alien species of the KS series, while letting the reader get up close and person with Nessus, one of the main characters from the first Ringworld book and others. It’s a solid read, full of interesting characters, action, and mind puzzles that made me look forward to reading it each time I sat down to do so. While it gives interesting background on a lot of subjects, it’s written in a smooth enough way, with nearly no reliance of previous works to make it work, that you could use it as your first excursion into Niven’s worlds and you wouldn’t feel left out in the breeze.

The second book Juggler of Worlds, however, cannot claim to be so easy to get into. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely wonderful book, but relies so heavily on parts of a previous KS collection, Crashlander, and the short story “The Soft Weapon,” that there are whole narrative threads left hanging as they’d already been completed elsewhere. If you’re new to the universe, then this will frustrate you to no end. If, however, you’re already a fan, and have got through Crashlander and “The Soft Weapon,” then this books pays out in spades, as it gives you a real secret history kind of vibe, adding to the depth of an already deep and complex universe.

With Destroyer of Worlds, things start to come to a head, with the reintroduction of a race of beasties first introduced in Niven’s Protector, giving the series, which until now had relied mostly on politics and interpersonal relationships to provide its antagonism, a solid set of villains to deal with. The Pak are interesting characters themselves, though rarely seen bodily in the book except through the main characters interactions with one of their race. Without spoiling too much, there’s incoming alien armadas, intent of genocide of everything, worlds getting blows to bits that could have been written by one of the great world destroyer writers of the golden age, and a climax that just sings.

The final book of the four prologues to Ringworld, Betrayer of Worlds, does a very solid job of pulling together all of the narrative threads of the first three books, and not only gives us an ending worth reading, but sets up Ringworld itself very nicely. After completing Betrayer I reread Ringworld for the first time in years, and was astounded at just how many things the Fleet adds to the original novel. Not only are we given a solid, more sympathetic look into the workings of Nessus, we’re also shown Wu in his earlier years. So many things that are glossed over in Ringworld are elaborated on in this last book that it was like reading it again for the first time.

I know that given time I’m going to have to go through Engineers, Throne, and Children, the other three Ringworld books, if only to have the full picture before jumping into Fate of Worlds, the fifth and final of Niven and Lerner’s novels. I look forward to this. I’ve written more often than I should that there are so few writers alive that I read, that to say these two folks are on that list is a lot. Over about a month I read over a thousand pages of this story, and never for a moment had a regret. Too many times I get to the end of a book, and lament the time wasted, that could have been better served reading something better. I cannot say that about these books. They were good, inteligent, and entertaining. Five stars all around.

The Larry Niven Pages at amazon.com has all of these books—Editor