Larry Niven...

[Thoran]

To continue the Sci-Fi theme that has been lingering lately...

So a few years ago I started reading Ringworld Engineers and just couldn't get into it. I assumed that I just wouldn't like Larry's style... too dry.

Last week I was given another Niven book, Destiny's Road. I figured "what the heck" and gave it a try.

It was excellent, the plot was a bit predictable, and he had a strange tendency to make huge plot shifts without warning (leaving you trying to catch up as you read on), which I can only hope was intentional. But he created a very sympathetic and multidimensional protagonist, a believable 'reality', and some decent technical underpinnings for his story. Overall a fun read.

I've had to seriously reevaluate my opinion of Niven. I think maybe what happened with "Engineers" is what I call "Silmarillion Syndrom". I tried to read a novel that assumed you were already "into" the Ringworld saga, and was maybe meant to fill in some of the details (as with the Silmarillion) but wasn't really intended to be your first foray into the Ringworld universe.

Now I'm going to have to find the first Ringworld book and see how that goes. I tend to avoid older Sci-Fi because it often lacks technical credibility (we've come a long way since the 70's), but IMO, in 'Destiny's Road' the 'dating' technical holes can be forgiven because the story is so darn good.

[Luvian]

I haven't read the Ringnworld books, but I did read some Larry Niven books I really liked.

Which were. The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand. They are first contact books. It's in the distant future, humanity encounter their first intelligent life, and there are "frictions". I have to say these two are the best First Contact series I've read. I definitely recommend them. There's just two of them so it's not that big a time investment either.

You can see these two books were really well thought out. Especially the alien's evolution, they are so detailed and realistic they actually could have existed in real life.

[ 11-20-2006, 04:12 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Marathon]

I also have not read the Ringworld books, but have read Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall. Footfall is another first contact type of book - for some reason, I couldn't really get into it that well. It was actually somewhat hard to finish. Lucifer's Hammer was an apocalyptic, end of the world, natural disaster type book which I very much enjoyed.

[Sir Krustin]

Niven's stuff is mostly very, VERY, good. His latest collaboration, Building Harlequin's Moon, with Brenda Cooper, is excellent and technically accurate.

Even his older stuff (like the original Ringworld) still hold up quite well, with a few exceptions, to modern scrutiny.

The ringworld series, in fact, is a marvel of engineering extrapolation that could work. One of the reasons for the many sequels is the feedback from many readers pointing out possible flaws in the design and fixing them.