Betrayer of Worlds (Fleet of Worlds) [Hardcover]

Larry Niven (Author), Edward M. Lerner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2010 | Series: Fleet of Worlds (Book 4)

Fleeing the supernova chain reaction at the galactic core, the cowardly Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds have---just barely---survived. They’ve stumbled from one crisis to the next: The rebellion of their human slaves. The relentless questing of the species of Known Space. The spectacular rise of the starfish-like Gw’oth. The onslaught of the genocidal Pak. 

Catastrophe looms again as past crises return---and converge. Who can possibly save the Fleet of Worlds from its greatest peril yet?

Louis Wu? Trapped in the Wunderland civil war, all he wants is to go home---but the only possible escape will plunge him into unknowable danger. 

Ol’t’ro? The Gw’oth ensemble mind fled across the stars to establish a colony world free from tyranny. But some problems cannot be left behind, and other problems---like the Fleet of Worlds itself---are racing straight at them. 

Achilles? Despite past disgrace, the charismatic Puppeteer politician knows he is destined for greatness. He will do anything to seize power---and to take his revenge on everyone who ever stood in his way.

Nessus? The insane Puppeteer scout is out of ideas, out of resources, with only desperation left to guide him.  

Their hopes and fears, dreams and ambitions are about to collide. And the winner takes . . . worlds.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Exceptional freshness and suspense . . .  full of startling revelations about human and puppeteer politics."
--Booklist

“A new Known Space book, particularly one with new information about Puppeteers and their doings behind the scenes of human history, needs recommending within the science fiction community about as much as a new Harry Potter novel does – well, anywhere.  But Niven and Lerner have produced a novel that can stand on its own as well as part of the Known Space franchise.”
--Locus

"A far-future SF mystery/adventure set two centuries before the discovery of the Ringworld by humans. . . . . Intriguing human and alien characters and lucid scientific detail."
--Library Journal

“A very worthy addition to the ongoing Known Space future history.”
--SciFi.com

About the Author

Larry Niven is the award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces, and fantasy novels including the Magic Goes Away series. Beowulf's Children, co-authored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times bestseller. He has received the Nebula Award, five Hugos, four Locus Awards, two Ditmars, the Prometheus, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award, among other honors. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

 

Edward M. Lerner has degrees in physics and computer science, a background that kept him mostly out of trouble until he began writing science fiction full-time. His books include Probe, Moonstruck, and the collection Creative Destruction, and he has collaborated with Larry Niven on the other books in the Fleet of Worlds series. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Ruth.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (October 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765326086
• ISBN-13: 978-0765326089
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Perils of Editing Memory, December 15, 2010

By 

James D. DeWitt "Alaska Fan" (Fairbanks, AK United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Betrayer of Worlds (Fleet of Worlds) (Hardcover)

Lerner and Niven continue to expand their "Worlds" franchise, in this, the fourth book. There will obviously be more. But I fear that they may have gone too far in their effort to wrap all of their old and new plot lines together. For any fan of Niven, the scene a the start of Ringworld, in which Nessus the Puppeteer recruits Louis Wu to the Ringworld expedition is one of the great episodes in the Known Space series. Now it turns out that wasn't the first time Louis Wu and Nessus met. In fact, they worked together 60 or so years earlier, when Nessus rescued Wu from the Wunderland civil war.

Wu doesn't remember that because Carlos Wu's Amazing Autodoc, which has already reconstructed Beowulf Schaeffer from just his head in Crashlander, and saved Sigmund Ausfaller several times in the "Fleets" stories, can edit memories themselves, removing chunks of a patient's memory at a Puppeteer's whim, such as knowledge of where Known Space might actually be. A thinking reader has to ask himself why Carlos Wu would have built an advanced autodoc that would permit selective editing of memories? After all, Calros might crawl in the thing some day. But that's not the biggest problem a reader is expected to ignore. Now every reader of Known Space stories has to assume that a character's memories may have selectively edited.

There's more. One of the central premises of the entire Fleets series is that no one except Puppeteers - excuse me, Citizens - knows the whereabouts of Known Space. It's central to the dilemma of the New Terra colonists, to Sigmund Ausfaller's cooperation and to Louis Wu's behavior. But a high school physics student could find known space: extrapolate backwards along the line of flight of the Fleet of Worlds for the 200 years since Puppeteers abandoned Known Space. It's not like a Kempler Rosette of planets can turn corners. Navigate there. Turn on radio equipment and listen for old episodes of "I Love Lucy."

And then there's the current crisis, the Gw'oth colony in the path of the Fleet of Worlds. What motivation did the extremely intelligent Gw'oth - the brightest characters Niven or Lerner have invented yet - to place their colony in the path of disaster?

But if you can accept the permanent loss of reliable narrators, and the suspect premise that Known Space is somehow undiscoverable, the Gw'oth colony location and that thermonuclear reactions can be suppressed by signals transmitted on radio or hyperwave; if you can buy all that, this is a pretty good yarn. I had some trouble with those premises, which is why I give the story only three stars.

And the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, with bad guys in charge of the Fleet of Worlds, the Ringworld on the virtual horizon, Nessus in exile and the Puppeteers puppets themselves.

Something of a let down after the long-anticipated Pak battle in Destroyer of Worlds, but even a bad Niven is a treat and this is by no means a bad Niven. Just not as good as the earlier "Fleet" novels.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good addition to an amazing series, October 16, 2010

By 

Ray Y. Chow "Ray C" (Waltham, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Betrayer of Worlds (Fleet of Worlds) (Hardcover)

Not the very best of the series (needs more Ausfaller!), but still definitely well worth the read for Known Space or hard sci-fi fans.

Classic Niven (and par for the course on this overall excellent series w/ Lerner): intelligent characters, very nifty uses of the given science and technology, and a good amount of "action" driving the plot forward.

Since Louis Wu is the main protagonist in this volume and the story is set before "Ringworld", the story runs into some of the hazards of writing prequels in a widely read (and well explored) history: requirements of continuity w/ "Ringworld" forces the authors hands in some places.

That's a small complaint, only noteworthy because I've been otherwise enjoying the series immensely.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hints at what happened to ringworld before the ringworld novel began, September 11, 2011

By 

EAJ "Bookie" (Troy, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Betrayer of Worlds (Fleet of Worlds) (Mass Market Paperback)

.....A nice finish leading up to the Ringworld novel.

.....I enjoyed the book and and the prior ones. This one lacked the PaK showdown that still seemed to be hanging as a threat in the prior novel but was well worth the viewing as it tied up loose ends.

.....One has to wonder whatever happened to the Gwoth in later known space books as they are never mentioned.

.....We all know Louis Wu eventually gets addicted to The Wire from the early scenes in Ringworld but with a prior addiction, a bad end to his first encounter with the Puppeteers and shodowy memories, its not surprising he went back to addictive behaviors.

.....Spoiler Alert: At the end of this book there is a data file deletion by nessus that hints at some dark prior event by the puppeteers against ringworld that had to be hidden from the Gwoth. This is prior to the original ringworld novel.

.....The puppeteers are a crazy, paranoid, jumpy herd bunch and we know that ringworld scared the hell out of them so we can guess what they did in "self defense".