Customer Reviews

Betrayer of Worlds (Fleet of Worlds)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

.....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".

This whole series with Niven and Lerner cannot be beat and this book does not disappoint. Nessus is at his best, Achilles is as treacherous as ever and you do not see any of it coming. Niven and Lerner are excellent story developers and writers in their own right but together they are a dynamic duo! I cannot wait for the next installment.

I very much enjoyed this book, but by the end, I was pretty sure that if there had been any more problems, the solution would have inevitably been to trot out Carlos Wu's autodoc. Clearly, Achilles could have been rehabilitated, if they had just thought to plop him in it :). Otherwise, very enjoyable, though clearly in the twilight of the series, as any fourth book is almost certain to be.

Ok, this one takes place a mostly out of known space, but anyone who has loved 'Neutron Star' or 'Tales of Known Space' will feel right back home again with this book. I have re-read both books many times since I was just newb and loved them every time. This book carries on in that fine tradition. I'm back in the Known Space universe with more conflicts and surprises going down. Awesome. I can't wait for the next one. (Yeah, there has to be a sequel). If you've read and loved the Known Space novels, get this one too. If you don't know what I'm talking about, get Neutron Star or Tales of Known Space and start there. Then get this one. I'm happy to be in Known Space again!

There was more political intrigue and less suspense, hard sci-fi in this one. Seemed to grab my attention less.

I actually like the book the best out of all the Ringworld series. The characters are just great, and story is vast and compelling and unique. The Ringworld settings were a bit boring to me honestly. I like sci-fi novels that actually take place in space, not on planets or "stations" and such. Just my personal preference. But I was surprised how much more I liked this book than I expected. And I have high expectations these days.

An AMAZING addition to the Ring World series. I had NO IDEA the Puppeteer politics were so complex...they are not so different from Humans, though they want to believe they are. Of course, Larry Niven is a human writer, writing for a human audience, so obviously the anthropomorphism is going to shine through, as with most humans.

As to Larry Niven, his Ring World series and his Writing Style is a Legacy that I hope human Sci-Fi writers continue. It is my sincere hope that he passes the philosophical torch on to another Ring World author to continue his great legacy.

He crafted a framework which to write within and works with multiple other writers. Larry's passing will mark the loss of a truly great Sci-Fi writer and we can only hope that he and his co-authors continue their work long after they depart from this world.

A very worthwhile continuation of the series. It helps fill in the gaps between Louis Wu's birth and his appearance in the Ringworld books. There's still a small space of time left before the first Ringworld book, so maybe there will be one more prequel forthcoming?