Customer Reviews

Crashlander

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

 

 

In 1966 Larry Niven created the ultimate tourist with his short story "Neutron Star." It was the tale of Beowulf Shaeffer, a laid-off pilot heavily in debt and easy to blackmail, and how the alien race the puppeteers convinced him to make a dangerous flyby of a neutron star. Throughout the late sixties followed several other Beowulf Shaeffer stories, which were previously to be found only in the out-of-print collection NEUTRON STAR. In 1994 Del Rey released CRASHLANDER, which brought back into print the Beowulf Shaeffer stories of the late 60's, together with "The Borderland of Sol" (1975), a new story "Procrustes," and interim material that Niven had just penned to bind the stories together into one novel, as it were (there's no table of contents and the title of each story isn't listed at the head of the page). CRASHLANDER has some good material, but the latest writing shows that Niven's treatment of his Known Space universe has become very poor indeed.

The late-60's Beowulf Shaeffer stories were classics of science fiction, mixing hard science with colourful alien races and futuristic fashion. In "Neutron Star" the reader travels with Shaeffer as he visits what was then a revolutionary concept in astronomy. In "At the Core", the puppeteers convince Shaeffer to take an experimental hyperdrive all the way to the galactic core, where he makes a discovery that spurs the puppeteers into fleeing Known Space. "Flatlander" begins with Shaeffer as a tourist on Earth, and takes him on a journey with a millionaire to a very unusual planet. "Grendel", the last of the golden age of the Shaeffer stories, has Shaeffer foil a kidnapping on a newly-colonized world. These stories are all excellent and are recommended reading for any fan of science fiction.

The last two stories, however, are incredibly disappointing, nearly enough so to taint the eariler works. "The Borderland of Sol" was written after the decline of Niven's writing in the mid-1970's. It nearly repeats the theme of "Grendel" (with Shaeffer becoming something of a detective), but with unbelievable characters, B-movie shoot-outs, and uninspired futurisms. The last story, "Procrustes" dates from the 1990's and is nearly as bad as Niven's novel from the same time THE RINGWORLD THRONE. "Procrustes" has a plot that is convoluted to say the least, and none of the characters act like they have in previous stories. Most disturbing is the Robert Heinlein-esque turn into sexuality explicit scenes that Niven made in the early 90's, as "Procrustes" begins with an orgy. The frame stories were written at the same time as "Procrustes" are are just as bad. They contradict previous Niven stories (such as mentioning the Trinocs when they won't be met for another 200 years, the Puppeteer Fleet of Worlds, etc.) and end in an inexplicable murder that is nothing but a deus-ex-machina.

My recommendation: skip CRASHLANDER and find the out-of-print collection NEUTRON STAR, which brings together all the golden age Shaeffer stories as well as several other fascinating Known Space short stories.

Crashlander contains the collected stories of Beowulf Shaeffer, the man who, in Niven's Known Space, discovered the core explosion and, as it turns out, did a number of other things as well. Beowulf is an interesting character, and although not every story is great, most are very good and quite worth reading.

The stories were written over a range of time, which is obvious from the internal differences - the social and moral aspects of Beowulf's world change quite a bit from first to last. And the "binder" material - the stuff Niven interpolated between the stories to bring them together, make them more cohesive - is only moderately successful. Frankly, Beowulf's past is just more interesting than his present. But the stories themselves are truly gripping, and as a short story collection, this book really works.

One tiny caveat: the book as a whole implies certain things about the origins of Louis Wu (of Ringworld fame) that contradict the beginning of the Ringworld series itself. Doesn't matter, of course, unless you're a real stickler for detail.

Over all, a book well worth reading for those into Niven or his Known Space.

Niven is an excellent writer, and if you haven't seen his previous "Known Space" collections, this will be a treat. This is a rehash of his classics, "second verse, same as the first." If you've been following him for a while, don't bother, you've read 'em...

This wonderful collection puts all the Beowulf Shaeffer stories into one volume, including a new story. It also tells the orgins of Louis Wu of ringworld, elaborates on Puppeteers and the fate of the galaxy. A must read for any Niven fan.

Known Space. It's cool. Beowulf Shaeffer. Cool guy. Mostly.

The first few stories, especially the Nebula award winning "Neutron Star," are of extremely high quality. It's something of a shock, then, that the later stories decline so rapidly. Niven's writing style changes quite noticably in the real-life years between the stories, from a more traditional space opera to something...not. I couldn't even finish "Procrustes," it was so bizarre and un-Niven that I had trouble following it.

If you are lucky enough to find the book Neutron Star, which contains the first few stories of this book (in addition to a few others), go for it. It's a better buy overall. If not (this will be most of you, unfortunately), it's up to you whether the first half of the book is worth the price of admission, since the second half arguably isn't.

Beowulf Schaeffer is the recurring pilot-hero of many of Niven's "Known Space" stories, including some of his most famous, like "Neutron Star". In this volume they are collected and put in order, with a framing sequence. An indisputable aid to understanding Niven's other "known space" works, like RINGWORLD, and immense fun in its own right. Here you first meet the Puppeteers, you first find out the galaxy is exploding, you first meet the Outsiders and other aliens. (Niven does the best aliens in the biz. A few might cattily say his aliens are better than his humans.) A fascinating future presented by one of the best sf writers still writing

I think too many people are a little too negative about this book, so I'm going to try to focus on a bit of balance. Really, everything except the final act is excellent and well worth reading. Not only do you get some of Niven's early and very highly regarded work- including "Neutron Star" and "At the Core", but everything meshes into faily decent overall novel with the "Ghost" chapters set in-between. These extra chapters basically consist of a character interviewing our hero, Beowulf Schaeffer, and the original short stories essentially become stories-within-a-story, and it really works out well through most of this book.

It all starts to fall apart at the end, and really I think it's less about Niven passing some magic waterline in his career, and more about an author pumping out a bad end to an otherwise great series. Procrustes is really the stand-out disappointment. This only compounds the loss however, since Procrustes was written especially for this work. The "Ghost" portion of the work also folds in on itself right around Procrustes.

When you read the back of the book, it explains that Procrustes is a story about Schaeffer losing his head "literally". Nearing Procrustes, the "Ghost" portions increasingly feature Schaeffer rubbing his neck, and the character speaking to him saying things like "go aHEAD". If you can't put together what happens in Procrustes yet, you need to see a doctor. Because of this latter failed work, I say just ignore the head-loss portion of the Ghost works, and stop reading once you finish "The Borderland of Sol"- Borderland really isn't that bad, and it has some great information about Carlos Wu, who you'll certainly want to know more of if you've read anything about one Louis Wu (re: Ringworld).

The bottom line: Odds are, you're reading this review either because you want to know more about the Known Space universe, or because you've seen some of the fuss over Beowulf Schaeffer and the first few short stories in this work. All of the Known Space backstory contained in these works, especially all the info on Pierson's Puppeteers and the Outsiders, is a real treat for Niven fans. Buying this book is worthwhile for the above reasons alone. Sure, you'll probably hate Procrustes, but you'll have several other excellent short stories in one neat volume, and that's worth having.

This is a collection of all of the Niven's short stories involving Beowulf Schaeffer. Most of the stories were written in the late 60s and early 70s, and Niven added an additional story to this collection (published in 1994) as well as a bridge to connect all the Beowulf stories. This is among the best hard sci-fi available, and I must admit that I'm a bit puzzled by some of the negative reviews. The best stories in this collection were written almost forty years ago now, and they are available in other (now out of print) books such as Neutron Star. The additional story and bridge, while not outstanding, are not as bad as some of the negative reviewers have portrayed. In the hard sci-fi genre, this is as good as it gets. If you are currently collecting the Known Space stories (novels and short stories) and haven't been reading/collecting Niven since the '70s, this is an absolute must have. If you are a longtime reader/collector of Niven, this is probably not worth the one story plus bridge unless you want to complete your collection. If you are new to Niven, the Beowulf stories are terrific hard sci-fi, and I would highly recommend this collection as a starting point into Known Space. For those in the latter category, Niven combines the hard boiled detective genre (ala Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler) with creative and/or speculative astrophysical ideas that were at the cutting edge of astrophysical research at the time they were written. I give this four stars instead of five for three reasons. First, many of the astrophysical ideas are now hopelessly out of date. The stories were quite imaginative in the late 60s and early 70s, but Niven's speculations about neutron stars, the Galactic core, and supernovas have now been shown to be incorrect. This isn't Niven's fault of course, but it definitely gives the series of stories a dated feel. Second, there are some gross errors of physics (e.g. he grossly underestimates the effect of tides around neutron stars, and he makes some incorrect assertions about shock waves) that would have been well understood even at the time of writing. Third, Niven includes a few `supernatural' plot elements (e.g. the space ships are navigated psychically) that don't really belong in hard sci-fi. These are minor criticisms though, Niven has lots of great ideas, and with a few problems, he creatively blends science fact with speculative fiction. The stories are imaginative, and the planets, the people, and the aliens that populate Known Space are well developed and believable. I think this is a great collection and would recommend it to anyone interested in the hard sci-fi genre.

Here Niven collects the stories of Beowulf Shaeffer, one of the most enjoyable characters in science fiction. He is what classical literature calls a "picaro", a wanderer who keep blundering into dangerous situations and then getting out by using his wits, and it's a wonderful device for linking together wierd aliens and exciting sci-fi ideas such as neutron stars, the galacting core, the anti-matter planet, and so on. In the later stories Niven had less science wonders to write about, and focuses on Beowulf's character. This makes later stories duller, though I don't find them as terrible as other reviewers do.

Some criticisms: I hate stories with cliffhanger endings unless they're explicitly parts of a series; Niven pulls that gambit here, with the bizarre last line "I wondered who would be looking down on me when I awoke." What's more, he didn't even write the implied sequel!

I can't figure what Niven was trying to do with Carlos Wu. Beowulf-as-narrator praises him to the skies, but to me Carlos comes across as an obnoxious jerk who boasts how smart he is, but inevitably winds up dumping his responsibilities on Beowulf.

Plopping his stories into the frame unaltered causes some awkwardnesses. At the start of Neutron Star, we have Beowulf telling a story about Beowulf telling a story about a Beowulf adventure that starts with a flashback: four different points in time. Is Niven trying to be convoluted? No, he simply didn't manage the transition skillfully. Why, later, would Beowulf tell the police spy about his love affairs, particularly with a woman whom he is trying to protect? Because the original stories weren't intended to be told in this context, and Niven didn't change them. The collection should have been edited better.

For fans of Niven's other "Known Space" novels and short stories, this Beowulf Schaeffer collection is a must. It wasn't until finishing "Crashlander" that I realized just exactly who Louis Wu is. Wu (the central character of the "Ringworld" novels) doesn't appear directly in "Crashlander," but he is mentioned in a manner that makes his origins clear. Classic work from one of the masters