FALLEN ANGELS [Paperback]

Larry Niven (Author), Jerry Pournelle (Author), Michael Flynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1991

When a new technology-free government of the United States is elected to counteract the onset of the greenhouse effect, a devastating ice age results, and two hunted Space Hab astronauts become the planet's only hope for survival. Reissue.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jerry Pournelle (right), a past winner of the John W. Campbell Award, has collaborated with Niven on numerous bestsellers. He has also written such successful solo novels as Janissaries and Starswarm. He lives in Studio City, California.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were the joint winners of the 2005 Robert A. Heinlein Award. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Baen; First Edition edition (June 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067172052X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671720520
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,845,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The lady doth protest too much, methinks, March 25, 2003

By 

Jeff B. Cox (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fallen Angels (Hardcover)

Good entertaining speculative fiction with a surprising and unusual perspective!
OK, this book is not great Sci-Fi. It reads like an old StarTrek episode, or even more like Galaxy Quest! I was inspired to write because of the negative reviews about this book. A writer accused anyone who likes this book as being "Braindead" and a "Rush Limbaugh dittohead".
Yes, in this book, the environmentalists are the bad guys.
Unfortunately, most people in the environmentalist community act more on feelings than science. Worse yet, most of our environmental POLICY is shaped by feelings and not science.
This book is science fiction. It offers the scientifically sound POSSIBILITY that the environmentalists are wrong. In real life they often are. Many people are.

If your strong political feelings make you take offense at a work of fiction that even suggests that you might be wrong, then you are not a good candidate to read or criticize speculative fiction. In fact, interesting unexpected possible futures are what real science fiction fans are usually curious about.

To the writer who called Pournell fans (that's the rest of us reading this) braindead Rush Limbaugh dittoheads- what are your credentials?
Here are the credentials of Fallen Angels author Larry Pournelle (copied from the Science Fiction Book Club) - Pournelle boasts a fleet of degrees from the University of Washington: a B.S. in psychology and mathematics, an M.S. in experimental statistics and systems engineering, and PhD.s in both psychology and political science. An energetic proponent of technological progress, Pournelle serves as chairman of both the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy and the Lunar Society, Inc. He worked on human factors for the early space program, creating proposals that led to the development of on-board computers and more. The Air Force Academy still uses his nonfiction 1970 work, The Strategy of Technology (co-written with S.T. Possony), as a textbook. Always a trailblazer, Pournelle was one of the first authors to use a computer (as far back as the late 1970s) for his fiction and nonfiction writing; his first personal computer, EZEKIEL, is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. "Chaos Manor," his column of computer punditry, was a monthly mainstay in Byte until the magazine folded in 1998.

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Way better than I expected, August 25, 2001

By 

Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews
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This review is from: FALLEN ANGELS (Paperback)

Over the years we've come to expect great things from Niven/Pournelle collaborations, their track record has been so good that you can't help but want more from each sucessive novel. But for some reason I had low expectations for this, the concept just didn't seem that interesting . . . in a nutshell two astronauts crashland into the middle of a future US where most technology has been outlawed in favor of an extremist form of environmentalism . . . without reading it my first reaction was "yawn" and I settled down to plug away at it and get it over with. Little did I know. This has to be one of the most entertaining SF experiences I've read in recent years . . . the authors (I'm not sure what Michael Flynn added to the affair, being that I'm not up on his work . . . but heck he could have just sat there and smiled for all I care) throw in all sorts of interesting stuff . . . their take on the environmentally friendly United States is both mildly amusing and utterly chilling, a world where science is seen as just another form of magic rammed down everyone's throat by "white, heterosexual males" (hey!) and superstition and "conservation" are the order of the day. You sit there and chuckle about the characters are acting so silly . . . until you go read the newspaper and hear the latest reaction to the latest research. It's scary. For kicks they throw in an upcoming Ice Age and blame it on the efforts to halt global warming and that adds a nice backdrop to the whole affair. But the cap to the already fine novel is the portrayal of the SF fan community . . . with science all but outlawed and SF seen as the "wrong" kind of reading, fans have to hold conventions in secret, pretend to have "mundane" jobs and basically go underground . . . the authors show the community as not only a closely knit group of utterly unique individuals who aren't nerds that sit around discussing which Star Trek captain was the greatest, but as resourceful and quick thinking. Apparently some of the characters are based on real people and this is probably SF's greatest love letter to the fans that make it all worthwhile, the authors definitely feel an affection for these people. The plot moves swiftly and turns in all the right places, even in the darkest hour everyone seems to be having a fine time and when you're done you'll fine you have little to complain about. So ignore the garish cover and lackluster writeup on the back cover, just get it and dive in, if you consider yourself in any way a "true" SF fan, you need to read this.

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good book, January 15, 2004

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fallen Angels (Hardcover)

Alex MacLeod is flying what may be his last mission. Injured while rescuing Space Station Freedom from disaster, he is expendable, and as such sent on a mission to scoop some much needed nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere. But, when his ship is shot down over the United States, Alex finds himself on the run in a world vehemently opposed to everything he represents. The Earth is slipping into a new Ice Age, even while zealous Greens and "Eco-Fascists" put a stop to any technology that might lead to global warming. There's only one group to whom Alex can turn, one group still attached to the ideas of progress and science - Sci-Fi fans! But, what can these enthusiastic, but quirky, people do for Alex? You might be surprised!

While definitely polemical in nature, this is nonetheless a very good book! The authors, two titans of the Sci-Fi genre, have put together a very good book that makes for some interesting reading. As a long-time fan of Sci-Fi, I loved all of the references to other Sci-Fi books! I highly recommend this book!