Flatlander [Mass Market Paperback]

Larry Niven (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1995

Gil "The Arm" Hamilton was one of the top operatives of ARM, the elite UN plice force. His intuition was unfailingly accurate, his detective skills second to none, and his psychic powers -- esper sense and telekinesis -- were awesome. Now you can read all the classic stories of the legendary ARM operative, collected in one volume for the first time -- plus, an all-new, never-before-published Gil Hamilton adventure!

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; First Edition edition (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345394801
• ISBN-13: 978-0345394804
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.1 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LARRY NIVEN is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. He lives in Chatsworth, California. JERRY POURNELLE is an essayist, journalist, and science fiction author. He has advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering, and political science. Together Niven and Pournelle are the authors of many New York Times bestsellers including Inferno, The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall, and Lucifer's Hammer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars wrong info, September 29, 2008

By 

Mostly Harmless (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flatlander (Kindle Edition)

This Kindle item is not Niven book Flatlander but only a short story of the same name. Don't be fooled; although this claims to be 368 pages it is really about 30 pages. I complained to Amazon about the misleading info but they will not do anything .

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SF/Mystery at its best, August 24, 2000

By 

Ivy (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flatlander (Mass Market Paperback)

SF/Mystery is one of the hardest subgenres to write convincingly - as Niven points out in his introduction to this book, SF/Mystery, to work, must follow the rules of both genres, which makes for quite the writing challenge. But in Flatlander, the collected stories about Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Niven does a masterful job of meshing science, technology, and mystery.

These stories were written over quite a range of time, and that's obvious, in both the social and moral overtones and the writing itself. However, the quality is fairly consistent, and it ranks up there with the very best Niven work. Most important, the puzzle aspect - the mystery component - is very well done, in every case; the mysteries are fair (the reader could solve them with the information given) and good (the reader has to work fairly hard to solve them before the main character does).

It's a pity there aren't more Gil Hamilton stories; I'd love to see another book of these. Whether you're a fan of mystery, or SF, and especially if you're a fan of both, you'll love Flatlander.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Three excellent SF short stories, two lackluster duds, April 4, 2002

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flatlander (Mass Market Paperback)

FLATLANDER is a collection of the five "Gil the Arm" short stories that Larry Niven has written between the late sixties and today. Set in the 2120s, these stories chronicle the adventures of Gil Hamilton, an agent with the UN police force, who fights against "organleggers," criminals who commit murder to sell the organs for transplant. Gil spent seven years mining in the asteroid belt before an accident resulted in the loss of his arm. He found out, however, that he had developed the psychic power of telekinesis, which he calls his "invisible arm." These stories are part of Niven's "Known Space" universe and revolve around the themes Niven thought important in that series, such as organ transplanting, psychic powers, and the ramifications of fusion power. These are also the only mysteries that Niven has written.

The first three short stories are decent reading, and highly entertaining. In "Death By Ecstay," the reader is introduced to Gil as he investigates the murder of an old friend while working to bring down a major West Coast organlegging ring. In "The Defenseless Dead," the UN decides to liquidate people placed into cold storage decades before to harvest their organs; the plentiful supply of legal organs drives organlegging temporarily unprofitable, and Gil tracks down a retired organlegger, with a surprising ending. In "ARM," Gil investigates the murder of a famous inventor, and tries to unravel how a new time-accelerating invention was used in the crime.

The final two stories are highly disappointing. "Patchwork Girl" and "The Woman in Del Rey Crater" date from after Larry Niven's decline in the mid-70's. Both set on the moon, they suffer from goofy, lackluster writing and don't have the gritty edge and emphasis on novel ideas that made Niven's late-60's works so revolutionary.

The book has an afterword by Niven in which he explains how organ transplanting will inevitably lead to a future in which even petty crimes are punished by death. Written in 1995, this afterword is already out-of-date with the advances in cloning and alloplasty.

If you enjoy Niven's writing, especially the Known Space series, I'd recommend FLATLANDER. The first three stories are really gripping reading. The last two stories, however, will probably disappoint.