Customer Reviews

Fleet of Worlds

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

During the 1970s Larry Niven was one of my very favorite Science Fiction authors. His "Known Space" setting was the launching pad for many excellent novels and short stories, and this established Niven as a leading author of "Hard SF." The "Known Space" universe featured a dazzling, and not implausible, future for the human race and even better, the aliens of Known Space really were alien. The Kzinti and the Puppeteers, to name two of the principal alien races, are truly imaginative.

This novel is set in "Known Space" and begins at a time shortly before the human race has discovered hyperdrive, although most of the story occurs after that time. A group of humans in space is essentially kidnapped by the Puppeteers, who intend to use these humans and their descendants as a slave race, albeit a fairly well treated one. The Puppeteers will use the humans in certain labor functions, and also as interstellar scouts, since the highly risk-averse Puppeteers are not well suited for risky jobs of this type. "Known Space" junkies will recall that the Puppeteers are fleeing our Galaxy because the galactic core will eventually flood the entire Galaxy with deadly radiation.

The novel essentially revolves around two themes. Firstly, the human servants are finding out that the Puppeteers have lied to them about their origins, and about humanity. Secondly, the Puppeteers are worried that other races, humanity included, will spot their migrating worlds and threaten them. This causes the Puppeteers to act preemptively and aggressively, and frankly, unwisely and implausibly.

The real core of this novel is to give the reader far more insight into Puppeteer politics and society than we ever got before. Some of this is interesting, but not enough to carry the novel. Unfortunately, the novel also highlights Niven's enduring weakness at creating three-dimensional characters. Here the characters are flat and forgettable. In some of his other stories Niven sometimes gets around this by writing in the first person (i.e. the Beowulf Schaeffer stories), but not here, although I wonder if that might have worked here. Niven fails to capitalize on his former strengths as a writer (skillful use of scientific prognostications and the effect of technology on the evolution of society) because there really are not any interesting speculations about society or the future of humanity (or even the future of the Puppeteers) contained in this novel.

Overall, this one was good enough to finish, but not good enough to read again, and this distinguishes it from most other "Known Space" writings, which I have read many times. It is impossible not to notice that almost everything Niven has written over the past 20 years has been in collaboration with other authors. It is almost as though he is more interested in the social network of his author friends than in writing to please the reading public. That is my perception, at least, because Niven's offerings for the past two decades have not been nearly as good as his earlier writings.

Overall a disappointment, although Niven fans will probably enjoy this one.

Larry Niven, this time in collaboration with Ed Lerner, returns to Known Space, this time with a story told largely from the point of view of the Puppeteers, the three-legged, two-headed race who have featured in many of Niven's Known Space stories. About 500 years before the events of the story, the Puppeteers captured a human colony ship. The descendants of the passengers on that boat have been made slaves, called "Colonists," held in ignorance of human culture. It's a benign slavery, but slavery none the less.

Three of the Colonists are being trained as scouts by Nessus, by no coincidence the Puppeteer who has had the most contact with humans. Puppeteers aren't cowards, exactly. They are, however, extremely risk averse. As the Puppeteers' Fleet of Worlds flees an impending galactic catastrophe - the subject of earlier Known Space stories - it would be handy to have scouts, so the risk of scouting ahead for danger isn't taken by Puppeteers. Human scouts. That starts a chain of events that reveal the Puppeteers' version of Colonist history to be a tissue of lies.

Along the way we get to see Nessus manipulate Earth culture and create, almost in passing, the Birthright Lotteries, which led to Teela Brown and the events of "Ringworld." We get a bit of the truth about Dr. Julian Forward and the events leading up to "The Borderland of Sol," one of Niven's best novellas. But the most interesting bits are seeing the society and politics of Puppeteers and the Fleet of Worlds developed and revealed. In an odd way, there's even a Puppeteer love story.

Perhaps it's Lerner's influence, but plotting and characterization are far better than most of Niven's recent work. Neither is terrific, but the characters aren't cardboard cutouts, either. Nessus and Nike, the leader of the radical faction in Puppeteer politics, in particular, are nicely done. There are some nice subtle touches, too, including the influences of Puppeteer society on Colonist society.

We've never read Niven for characterization. We've read Niven for his terrific ideas and his plotting. Both are on display here. Especially if you are a fan of Known Space, this book is a lot of fund and a cut above anything Niven has written in the last 15 years. Recommended.

Short version: Buy it, read it, keep it to be reread.

Longer version follows. I'm biased, I confess. I've reread every work in the Known Space "series" for the past thirty years or so. The quality of each work can vary considerably but as a collection they may be without equal in the world of "pure" science fiction.

I believe I've read everything Niven has written, however, despite the fact I've haven't felt the need to reread any of his non-Known Space works for the past twenty years or so aside from the first Dream Park novel (which remains the only book I ever finished the last page of and then turned back to the first to read it again. Niven's other works aren't bad and are often quite good but none of them ever gave me that warm glow that some feel when they are returning to Middle-Earth, Narnia, or some other cherished place.

That said, this may be the best Larry Niven work since Ringworld itself. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kudos to Mr. Lerner for whatever part of that is his doing. The book could be considered a prequel to Ringworld save that it begs for a sequel of its own at some point, set in some future when certain constraints established by the other works in the Known Space universe have been removed. It would be interesting to see some of the human protagonists encountering Ringworld and Louis Wu perhaps, or possibly the Pak, or even Sigmund Ausfaller.

Anyhow, it stands alone fine but also fits within the history terrifically, tying into several short stories as well. Many mysteries are revealed and yet the Known Space universe is no less mysterious for it. Questions that have arisen based on legions of fans quibbling for decades over why event x in story y was important when the technology used in story z made it a non-player have been deftly answered. And finally, hey, Nessus is one of the two MAIN characters! That alone justifies the book.

I've been apprehensive that all of the Known Space works must soon seem rather quaint. I've been concerned that scientific advancement and technological development might have left Larry Niven behind. Advancement and development that has shown us the future will probably not involve much of what we once thought it surely must. This novel puts those fears to rest and shows us that Larry Niven has still got it (or at least knows where to get it).

If you just skipped to the last line: buy it, read it, keep it to be reread.

Read it right through, I have to admit, but... The older Known Space stories always seemed to just crackle with electricity. This one, not so much. Slow to get going, and a somewhat flat delivery, but still worth reading if you're a Niven fan.

Two main quibbles: why is the Puppeteer's homeworld called Hearth? A hearth is part of a fireplace, where one cooks one's dinner. Why are herbivores, who generally, in this story at least, are described as eating fresh, uncooked vegetables and grains, fond of the hearth? Meat is roasted at a hearth, not grass... This bugged me through the whole story. "Meadow", now that would have made a good deal of sense for a name, and perhaps Hearth as the Puppeteer Hell...

The other thing (SPOILER ALERT HERE): the GP hulls are fairly useless if you can destroy them with a well-aimed laser. If they'd at least explained that this would only work from the inside; but, apparently it would work just as well from the outside, if the hull wasn't reflective. If one human could figure out this Achilles Heel of the GP hull, others would, and that would mean every Puppeteer flying in a GP hull would be vulnerable to a laser attack. I can't imagine Nessus travelling in anything less that a total state of terror in a GP hull like that. This, perhaps, is the real reason the Puppeteers fled Known Space. The fact that the Puppeteers don't seem to be aware of this weakness is also rather incomprehensible.

I never had any complaints of these sorts from the old KS novels, so I've got to rank this one a bit down.

Now I'm going to have to go re-read some of the old ones, cause they sure are terrific.

I well remember haunting the book shops in the seventies and eighties for the latest known space epic from Larry Niven so when I saw a new book about known space I eagerly snapped it up.

I guess that your tastes change over the years but, sadly, I didn't think that this book rates up there with previous books in the known space universe. The main problem is with the characters, the humans in particular - they just aren't very interesting. It's a reasonable story in terms of known space technology but quite slow moving and very little of the vitality in the original known space series is present. Basically it's about a group of human servants to the puppeteers who discover that the puppeteers have lied to them about their origins. Separately the puppeteers themselves, who are desperately frightened about the "wild humans" from earth, attempt to conceal the location of the planets making up the fleet of worlds. The main puppeteer character is Nessus who was introduced in the original books.

It's a reasonably competent book in some ways but I didn't find it a real page turner and I doubt whether I will go back and read it again. Not one of Niven's best but I still think it just makes it into the three stars category.

First, I generally buy - in hardcover - anything with Larry Niven's name on it, without even stopping for breath. If it's part of the Known Space universe, so much the better. This title, while quite good and entertaining in itself, left me feeling slightly deflated.

Similar to the last Star Wars prequel, this novel has to fit itself in, adhering to both earlier and later works; a space one feels the author originally was going to left unexplored. The Pierson's Puppeteers, one of my favorite alien species in all science fiction, are explored in MUCH greater detail than before. And you know, their emotions and motivations turn out to be quite human, after all. Without revealing too much, they also turn out to be a lot less likeable.

This, to me, is not a good thing. Mr. Niven has long done an exemplary job of meeting the old science fiction challenge (Campbell?) "A creature that thinks as well as a human, but not LIKE a human." A few other things are also over explored and over explained, like the General Products hull. Who knew it was so easy to destroy?

Still, I don't regret my purchase, and the novel does leave a planet-sized loose end wandering the universe, to spawn further sequels. Yay!

** Caution -- Here There Be Spoilers **

Two things I've always enjoyed about Larry Niven stories:

First, his characters are uniformly smart people, who notice things merely-average folks would not and draw useful inferences from their observations. I feel smarter for a few days afterwards just for having been inside heads like theirs.

Second (and related), Niven is a master of what I call "the telling detail" -- some word or little action that tells you more about that character than said character would want you to know.

Sadly, those features are mostly missing from "Fleet of Worlds," co-written with Edward M. Lerner.

"Fleet" slots neatly into Niven's "Known Space" series. (Really, the reader will probably have a hard time fully appreciating the action unless he is already familiar with the alien Puppeteers, the explosion of the galaxy's core, and the Puppeteers' startling plan for escaping the resulting wave of radiation.) Here's the setup: Hundreds of years ago, the human slower-than-light starship "Long Pass" blundered onto a Puppeteer engineering project. Panicked, the aliens attacked the ship, took the crew prisoner and domesticated the next generation -- grown from frozen embryos -- as agricultural workers. The humans were kept ignorant of their true history and fed a cock-and-bull story about how the Puppeteers had found them drifting in space and saved them.

The book follows three humans who have been trained to take over the dangerous and (for a Puppeteer) terrifying job of scouting ahead of the Fleet of Worlds as it flees the galaxy. As you might expect, the aliens' centuries-long coverup shreds in short order.

Alas, the human characters are bland and nearly indistinguishable. The book's saving grace is the far more interesting story of love, intrigue and betrayal between "Fleet's" two main alien characters: Nessus (a brave -- and therefore insane -- Puppeteer from Niven's original stories) and Nike (an up and coming Puppeteer politician). We also learn a bit more about Puppeteer reproduction than Niven was ever willing to tell us. (Don't ask. You don't want to know.)

Not overly long (a blessing itself in today's tetralogy-choked SF market), the action moves along briskly and wraps up neatly (if a bit implausibly). A sequel is possible, but not mandatory. Not sure I'll read this one again, but I'm glad I read it once.

I've often enjoyed Niven's solo work, particularly the Ringworld novels, but not his collaborations. (No, not even with Pournelle--blech!) I thought that, being more or less directly tied to Ringworld, this one might be enjoyable. Nope, at least as far as I was able to determine. I couldn't get myself to read past page 8. The writing is grammatical but amateurish, clunky, and just plain unpleasant to read. It looks like Niven plotted this out and then gave it to Lerner to write up. For really dedicated fans, I'm sure that the content is more important than the delivery, but to me the pain isn't worth the (potential) gain. I'm returning the book.

Can't Niven find a competent young pulp writer to rent his brand? Lerner even manages to make Puppeters boring. (Apparently they live in big condo complexes, go to shopping malls and excrete on the floor.)

Niven at his best was a nice pulp writer. Short, sharp sentences; minimum of introspection; lots of action; lots of ideas; bright cartoon hues.

Lerner delivers none of that.

Clearly not the best of his works, but does have a few new ideas

to add in this fill-in book for the Known Space series. A big

step up from Ringworld IV (Children), at least, but not nearly as

good as The Draco Tavern.