Customer Reviews

A Gift from Earth

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

 

 

On a planet where the only habitable place is the plateau on a mountain rising fifteen miles above the acidic, roiling surface, a brutal and unjust aristocracy lives long lives on the organs of the people of the lower classes, (colonists), who had committed even the smallest transgressions, while the rich, (crew), do as they wish with no fear of consequences of repercussions. On this world a young colonist with a very strange mental power, that of making himself invisible in others' minds, is about to unwittingly set off a revolution. I said it before, I'll say it again. Cool.

Great book! It deals with all kinds of fun, interesting technologies, with enough action to keep anyone hooked. Also some really good discussion of ethics. This book is wholeheartedly suggested

If you've never read one of Niven's stories, this is probably not the one to start with. Start with the short story collections, like Tales of Known Space. But when you get hooked on his style and find that you can't get enough, do come back to it, buy it, and you will enjoy it thoroughly. It's a really fun, very well-rounded look at a colony whose founders choose, at its inception, to divide its society into haves and the have-nots.

Invisible man wild card.

This book is set in the part of Niven's future history where organlegging as such, is very common. Set on a colony world the wealthy want access to body parts, so any crime gets you executed and recycled for their use.

Throw in a wild card superpowered outsider with basically the power to cloud men's minds and things get interesting.

A GIFT FROM EARTH was a great precurser to the later Known space stories. The story suprised me: I was expecting a fairly typical hard sci-fi story. But GIFT is more than that, it includes an excellent look into ethics how they changes as a socirty develops.I recamend this!

Niven has had so many great works that this one is often overlooked. However, I would rate it as his best solo novel (yes, including Ringworld). It deals with the organ-bank problem (what is that? Read the book) and solves it instead of whining about it. I recommend it.

One of the earliest books in the "Known Space" Universe, 'A Gift From Earth' brings us to a struggling colony scratching out a difficult existance on a high plateau- the only habitable spot on the planet! Along with the technical gizmoes thet Sci-Fi fans love, Niven makes some interesting points on the nature of human social interaction. Niven also delves into the paranormal, in a realistic, believable manner. I've read this book many times over the years- I keep coming back to the intriguing storyline and universe that Niven has constructed.

Many of Niven's fans found him through Ringworld, or through the Towering-Inferno-styled paperweights such as "Footfall" or "Lucifer's Hammer".

A Gift from Earth" was my own introduction to Niven's Known Space series. As in much of his early works, the panorama of Known Space is somewhat blurry; "A Gift from Earth" takes place primarily on the colony world of Plateau, a Venuslike planet with a single habitable mountaintop rising above the poisonous mists.

On Mount Lookitthat, the human colony is divided into two castes, Crew and Colonists, and the inevitable social and political tension between the two groups (on a colony where criminals are taken apart for organ transplants) is the core conflict of this novel.

In recent years, Niven's prose has, it seems to me, been heavily overlaid with his present-day political and social ideology (witness the "Think of it as evolution in action" slogan of "Oath of Fealty" or the soapbox opportunities allowed Cadmann Weyland in the Avalon novels. "A Gift from Earth" has none of that overlay. Its protagonist, Matt Keller, falls in with a rebel Colonist underground almost by chance (or so he thinks), and is swept along in the story both by events beyond his control and his own undiscovered talents. The prose is solid, the characters believable within this particular slice of Known Space, and Niven even manages to get through a love scene or two with some class.

Internal consistency within a universe which could conceivably be is the foundation of any good science fiction novel, and Niven acquits himself well along these lines in "A Gift from Earth", and provides a solid easing-in to readers new to Known Space.

This is my first Niven novel and, given his popularity, I have to assume its not one of his better works. The explanation for the hero's talent was a bit too far-fetched and his motivation for penetrating into the dangerous Hospital was extremely weak. There was also that annoying streak of fascism that surfaces so often in science-fiction, particularly that of the "Old Masters." Both oppressor and oppressed alike seem the recognize a need for capital punishment and concealing from the public the true circumstances surrounding it. It is up to extraordinary individuals to make rational choices about what is good for the common man.

I give it three stars for its solid prose and the imaginative story that kept me reading despite the above-mentioned flaws. Still, maybe I should have begun with "Ringworld."

I used to a big Larry Niven (Lawrence Van Colt) fan. And this story is from the days when I would search high and low for a good novel that Larry made. Now, is this novel bad? Not really. Is this novel great? Far from it.

This novel was written at the beginning of the 1970s. So, it's a little dated. This novel was written before the implications of transplants were fully understood; if you have a general transplant you'll spend pretty much the rest of the your life on anti-rejection medicine. Larry's writing treated humans body organs as spare parts; a kidney from person "A" would work just fine in person "B".

There are two parts to this book. First, the main character works and is slightly oppressed by an overclass of "crew"; the dictators of this world. The second part of this book deals with gifts from earth, basically engineered animals that live off the "gunk" in a human body.

I liked this novel. It's fast paced and a fun, light read. It's dated, that's for sure. This was written long before DNA, RNA, and the implications of stem cells. So, while the characters of this novel are taking spare body parts and giving them to another person it's completely out of the gasp to merely grow new parts.

This novel is enjoyable if you're a Niven fan. But if you're not a Niven fan it's plain obsolete. Don't read it. It will sour your taste for better works of Larry. Personally, the short stories in "Neutron Star" and the (somewhat flawed) Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers are Larry's best accomplishments. So, if you read and don't like this novel then you may not read the other three. That would be a shame.

So, if you're not a Niven fan then this novel is a one star. If you're a Niven fan then this old book is three stars. The average is 2 stars; not great.

Enjoy.