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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Different perspective on existing stories, October 26, 2008
This is a revisiting of a number of the "Known Space" stories, from the perspective of a professional paranoid. Sigmund Ausfaller is a UN law officer, and professional paranoid, albeit a natural paranoid rather than a chemically induced one, like some of his peers.
Sigmund gets a human face, as his sordid past is revealed, his romantic life is considered, and his fears for the human race are discussed. And the key question; 'is he paranoid enough' is addressed. Even uglier than his role as a paranoid cop is his background as... [say it in hushed tones] a revenuer. His girlfriend is industrial grade crazy (as bad as your story is, his takes the cake). And his worst paranoid concerns for humanity fall short of the reality.
I enjoyed it immensely. This one filled in the gaps between many of the 'Known Space' stories from a very different perspective, and shed light on the wherefores and whys behind the incidents described in other works. Because of this, the criticisms of recycled material are valid, as they included much earlier work, and invalid, as the material was needed to make the story work for someone who hadn't read any of this body of work earlier. And in the end, it heads off in a new direction.
An excellent addition to the "Known Space" series, and a worthwhile read.
E. M. Van Court
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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
What's my Motivation?, October 14, 2008
Niven and Lerner's "Juggler of Worlds" starts a bit before their Fleet of Worlds, intertwines with it (and with other works) for a stretch, and then finishes a tad after it. If you're going to read the pair, "Fleet of Worlds" should come first as the latter part of this book depends on what happened in the other book.
*Technically*, the writing, science and linkages to Niven's "Known Space" are very good. But, that linkage leads to this book's downfall. It feels more like a connect-the-dots chronicle than a story in its own right. Specifically, for two thirds of the book, there's really no explanation of why we're reading the book. It's just one thing after another relating to material in other Niven works with nothing explaining where THIS material is going. It's not until the last third of the book (after "Fleet of Worlds" ends) that anything resembling a motivation appears.
It pains me to have to rate the book down since it should have been a very good book. But, its choppiness and lack of motivation mean I can only rate it at an OK three stars out of 5.
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Largely a re-hash, September 22, 2008
Juggler of Worlds follows Sigmund Ausfaller over an extended arc, from the incident that led to him joining the ARMs to the very latest in the efforts to secure the future of New Terra (the human ex-slave world being used as a "scout" ahead of the Puppeteers' fleet of worlds). A promising beginning, and a rewarding end. But in between there's a certain amount of disappointment. For one thing, it's a rougher read than most Niven work: some of the narrative seems oddly clipped or truncated, as if whole pages had been edited out with little effort to make the story still flow. But the bigger problem is that most of the major incidents in the book are not new. They are re-hashes of key pieces of other novels or short stories. Some I think have been copied verbatim, while others have evidently been either edited or written over so that they are viewed from Sigmund's perspective. I respect this as an interesting idea, and I don't suppose it was always easy to pull all the ends together. And there were some intriguing insights to be gleaned from the new perspective: sometimes it felt like walking "behind the set" of a story I read years ago. But overall, for me, having read all the prior works, this book was a pretty good read interrupted by one <groan> after another - "oh, *that* story again". Taken as a whole it just did not work very well for me. If you have not been a regular Niven reader, or it's been a long time since you re-read things like Tales of Known Space, you may find this book more enjoyable than I did. In any case, you can't really skip it; just be prepared for what it is.
PS. FWIW, this book is *absolutely* a "derivative work" but it contains no acknowledgment of the prior copyright registrations of the many parts that have been re-used. I think this makes the copyright registration of this work invalid, and if the publisher realizes this they should recall the whole first printing and do it over. Could be a collector's item in the making?
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