Customer Reviews

LEGACY OF HEOROT

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a Niven/Pournelle fan but this one isn't as good as, say, "The Mote in God's Eye." There is lots of action, but some of it is hard to follow, and the spaces between the action sequences are a bit heavy-handed with the suspense-creating devices (you can almost hear the cellos from Jaws going duuuuuh DUH!! duuuuuh DUH!!) as well as being thin on characterization.

You will find a fascinating alien world and people in peril, but you won't find a moving human story. There also seems to be too much sex in this book--but whether this is a plus or a minus I'll let you decide.

Why Hollywood has not made a movie from this book is a mystery to me. It has a creature that would eat the "Alien" for a snack and come back for the "Predator" as the main course. Adrenalin-pumping, fast-paced thriller set on an Earth-like planet being colonized by humans. Everything goes well, until they tangle with the 'Grendel', than all hell breaks loose. One of those stories that can be read and re-read, (I usually read it about once a year.) Very good SF which requires literally no suspension-of-disbelief. Has lots of lessons on ecology intertwined with the plot. I love it!

This book was really entertaining but definitely not the best place to start for the works of Niven/Pournelle (I'm not sure what Barnes contributed) they seem to be slumming a little bit on the ideas here, the Grendels are the only really new idea and the secret to their life cycle isn't all that impressive and easily dealt with, unlike say the Moties. The beginning scenes with them are great as the authors pour on the suspense and horror but by the end they're just this faceless horde that keeps coming, scary not because they're frightening but because theirs so friggin' many of them. In my opinion it reduces the book to little more than an action movie romp, with the big men strapped on guns and blasting away. Though the strategy stuff is interesting but considering that the Grendels are nearly mindless except for animal cunning, it's not like they're going up against suprageniuses. That and the characters, while drawn enough so you can care about them a little, aren't all that deep, the motivations for coming onto the planet aren't delved into all that deeply. Most of them stick to one type of personality and stick to it without change, heck if I want to read cardboard characters, I'll go get an Ayn Rand novel (ooh, that's one is asking for it, maybe Amazon will delete it to avoid contraversy). But they are sympathetic at least even if everyone seems to think about sex, with or without making babies. Am I being harsh on this book . . . well considering how much better the team has done before, it's probably warranted but at the same time this isn't bad, it's just not as idea driven as the other novel, you sort of check your brains at the door, sit back, relax and have a little fun. It's not even that long. So go try the others first and come to this to see what Niven and Pournelle are like on auto-pilot and you'll see what I mean.

In response to Mr. Palermo's simplistic take on this book, I must say I disagree 100%.

This is not a slaughter-fest. (That's been done better by worse writers.) Nor is it flag-waving advertisment for technological dominance of the natural world. Far from it! This book is about US: fat, lazy, complacent humans being smacked back into reality by coming face to face with their weaknesses. The Grendel is just a catalyst, and the REAL carnage goes on inside the minds and souls of the colonists who must wrest peace and sanity from an alien wilderness that is, at the very least, out to get them.

But then, we in the 21st century feel so safe and snug. It's a shame we've lost the lessons learned by our ancestors so many thousands of years ago. People today are so quick to bash the 'sins' of the modern world, and praise the virtues of the 'poor' wild animals. We've gotten so soft and spineless, now we're trying to give our pets virtually the same status as ourselves, at least in a legal sense. How foolish and stupid we've become. The modern world could use a few Grendels, if only to quash all this silliness about animal 'rights' being equal to human 'rights'. I'm not saying we should mindlessly slaughter animals or abuse pets, but we need some damned perspective as far as where we stand in the Grand Scheme and where all other animals stand. We're #1 for a reason!

In essence, "Legacy of Heorot" is a shout to the universe: We're MEN by God, and we'll make our place in the world no matter what! In the end, Men and Grendels retain domain over their different lands. Men hold the island of Avalon, Grendels hold the mainland. A safe distance lies between, and each species haunts the dreams of the other. There is no winner or loser. Just survivors, who have learned the hard lessons of treading on each other's territory. Man might be seen as the winner, maybe, if only because he's finally been snapped out of his complacency. On Avalon, men learn what it is to LIVE again. Which is why all the characters set off from Earth in the first place.

I'm not sure if Mr. Palermo read the whole book or not. Having read it, I am just dumb struck by how far off the mark Palermo is in his review. By his account, you'd think humans nuked the surface of Tau Ceti Four, blasted it free of all life, paved it over, set up a shopping mall, and then laughed evily as they ate cheeseburgers while wearing the hides of all the animals they mercilessly murdered. Which is just so far off the mark it boggles the mind.

This book is a naturalist's classic in the spirit of Jack London: wild, vast, natural riches await the human adventure, with both enticements and danger. The scale of the riches are matched only by the scale of the danger. And there is very real danger on Tau Ceti Four. Humans pay a price for their foolishness, and only survive after having learned to respect their wild, new home. Respect, and defend against it. As the grandfathers of the human race did for countless generations, thousands of years ago. Back then, there was no talk of 'animal rights'. And rightly so.

Anyway, as the title to this review says, Tree-huggers beware. No matter how much you try and doll up the natural world to suit your delusions, Nature has Her own way. She's brutal, nasty, and never conforms to how humans might want things. Give her a choice, and she'll make us sleep with the fishes. Whatever we want from Nature, we have to TAKE IT. That's probably a dirty way to put things in this day of politically correct censorship, but it's the way of life just the same.

I hope the first space colonists read this novel, hundreds of years from now as they launch to the stars. If it makes them reconsider themselves even a little bit, then they and their children might be better off. Before they plant the flag on alien soil, they might do well to remember what our ancient grandfathers knew too well. They might do well to remember the Grendels. Both without, and within.

I am just amazed at some of the criticism of this story,and the assumptions of what the authors were trying to say. Maybe they just had an idea of a story that would be fun and captivating to read. If so, they did it! This is one of those books, like many of Niven's, that you begin to read and just can't put it down.

If the authors were trying to make any particular point, it was probably (but I haven't written to them, so I and the rest of the reviewers don't really know) concerning our disregard for nature and its power in our attempts to conquer it. I know of two relatively recent movies concerning the perils of hunting a species to extinction. One, that bad but amusing Star Trek movie with the Save the Whales theme, and Medicine Man. There are quite a few real life examples of the us "modifying" the environment without truly understanding the potential repercussions. The introduction of kudzu to the US comes to mind as an example.

They may not have been trying to make a social statement -- only trying to write a captivating story. And they wrote one. But they also gave a horrific example of rushing to modify the environment without understanding the potential repercussions.

The previous comparisons to Aliens and Predator are apt. At its heart this is a novel of man vs alien. It is a little slow to start but once it gets rolling it is difficult to put down. One of the aspects of the book that I found most intriguing however, is the injection of actual, well thought out science that is usually missing in most "killer alien" stories. Grendels make sense in both how they look, function and their place in the overall ecology of the planet. This is definitely a book worth reading if you are partial to the "shoot-em-up" types of science fiction.

I was expecting a better book based on all the praise. It was a fairly entertaining book to read but when I closed it and put it back on the shelf, I was left unsatisfied. It reads as though it was once a 150 page book that was fleshed out in a haphazard attempt to include some character development. I certainly have nothing against character development, but it can't be a patchwork effort. I enjoyed the ideas and the action but I just couldn't swallow the people :-)

The first wave of 200 settlers have established an outpost called Avalon on Tau Ceti Four on an island called Camelot. The atmosphere and gravity is pretty much the same as Earth. Vegetables, plants, and animals from Earth are being introduced to the alien environment with mixed results. One thing all of the settlers agree on is that one day the entire planet will be covered with humanity, since there isn't any indigenous intelligent life. Or is there?

The 200 settlers are specialized in particular fields and are supposed to be the cream of the crop in their specialty. One thing scientists back on Earth didn't plan for was that during the cryogenic freezing they had to undergo, some would suffer minor brain damage. A few become idiots, some just lose some of the power of memory or critical thinking. All in all, things are going very well.

Colonel Cadmann Weylan the military representative and war veteran believes they are going too well, that the colony's security and vigilance is becoming soft. The perimeter of the site is left in disrepair and if he didn't fix it himself, they would be defenceless. He can't quite put his finger on his worry. It becomes apparent when a amphibian alien, similar to Earth's komodo dragons, dubbed a Grendel, finds a taste for terran lifeforms which could lead to the destruction of Avalon. The alien has intelligence and is superfast and a killing machine.

The colony is also suffering from internal dissension. Weylan is treated as a goofball because of his constant vigilance. Plus he is in love with Sylvia Faulkland, who just happens to be married to another man, and also pregant with that man's baby. The problem is that the husband knows. Zack Moscowitz, the leader of the colony feels threatened by Weyland's failure to go along with the status quo.

You would think that the combination of three respected science fiction writers would produce a masterpiece for the ages. Much like music supergroups, the end product ends up no better than the artists produce seperately. Sometimes, it's even worse. The same is true here. The book is entertaining, but light years short of being a classic.

I liked the relationships in the book. There was some effort to build them between the characters. The bad things about it were the usual gaps in logic that have to exist to make books and movies about monsters work. For people to be killed by a monster they have to be really stupid. The colonists here reject the reality of the monster that is killing them even when there is strong evidence. For example, they have a speedboat race knowing that there could be a Grendel in the water. The fact that the planet is just like Earth reminds me of the old Star Trek episodes where every planet had an earthlike atmosphere. To expect the plants of Earth and other animals, like fish, to thrive there, is beyond belief to me. Another thing is that the thought processes of the Grendels are similar to that of the shark in Jaws in Peter Benchley's novel. "Must eat. Kill. Must challenge the pale lifeforms." Actually, this reads more like the dialogue of the indcredible hulk. This novel is also very similar to scenes of James Cameron's Aliens. Actually, parts of Ridley Scott's Alien also. Seeing as how it was published in 1987, one year after Aliens, it makes the plot even more suspicous. Well, for the usual bestseller dreck, this book is pretty good. It's worth reading, but don't think too much. I'm surprised it hasn't been made into a movie yet. It would make a good Michael Bay film.

A definite must read for anyone who likes a fast-paced story with the kind of suspense that gets your own adrenaline running. This is the kind of book that you read in one long session, then to find out when you put it down that all your muscles have cramped up from the tension so much that you can hardly walk anymore. I can't summarise it without giving away the plot; all I'll say is that it surprised me. Very good read.

Legacy of Heorot is an excellent sci-fi novel that has similarities to "Aliens" and "Predator". I think the book was fast-paced and intense. I thoroughly recommend this novel for any sci-fi lover.