Customer Reviews

Protector

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Even in the world of hard science-fiction authors, Larry Niven is a bit peculiar. His ideas, while always grounded in the physical sciences and defensible, are frequently beyond any kind of normal, logical leap. Niven's longtime collaborator Jerry Pournelle ("The Mote in God's Eye", among others) has been quoted as saying that he writes with Niven because Niven "is the crazy one."

"Ringworld" is Niven's most enduring work, but "Protector" is, in some ways, a better example of his talent for amazing logical leaps. Niven has described the premise this way: "Every symptom of aging in man is an aborted version of something designed to make us stronger. In particular, we lose intelligence with age because we were supposed to grow more brain tissue, when the thymus gland dissolves around age 42-45."

In "Protector," this thesis is demonstrated by the appearance of the first alien species to contact humanity: the Pak. We learn that Earth was a failed Pak colony; homo habilis is the Pak breeder stage. At about middle age, homo habilis was supposed to eat a certain plant that would trigger the change to the sexless, armored, highly intelligent protectors. Pak protectors have other notable traits as well, some of which may come as a surprise to those used to more traditional tales of immortality.

This is an early Niven story, and plotting was not his strong point until relatively recently. Mainly the plot is a thinly-veiled excuse to learn more about the Pak. Of the characters, only centegenarian Lucas Garner and belter Jack Brennan seem to be more than placeholders. The ideas in the novel, however, make up for many of the more obvious flaws.

I'm not qualified to comment on the scientific plausibility of Niven's ideas. I will note that some linguists have ridiculed Niven's use of "Pak" and "Phssthpok" as words invented by a species with a hard beak for a mouth, and no lips. More recent fossil discoveries have suggested that our evolutionary heritage may be far more complex than was known in 1973, but Niven can hardly be blamed for not anticipating new scientific discoveries in the interim.

Other reviewers have noted that this novel was later referenced heavily by Niven's "Ringworld" novels, particularly "Ringworld Engineers" and "Ringworld Throne." You don't need to read this one to enjoy the Ringworld novels, but it's definitely more fun that way.

For Niven fans, I recommend this book without hesitation. For those who haven't yet met Larry Niven, pick up "Ringworld" first.

This is a crucial book to read to gain the full picture of what is involved in the Ringworld novels. The Pak Protectors are quite a race. They are both complicated in origin, but simple in purpose. This book was very interesting, as it describes the evolution of the protectors more than the Ringworld novels do. Larry Niven is a genius at the technical side of Science Fiction, and this novel was facinating and filled with action. I enjoyed it from many angles.

Often overlooked in comparission to the Ringworld series of books is Protector. And this is a shame as it is one of the keys to Larry Niven's wonderland known as Known Space.

The Pak race has a three stage life cycle. Childhood (self explanitory); breeder (adulthood) and with the Tree Of Life Root becomes the sexless (both in deed and form) ultra smart Protector.

Phssthpok is a childless (meaning he will die soon) Protector who has traveled from the galaxy's core to save a lost colony of Pak Breeder whose Protectors have died out. What is this lost colony? Well it is the third planet from a medium yellow star. Phssthpok sets into motion a set of events that will change all of Known Space.

You can read other novels of Known Space without ever reading Protector but reading it makes the expierence all the more richer.

Would you trade away some of your humanity to become faster, stronger, smarter and nearly immortal? This is one of the things you will ponder as you read this novel.

A very enjoyable read.

Protector is an interesting, fast story that will leave you wanting more. Our protector, a Belter (lives in the asteroid belt) named Brennan is transformed by an alien virus into a protector for us lowly breeders. Taking the threory of the stingy genes one step further, a protector is a super being whose only purpose is to protect his progeny. Without decendents a protector simply stops eating and dies. Lucky for us Brennan is infected with this virus and made a protector, because our parent race, the Pak, is on their way and will not be pleased when they find us.

What can you say about this tale to someone who hasn't read it? How about that if they want to get to know excellent science-fiction, or if they just want a story with crackling dialogue, pages bursting with ideas, and an essential part of an ongoing Future History, or an combination of the previous, then they don't have to look any further than this novel?

I might even consider this book better than Ringworld, mostly because I can comprehend the ideas better and the plot was easier to follow than the other book. Also, this novel is one that most of the other Known Space stories refer to, making it a must for any Larry Niven fan.

The story of the Pak Protectors is also essental to the Ringworld saga, as anyone who read The Ringworld Engineers would know. But I don't want to spoil the surprise, or the sheer joy of reading a classic novel for anyone. Just go out and buy the book, borrow it from the library, or steal it from a friend, already! What more do you want?

Protector is fairly entertaining. If you're looking for a quick, fun read, or if you want to pursue other Known Space books (especially the Ringworld series), go ahead and pick up Protector. If you're looking for high drama and/or deep characters that you can care for, Protector probably isn't for you. One of the things I like about this book, and other Niven books, for that matter, is that *most* of the science is solid. The descriptions of certain technologies are detailed enough to be intriguing and enjoyable for anyone.

This story, set early in the "Known Space" period, is an important part of Larry Niven's future universe, full of his accustomed ingenuity in both the plots and the science. The Protectors don't fit quite comfortably into the "Known Space" Universe, and have raised some problems later, for example in the famous "Man-Kzin Wars," where the "Known Space" universe has been shared by other writers, including Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, SM Stirling and Hal Colebatch, but the story is fine space opera and entertainment, and has a genuine sense of strangeness and wonder that all too often is lacking from contemporary SF.

Man has pretty much conquered inner space. The Moon, Mars, Mercury, asteroid mining, spaceships, fusion drives, human hibernation to cope with long journeys and boredom...the hard sci-fi fan has plenty to enjoy here. Niven is good at picking up realistic science, across the disciplines, particularly physics and biology, and taking the ideas to the next stage, and the next, and the next. By and large it hangs together well. But the real reason I like this one is the entertaining alien species, the Pak. The pinnacle of evolutionary success for this race is the Protector, the full-adult warrior class member who lives to fight and further his genetic blood line by winning territory and destroying all competition. It is as if Mr Niven anticipated Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene' hypothesis and 'Independence Day' in a leap of the imagination one day in the early 1970's. The nearest thing on earth to the Pak was probably the militaristic Spartan civilisation of ancient Greece. And now the Pak are coming. Earth is a failed Pak colony, a two-and-a-half million year old experiment gone awry. Man was never meant to evolve under his own steam. They want their territory back...

Protector


I went into this book thinking that it would be the story of a really old alien who came to earth and found something in us worth saving. Boy, was I in for a surprise. The biggest was that very little time was spent with the original alien at all; in all the story was passed through three different narrators before its completion - not a challenge to the story but interesting when I had expected the main voice to stick with grandpa-ET the whole time.

What did I like about this book? I liked the fact that it recognized that people were missing something. Even though we've evolved into this form and this way of life - we are missing something; and although the author didn't put this much into words he did address it indirectly by providing the solution: we weren't always like this.

In fact, at one time we were very different from who we are now as a species, and something happened that made us lose a part of ourselves, a part that we've been missing ever since - and that msising has been gnawing away at us for some time.

I liked the book. I read it in a single sitting, so it wasn't hard to go with. It turned out well; a little lackluster as far as endings go and maybe the plot didn't move as fast as it could. The problems that characters faced were all solved without much effort or ingenuity involved on their parts, seemingly - and I didn't find myself engaged by that much. Sure there was some killing and explosions - but those aren't why I read books and they aren't that good in books anyway.

I would read it again, it was worth the $4 I paid for it buying it from Powell's in Portland, but Amazon has some great copies too I'm sure, I just didn't want to wait for them to arrive.

Good luck, and enjoy discerning if there's a little Pak in you too.

Dr. Dominic Ebacher
ebacherdom.blogspot.com
071108.0221

Imagine a race of beings that:
Are so hyper-intelligent that they never invented computers. It never occured to them to devise a machine to help them think.

Abandoned interstellar travel because it was useless. Except to kill off a few close-by competitive races. And they invented interstellar travel w/o computers, remember.

Are very long-lived. Maybe immortal. They don't grow old since they always die a violent death.

Are amazingly strong with lightning-quick reflexes.

Are Very warlike.

Are EXTREME XENOPHOBES.

And you have to fight them. Actually, this would be a good basis for another Niven book. But Protector does a great job of introducing this race to his future history. The middle third of the story is rather slow, but it picks up again for the final third. Great book. And essential to understand, not just the one or two books that other have mentioned (giving away part of the plot for those books)but the place of Humanity in the Known Space Universe.

A Protector could eat a Klingon for lunch. And wouldn't even enjoy it. A Must Read for the space-loving scifi fan.