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Gregory Benford

Larry Niven

Bowl of Heaven: A Novel Hardcover – October 16, 2012

by Gregory Benford (Author), Larry Niven (Author)

4.0 1,357 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Bowl of Heaven

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SF masters Gregory Benford and Larry Niven spin a tale of alien encounters and strange technologies on an epic scale

In Bowl of Heaven, the first collaboration by science fiction authors Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths…and it's on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when the explorers are separated―one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape―the mystery of the Bowl's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that will transform their understanding of their place in the universe.

Book 1 of 3

Bowl of Heaven
Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Books
Publication date

October 16, 2012
Dimensions

6.45 x 1.42 x 9.57 inches
ISBN-10

9780765328410
ISBN-13

978-0765328410
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Bowl of Heaven is the first installment of what will be the biggest sci-fi saga since―well, since ever. If only more of us could share the authors’ visions, and optimism” ―The Wall Street Journal

“It's easy to settle in and enjoy the sci-fi smorgasbord served up by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. . .There's a lot to savor. Fans of so-called "hard science fiction" will enjoy the descriptions of ionic scoop fusion drives and all the solar-powered gadgets put to practical use during deep space exploration.” ―The Associated Press

“If you like hard SF with mind-stretching ideas--both physical and psychological--then you definitely want to read this book.” ―Analog

“It's been more than 40 years since Ringworld and nearly that long since the Galactic Center Saga knocked our socks off, and I wonder how much it takes these days to render us barefoot and gaping at the scale and scope of an imaginary world. . . . But Benford & Niven have given themselves the space (conceptual and page-count) to spread out. Bowl of Heaven has room to accommodate both the thrill-ride and head-scratching sides of its sub-tradition, and I think when the second half appears, this new effort by two of the Old Masters will hold its own just fine.” ―Locus

“First-time collaborators Niven (Ringworld series; coauthor, Beowulf's Children) and Benford (Timescape; Galactic Center series) have combined their award-winning talents for storytelling to create a series opener that should find a welcome reception from fans of the authors as well as those who love hard science and mental challenges.” ―Library Journal

“A solid work that will appeal to fans of classic hard SF.” ―Publishers Weekly

About the Author

GREGORY BENFORD is professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine, and lives in Irvine. Benford is a winner of the United Nations Medal for Literature, and the Nebula Award for his classic novel Timescape.

LARRY NIVEN is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf's Children, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0765328410
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Edition (October 16, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780765328410
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765328410
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 1.42 x 9.57 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,390,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,594 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #4,619 in Alien Invasion Science Fiction
- #5,606 in First Contact Science Fiction (Books)

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4.0 1,357 ratings

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Larry Niven
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LARRY NIVEN is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. He lives in Chatsworth, California. JERRY POURNELLE is an essayist, journalist, and science fiction author. He has advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering, and political science. Together Niven and Pournelle are the authors of many New York Times bestsellers including Inferno, The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall, and Lucifer's Hammer.
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Gregory Benford
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Gregory Benford, author of top-selling novels, including Jupiter Project, Artifact, Against Infinity, Eater, and Timescape, is that unusual creative combination of scientist scholar and talented artist; his stories capture readers – hearts and minds – with imaginative leaps into the future of science and of us.
A University of California faculty member since 1971, Benford has conducted research in plasma turbulence theory and experiment, and in astrophysics. His published scientific articles include well over a hundred papers in fields of physics from condensed matter, particle physics, plasmas and mathematical physics, and several in biological conservation.
Often called hard science fiction, Benford's stories take physics into inspired realms. What would happen if cryonics worked and people, frozen, were awoken 50 years in the future? What might we encounter in other dimensions? How about sending messages across time? And finding aliens in our midst? The questions that physics and scientists ask, Benford's imagination explores.
With the re-release of some of his earlier works and the new release of current stories and novels, Benford takes the lead in creating science fiction that intrigues and amuses us while also pushing us to think.
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elhigh

Not their best but not bad either.

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2015

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Larry Niven has some ideas he really enjoys, and this returns to the tried-and-true Big Dumb Object. Later it turns out to be a Big Smart Object but not in this book.

No spoilers here!

In Niven's masterpiece "Ringworld" explorers, crash-landed on the largest artifact ever discovered, raced to an escape. Little time was spent on exploration, cultural exposition or even, really, learning about the thing itself. It was an adventure to discover a way off the Ringworld. "Bowl of Heaven" spends a lot more time showing us how the populations on the Bowl of Heaven interact, which is a much more engaging story in certain respects. Not much effort is wasted on the awe and wonder of the humans encountering the Bowl which, to those of us familiar with Niven, is really only an extension of familiar concepts.

The characters aren't especially engaging. That was unfortunate. I was always very fond of, for instance, Louis Wu and Corbell (from World Out of Time), who I thought were pretty well developed characters. The most highly developed characters in this story, however, are the Bowl natives. I haven't read much of Benford and so cannot speak to his character development and whether or not this story is more exemplary of his practices.

The story moves along pretty well. I did enjoy how it would show events from more than one point of view, that was illuminating and welcome.

All in all it was worth a read and I will probably read it again someday.

4 people found this helpful

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NMH

Scifi from Scientists

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2013

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Benford and Niven have been writing techno-scifi for years and do a damn good job of it. Although they sometimes get a little carried away with their technical explanations, you can always be assured the "science" in their scifi always accords with the universal laws of physics.

The story: Earth is overpopulated and polluted. A new planet has been found that seems able to support human life and shows no signs of already being inhabited by intelligent beings. A slower-than-light (STL) starship, with most of the crew either in deep sleep mode for the whole trip, or being awakened periodically for short periods to perform maintenance, is headed for the new star when it encounters a massive object in deep space, heading in what appears to be the same direction. The object turns out to be a very strange starship inhabited by intelligent, bird-like creatures.

When the Earth humans manage to board the strange ship half of the landing crew is immediately captured while the other half manage to stumble around getting into trouble and making big messes. The bird-masters of the ship find the humans as strange and scary as the humans do the birds.

It's an excellently written story. My only complaint is that it's just the first installment in a longer story. Since this isn't mentioned anywhere on the book jacket, from the reader's perspective, just as the story is really getting good, it ends!

I'm anxiously awaiting the second book.

3 people found this helpful

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Jim Carmichael

Are you kidding me?

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2015

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Caution - Some spoilers
Disappointment. Gregory Benford and Larry Niven are accomplished writers and worth while reads pretty much any time. This novel is their Rama and on many levels it is a worthy successor to that novel/series. If you don't know Rama, this review may not be as helpful as you would like.
My biggest complaint is that this book and whatever book completes the story are one book. Full stop. I can only believe that the story was divided in half to generate more income. The result here is that you get to the end of the book and the story just truncates. Not even a cliff hanger. Just stops and hey if you were interested in anything that had gone on in the last few hours of reading, you can buy the rest of the story; just throw some more money. Thing is, these are award winning authors who shouldn't need to resort to this sort of tom-foolery to get a paycheck. And even if they did need the cash, could they not have written the story line with a clear termination point or whatever to bring this story to some closure and still leave you wanting more?
As for that story I remember that Rama was criticized by some as being a schematic set to prose. Here there is a little less of that but the characters are no stronger at best. Worse still, there is the obligatory preachy-ness about man-mad climate change and global politics that I personally find offensive. Not a lot mind you, but it is there. I guess it is required by the pseudointellectuals that seem to be running most literature these days.
That accompanied by a lack of real mission purpose or back ground, just some vague references to other missions and technology to get things rolling. Never mind the known weaknesses of the described drive. Never mind the lack of preparedness by the entire mission. Seriously, a less than 5% decrease in drive performance puts the entire mission at risk due to lack of supplies. Really? No wonder the aliens didn't take the humans very seriously. I wonder if the authors take humans very seriously.
Speaking of the Aliens, here the authors have done much better. Pretty good stuff by any standard I think. Aliens and more than one group. Communication will always be the problem. I see the twist coming, I think I am supposed to see it coming, without reading the second half of the story I can't say where this is going but I'm pretty sure where it has been.
Over all I suppose it worth the time, I'm just not sure it is worth the price of two books. Personally, I would like to care about the characters just a bit more. I still can decide if it is worth the price to find out.

3 people found this helpful

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Stephen Maxson Customer

a new beginning

Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2023

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No darkness for sleep, just light and constant up time.
Bound for glory but stuck on heavens bowl
A place for collecting ages

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RobR

Great read and a couple of niggles

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2012

Verified Purchase

I have been a long-time fan of Niven and have also read a lot of Benford, so I was looking forward to this book. I'm pleased to say that with a couple of reservatios I found the novel engrossing.

Like other reviewers I noticed some editorial issues, characters injured, fixed, and then injured again, timeline troubles and the 'infamous' abrupt ending. Although these issues possibly shouldn't have made it into the final draft once seen and understood they had little affect on my eventual enjoyment of this novel.

It's well worth a read and has all the things fans want from a Niven/Benford collaboration. Sense of Wonder, intersting aliens and an ever present sense of exploration - What's over the next hill, around the corner, down that canyon?

Old fashioned? Yes. Is that a problem? No.

Bring on the next volume, i want to know what happens.

One person found this helpful

Big Bill

The start of another outstanding series.

Reviewed in Canada on February 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

These authors are well known for their work. Here we have a variant on Ringworld. Here we have a civilization that has a construct shaped like a cup. Spin the cup to create centrifugal gravity on the inside edge of the lip. As you move towards what would be the bottom of the cup, travelling on the inside, the gravity drops off as you go towards the bottom centre. Now put a star at the top centre of the cup across the diameter of the lip. Now make a hole at the bottom of the cup and put some big mirrors around there. Focus the mirrors on the surface of the star nearest the hole , and you will (hopefully) create a hot spot , and hence a jet of star plasma. Magnetically focus the jet through the hole and you have got yourself a really really large space ship. Need some mechanism to contain the atmosphere , but whoever built it seems capable of that.
That's the premise. Some humans leave Earth in a Ram Torch ship , mostly in cold sleep hibernation , and encounter the object while on their way to another star to homestead a promising planet. Great stuff , surprises with leading implications aplenty. A variety of interesting aliens . Second book called Shipstar comes out in Apr 2014. You can get the book described here , in hardcover , pretty cheap new , as it is awhile since it was published. Also available on the used market. Kindle people ;
you should get it too.
We got a few books to go until this is exhausted , and therefore there is no sign of Protectors , Puppeteers , Kzin , or the other Ringworld yet , but I for one am holding out hope for later. The humans left earth around 2300 , I think , could be wrong , and travelled in the Torch ship for 80 years of their ship time at .08 of c to get to the bowl/cup . So what year is it really?

2 people found this helpful

Mr. Mark Parker

Very poor book not worthy of the authors

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

OK, just finished it and yes it is dire; hard to believe it was actually written by Niven. I did know upfront (having read the reviews here) that it would not be a complete story and we have to wait to 2015 to get the next, and guaranteed final, installment. But that ending was abrupt in the extreme - no attempt at all was made to package the narrative; it ended like a chapter would end - neither cliff-hanger nor partial resolution.

At the start of the book the narrative style is on a par with what a 12-year-old might write. For example alien plants and animals are routinely described as "strange" - I'm afraid I cannot picture a "strange" animal, I need more. It does improve as the book progresses but never rises to a level deserving of publication. And talking of progress, for some reason every single instance of the word "progress" has a mysterious space in it, ie "pro gress"; also the word "plea sure" but that only occurs once.

The plot errors are glaring and the action unlikely. Internal consistency is mandatory in SF and it's missing here. In micro-gravity people still get stamped on and walls are climbed. The internal layout of the spaceship is never described and I have no idea where the characters eat or sleep or work on board. Do they have cabins? Or go back and sleep in their suspended animation units due to lack of space elsewhere? And talking of suspended animation - our hero wakes after eighty years of sleep and tucks into some biscuits he packed as a wake-up snack! Eighty-year-old food? I wouldn't. And on rising he then takes several chapters to even inquire after news from Earth. And news when it does come is entirely technical. You'd think the Earthians would upload newspapers, TV programs, personal emails with family news and the ship would probably even get unofficial transmissions from amateurs. But no, just really boring techy stuff.

The chronology is inconsistent with characters referring to things which haven't happened yet and in the early sections of the book everything is narrated twice, like both authors had a go and they just used both texts rather than merging them. It does get better though. I'm guessing one author took over and did all the writing for the second half.

The characters are sketchy and there are too many of them. After finishing the book I could not name most of them and have no feel for them. The authors should have had one team of four people land on the bowl and a couple of people left awake on the ship, with the option to wake more if needed. (We are never even told how many people there are on the ship.) A reader can pretty much keep track of four characters, more and you're losing them. And the technological capabilities need to be described upfront - suddenly pulling out a phone or a laser is deus ex machina unless you declare it in advance. And the "beamer" - it seems to flip, sometimes it's being used to cook food and other times to talk to the Sunseeker. Is it some kind of laser they are hand-targeting onto a ship a million miles away? Good luck with that.

And a special mention should be made of clothing. I'm pretty certain the landing party starts off in spacesuits; and they break into the bowl in spacesuits; and then they scamper off through the forest... in spacesuits. At what point are we supposed to assume they stopped wearing spacesuits? Or are they still hunting and fishing in spacesuits?

The main reason for reading a review is to answer the question: should I buy this book? I'd say, no. It's not good; not really interesting or thought-provoking, the poor writing will annoy you, and you are committed to buying another book not yet published (as of Sept 2014) to get the complete story. So give it a miss.

12 people found this helpful

BruceMc

Incomplete story that leaves you wondering

Reviewed in Australia on May 9, 2016

Verified Purchase

A ramscoop starship has set off from Earth for a star that appears to have a habitable planet. Just a few crew pilot the ship at any time with most of the crew in cold storage. But after a couple of centuries (Earth time), the crew encounter anomalies, both with the ship's drive and a large object ahead, and so they decide they need to wake up others to help them out. The large object ahead turns out to be a large bowl-shaped object surrounding a small star. After deciding that they will not make their destination, they wake the captain and convince that they need to rendezvous with the bowl and perhaps gather new supplies to help them reach their eventual destination. They send down a scouting party, which becomes divided in two. One half is captured by the giant bird-like aliens that inhabit and command the bowl. The other half struggle to survive in the strange surroundings.

In my opinion, the story is slow in developing. The outward trip is similar to many other deep-sleep interstellar trips. The real excitement happens when they first encounter and rendezvous with the Bowl. But then the story descends into a more monotonous tone, with long descriptions of incarceration, tedious trips across a wilderness that could be literally anywhere, and encounters with alien beings of varying natures. In my opinion, a lot of this could have been cut without losing much from the story. Then from chapter 40 (out of 49), the action develops more strongly, but the book ends prematurely without any resolution, thus obliging the reader to move onto volume 2.

I feel that this is not the best work produced by Larry Niven. Ringworld has a similar setting with more interesting and quirky characters that are unforgettable. And Ringworld has more action too. I only hope that volume 2, Shipstar, provides a more satisfactory ending. I give this book a mark of 3 out of 5.

I. A. Jakubiak

another great story by the duo

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2014

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This is another space opera, similar in conception to the Ringworld. It is an alternative universe, not a story from the Known Space. The pace is different and less personal - but it is a hard SF and quite enjoyable. I already pre-booked the sequel.

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