Possibly more so, as he nuanced a few things a bit better this time, probably because he'd spent more time thinking about the environment. The plot structure (which is what I care more about anyway) is very strong, and the world-building is as solid as ever. It is maybe 16 years after the first book, and the characters from that have been living happily ever after, leaving this book to a mix of some familiar faces and a all-new cast.Īs ever, Niven's strong point is not his characterization, though this book is better than most for him. That said, I do recommend starting with The Integral Trees, because while the plots are largely independent, this one does build upon the first book. I first discovered the Smoke Ring when this book was serialized in Analog, and had no problem reading this second book first. The sequel to Niven's The Integral Trees, it build upon it and does well as an independent book. Still, the environment remains believably spectacular and one can find enjoyment in seeing Niven puzzle through the physics and mechanical challenges. It was devoid of overt grammatical or spelling mistakes, but one can't read this and think that this was a finished product. You write out the main sequences, intending to go back and fill in the details, make clear some fuzzy points, flesh out the characters, provide transition sentences between paragraphs and scenes, and figure out the pacing for anticipation and suspense. This is what I imagine an early draft looking like. This reminded me a lot of Niven's third Ringworld book, The Ringworld Throne. The writing was about as bad as I read in professionally published science fiction. I would regularly forget who was who and would only figure it out again when they performed one of their stereotypical tasks. Basically the "Scientist" answers the scientific questions, the "Chairman" makes the decisions, and the lusty teenage. I found it difficult to tell them apart from one another here as well. That is in part due to their weak development in the last book but also to the few reminders in this one. I read the Integral Trees just three months ago, but I couldn't recall the identities of the characters when they reappeared in this novel. One can't help but notice, however, that Niven is simply going through the motions of a novel so that he can explore Legrange points and tidal effects. Niven wanted to explore the hard science qualities of the Smoke Ring he had concocted in the second of the series, The Integral Trees, and he threw some background, minor plotting, and a few new characters in so as to be able to call it a novel. performed merely as a routine duty hasty and superficial: Such is the dominant quality of this book. He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.Īdjective 1. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996. Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource. Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld(Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards.
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