An involving and engrossing addition to one of science fiction’s grand sagas.
The fourth and seemingly last visit to Niven’s spectacular ring-shaped space habitat (The Ringworld Throne, 1996, etc.), whose livable surface area is three million times that of planet Earth.
Earth explorer Louis Wu, trapped on the Ringworld along with the Hindmost, a timorous, manipulative alien, finds the Ringworld’s very survival threatened by the Fringe War, a motley collection of human and alien spaceships that fight among themselves, each hoping to conquer (or at least land on) the Ringworld and learn its fabulous scientific secrets. However, the Ringworld’s own defenses and the vigilance of the blindingly fast, armored, sexless, superintelligent Ghoul protector, Tunesmith, prevent the Fringe Warriors from prevailing. Tunesmith, Louis suspects, intends to make Louis himself into a protector. Finally, the Fringe War erupts when an antimatter bomb blows a hole in the Ringworld through which the atmosphere would drain and be lost to space in a matter of days. Another complication arises with the emergence of Proserpina, an ancient protector who claims to be a Pak, one of the Ringworld’s vanished builders (protectors vigorously compete to protect their own species’ genes). Aided by the young Kzinti exile Acolyte; Wembleth, a Ringworld native with a lucky knack for survival; and detective Roxanny Gauthier of Earth's armed forces, Louis is willing to help Tunesmith save the Ringworld. But, disinclined to become a protector permanently bound to the Ringworld, he must also find a way to escape the fate Tunesmith has planned for him.
An involving and engrossing addition to one of science fiction’s grand sagas.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-765-30167-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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