Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Chances are, when you think of a good Niven book, you don't recall the awe-inspiring plot or earth shattering dialogue exchanges or any of that sissy stuff . . . it's the ideas that hold your attention and make the book worth reading. Which leads to a love or hate relationship with the man . . . if you like your SF "hard" he's about as hard as they come and when he's "on" you'll find yourself dazzled even if you're trying to resist. And then there are those times when he's so in love with his ideas that he forgets to write a story to go along with it. This isn't that bad but it almost comes close. I'll admit the original concept of the Integral Trees was mind boggling, an entire civilization of human beings adapted to a zero gravity environment in a cloud of atmosphere that orbits a neutron star. It's been a few years since I read that book and so forgiveable that I don't quite remember what happened . . . but that concept. Whoa. Niven revisits it here, bringing back some of the people from the first book, adding some newcomers and exploring the world a little bit. The plot, when they bother with it, is fairly straightforward and really doesn't build to any sort of climax or peak, it hovers somewhere around episodic without even congealing into anything memorable. However, the ideas, those are the meat of this book and Niven whips them out on almost every page, taking full advantage of the scenario and running with the ball for all its worth. If you read your SF for the "science" part of it, you're in luck, he gives enough stuff here to keep a generation of physics graduate students busy for quite some time. Thankfully you don't need a doctorate in a higher science to understand all of it but like I said, ideas are basically all this book has. The characters are merely mouthpieces to put forward the ideas, the plot itself is merely a showcase for the ideas . . . it's a textbook with dialogue sometimes. Still, I finished it despite all of that and even if in a week I won't be able to tell you a single thing that happened in it (but boy can I explain the concept) while you're reading it you will probably find it highly entertaining, like I did. So, no it's not a classic but it can be fun. Niven gets points for originality (even if it is a sequel) even if that's all he has here. Try it anyway.
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