Again

[threemonkeys]

I think I said this after the last Ringworld book. Why do I keep buying Larry Niven books? I just keep doing it. I keep reading them too. This time is was Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. To be fair, it was a lot better than the last Ringworld book but then that isn't exactly praise. Perhaps working in collaboration keeps ol' Larry on track. Actually I suspect that Brenda Cooper did most of the actual writing and Niven supervised.

The story is coherent and clearly written like an earlier Niven story. In fact there is a lot more that is like previous Niven stories. I kept thinking "oh just like A Gift from Earth", or "just like Legacy of Heorot" or Rainbow Mars or Ringworld. Self parody maybe.

Comments

[thoatherder.livejournal.com]

The last Niven book I bought was "Rainbow Mars" which is several short stories featuring Niven's time traveller Svetz (which I already have in another collection) and an incoherent novella featuring Mars, living "beanstalks" and all the martian races from HG Wells, Burroughs and others.

It was extremely disappointing. Niven doesn't have to write for a living, anything he does write seems to sell, so he has no restriction on what he does write, and it shows.

From looking at the collaborations with Pournelle and Barns, it always seemed that Niven supplied the imagination and the ideas, and Pournelle and Barns provided the actual writing.

Again, we have to ask just how much influence editors had on early Niven, these days editors don't help writers write, they just serve as poor gatekeepers over what is published. Compare "The Mote in God's Eye" which was effectively edited by Robert Heinlein with "The Gripping Hand" which is another incoherent mess and edited by no-one.

I haven't read "The Burning Tower", is it any good?