THE (ALMOST) UNDELETED

I can clearly remember that at one particular point in my life when I decided that I loved SF and that I would do my damndest to read as much of it as possible. It was the day that I finished, for the first of many times, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s colonization and biological SF blockbuster, The Legacy of Heorot. I was in my early teens, and had read plenty of SF stories and books before I picked it up, but I have to say that it was this book that got me hooked on SF for good. I loved this thing seven ways to Sunday for years and years. Now I’ve read it over a dozen times already and suffice it to say, the gloss has worn off. But I could still see myself reading it again, and I probably will.

The back-story is pretty scarce in this book, and what historical context we are given is underwhelming, to say the least. Specifically, it’s a colonization novel, but we are given very little information about why the colony was sent out in the first place. People on Earth were fat, rich, happy and lazy. No big problem...Please click here, or on the book cover above, to be taken to the complete review..

Good review, I really enjoyed this book. The follow-up book, utter shite though. Not sure what happened other than the copy/paste function worked a little too well for the second book.

I thought the second book was terrible too. Thematically it was also about the individual's failure to understand environment and other people, but I thought it was just such a stretch for the test tube babies to be so far out of whack psychologically with people who were born of a woman. Its been a long time since I read that one though. I think I got it in hard back. I was so excited to see it on the stands. What a let down.

Omphalos wrote:I thought the second book was terrible too. Thematically it was also about the individual's failure to understand environment and other people, but I thought it was just such a stretch for the test tube babies to be so far out of whack psychologically with people who were born of a woman. Its been a long time since I read that one though. I think I got it in hard back. I was so excited to see it on the stands. What a let down.

A friend of mine lent me both at the same time and he said, 'They're both great books.' After I read it I talked to him about it and he still doesn't get it. He also cannot handle Dune (only the prequels) so I think his literature choices are skewed at best.

Niven and Pournelle just came out with a sequel to Inferno. Haven't had the guts to pick it up yet.

It's been 20 years or so since I read Heorot. I should give it a whirl again one of these days.