200 Years Before the Discovery of the Ringworld (Fleet of Worlds series Book 1)

I've read and enjoyed a lot of Niven during the five decades I've been reading SF, so I was looking forward to reading this book when it turned up on the new books shelf at my local library. Unfortunately, though, I was disappointed because this was a pretty un-dynamic and ultimately uninteresting book. I like big, dynamic books that grab me, that present exciting new characters, concepts or situations and that make me stay up reading long into the night; this was not that book. There are some books I have returned to over and over again over the years because they spoke to me, this book spoke to me all right, it said, "forget me." This didn't seem like a real, serious, full-bore, well-considered, and crafted effort by the authors.

You may argue that all books can't be blockbusters, but if the authors knew or suspected this was a turkey, they should have tried to fix it before they released. I suspect they were trading on Niven's reputation to suck readers in but, many such readers will, I believe, be disappointed just as I was.

In 2198 Earth standard time, the Citizens of the Ice World captured the human colonial space ship Long Pass. Over the half of millennium since, the Citizens aka as Puppeteers carefully bred the humans to insure docility and obedience to their masters, and indoctrinated their drones with tales of rescuing the original crew drifting in space. Thus by 2650, human Colonists are loyal to their string pulling masters.

However, Colonist explorers led by Citizen Nessus contact the starfish shaped Gw'oth, who in a few generations converted from fire to atomic fusion. If the geometric rate of technological progress continues the Colonists fear that in the not too distant future, the "primitive" Gw'oth will move ahead of humanity. The crew finds shocking evidence that the Citizens, who seemingly have vanished, are actively involved, but that they lied about the twenty-second century original encounter. Thus as the Fleet of Worlds flees to avoid the radioactive waves emitting concentrically out from the galaxy core's deadly supernova chain reaction, Colonist Kirsten Quinn and her crew who scout ahead of the fleeing orbs thinks otherwise. She believes the Gw'oth are light years ahead as they use a collective mindset to solve issues that enable the species to make geometric leaps in technology in a short time.

FLEET OF WORLDS is an interesting Puppeteer entry that will be difficult for newcomers to fathom how the Colonists got to where they are without reading at least RINGWORLD. The story line is action-paced as the FLEET OF WORLDS flees the destruction of the galaxy while also for the first time since the captivity in the middle of the twenty-second century, humans questions their origin. Larry Niven's fans will appreciate his collaboration with Edward M. Lerner as this is an exciting outer space thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Fleet of Worlds, set during the time of Beowulf Shaeffer, travels across the universe and gives the reader a look into the traveling worlds and culture of the puppeteers, as well as an interesting tie-in to previous Niven story lines and characters.
I recommend this book mainly on how the authors illustrate how puppeteers' name is not just based on their looks, but also their actions working behind the scenes in the affairs of the universe to protect their own interests and safety.

Competently written and good science here and there, but a relatively unimaginative plot and the characters are one-dimensional. I can't help but contrast the Puppeteers and their civilization with Ian Banks' Culture, which is far more engaging. No one, of course, can match Banks' scintillating prose, so that comparison is perhaps unfair. All in all, moderately entertaining.

I've often enjoyed Niven's solo work, particularly the Ringworld novels, but not his collaborations. (No, not even with Pournelle--blech!) I thought that, being more or less directly tied to Ringworld, this one might be enjoyable. Nope, at least as far as I was able to determine. I couldn't get myself to read past page 8. The writing is grammatical but amateurish, clunky, and just plain unpleasant to read. It looks like Niven plotted this out and then gave it to Lerner to write up. For really dedicated fans, I'm sure that the content is more important than the delivery, but to me the pain isn't worth the (potential) gain. I'm returning the book.

An entertaining book from Larry Niven and his latest co-author, Edward Lerner. This is Niven's best book in a while. Niven is consistently imaginative but has never been a particularly good writer. The quality of prose and character development in this book is considerably better than almost all of Niven's recent books, a feature probably attributable to Lerner's competence. Fleet of Worlds is a good adventure story set in Niven's Known Space future history, continuing Niven's theme of the manipulation of human history by the Puppeteer species. The stage is set for a sequel.

I usually only like Larry Niven solo. However, this book is so awesome! There is no reason anyone should not read this book, unless of course you don't like good plotting, writing and high adventure! But, I know you do so read it!

I used to love Larry Niven--still do love some of his older stuff. But this was really boring. Think it was needlessly drawn out so they could make 4 or 5 books or whatever this series is. Kind of went nowhere fast.

Normally I dash out to get the latest tome of Niven in hardcover. This was no exception.

However I could not finish the book. This was like the middle ringworld books until he redeemed himself with the final Ringworld novel. Something is missing. Not sure what, but hopefully Larry will return to form soon?

Having read all of Niven's Known Space novels, I found this one quite refreshing. Although a four hand effort, it feels like an original. Niven does partnerships very well and Edward Lerner seems to be a good match. We get to know more about the Pierson Puppeteers and they are a fascinating bunch of aliens. Nessus, a sketchy character in some of the previous books is now a complex one. The plot is beautifully developed and like all good science fiction, makes one wish it could happen.

I find it hard to believe that others liked this book. I had to force my way through it as really nothing of interest occurs for most of the book.
I'm a fan of Larry Niven but I truly believe he had nothing to do with this book other then letting them use his name.
Don't bother.

Can't Niven find a competent young pulp writer to rent his brand? Lerner even manages to make Puppeters boring. (Apparently they live in big condo complexes, go to shopping malls and excrete on the floor.)

Niven at his best was a nice pulp writer. Short, sharp sentences; minimum of introspection; lots of action; lots of ideas; bright cartoon hues.

Lerner delivers none of that.

I have been living with Man-Kzin Wars stuff and extra Ringworld books that don't go anywhere really new.
This was not a high priority buy with me because of the extra name on the cover, but after reading it I still have no Idea who Edward M. Lerner is as this reads like the best of the old Niven stuff most of which was shorter than the Ringworld books and a lot of which was shorter than this.
Known Space has expanded again - enjoy it and hope for more.

A lot of people still draw a line in the sand claiming there was some point at which Larry Niven's writing ability fell off the face of the Earth, and that he just can't write a decent book anymore. Fleet of Worlds is one more example of how wrong this claim really is.

The characters are above Niven's usual fare. Nobody ever breaks down into a pages-long rant of an exotic technology (which has been one of the bigger complaints about some other Known Space works, notably Ringworld). Everyone has real motivation and character throughout the book, and I'm inclined to believe this is Lerner's major contribution to the work. The story always moves at a good clip, and it's pretty obvious that Niven intends to follow up on this later on, as there's a setup for truly galaxy-spanning conflicts right at the end. The story is complete in and of itself, but the issues raised clearly affect the Known Space universe as a whole. You'll have to read this book to find out more on that, as I won't spoil anything here.

The jewel of this work, however, is learning more about the mysterious Puppeteers which factor so massively into the Known Space universe. You will indeed get masses of intriguing information on the Puppeteers, although I caution that some of it hits close to concepts introduced elsewhere in Known Space. Certain aspects of the Puppeteers are pretty recognizably similar to the Kzinti, although I won't spoil exactly what.

I highly recommend this book to any fan of Known Space, and it really is a pretty good prequel to Ringworld, although the revelations herein will probably make the Puppeteers look a bit less mystical if this book were read first. If you're new to Known Space, I'd still recommend either jumping in with Ringworld immediately, or getting the more Earth-focused backstory of Flatlander or (the first part of) Crashlander (or the older collection, Neutron Star). The bulk of Tales of Known Space is also excellent backstory, if you really want to get into Niven's early works.

All in all, I really do highly recommend this book. It stands in its own right as a good tale, and it's a good entry into Known Space.