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Footfall | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| N/A | N/A | ||
The concept of this book is really very simple. It's the classic "aliens try to conquer Earth" plot. The difference is that the writers are accomplished hard science fiction authors, and it shows.
The science is believable. The alien space drive, the weapons, the mentality and philosophy... all make sense. All of their technology has at least been theorized, and a good deal of it was proposed for real-life purposes like SDI. And the human side isn't ignored either. People are not cookie-cutter images of each other, and they have their own goals along with living through the war.
Like most hard SF books, though, this one is a bit slow to start. There's over a hundred pages before the aliens arrive that is spent introducing characters and their "base" selves. I felt that some of them could have been eliminated; we don't need to know how four people feel who are going to be part of the same survivalist community, for instance. Some of their entries could have waited. Once in the book, things move along well, though there are still some slow points here and there.
I only have two other real nits. For one, the aliens are severely underpowered. Niven and Pournelle take the unfortunately common road of making them technologically superior but less adaptive and imaginative, artificially evening the playing field - although I will grant them that for once the authors actually justified doing so within the context of the story, somewhat mitigating the fault. The other problem is more a matter of personal taste: namely, there is absolutely no epilogue, no denouement. The book ends when the war ends, and we get no clue as to how things are worked out socially between the two races.
By no means is this book perfect. But it was a damn fine read.
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