Smoke Ring - Softcover

Niven, Larry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345302575 ISBN 13: 9780345302571

Publisher: Del Rey, 1988

Synopsis

In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring, the descendants of the crew of the Discipline no longer remembered their Earth roots -- or the existence of Sharls Davis Kendy, the computer-program despot of the ship. Until Kendy initiated contact once more.

Fourteen years later, only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree Scientist, knew that Kendy was still watching -- and waiting. Then the Citizens Tree people rescued a family of loggers and learned for the first time of the Admiralty, a large society living in free fall amid the floating debris called the Clump. And it was likely that the Admiralty had maintained, intact, Discipline's original computer library.

Exploration was a temptation neither Jeffer nor Kendy could resist, and neither Citizens Tree nor Sharls Davis Kendy would ever be the same again...

About this title

About the Author:

LARRY NIVEN is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the 'Ringworld' series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Footfall, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle, was a New York Times bestseller. A World Out of Time, The Integral Trees, and The Smoke Ring are sequential titles in Niven's 'The State' series. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

From Publishers Weekly:

The setting of Niven's 1984 novel The Integral Trees was striking and imaginative, even for this acclaimed world builder; it's well worth the second visit made in this sequel. Around a neutron star an envelope of gas holds a breathable atmosphere and a strange profusion of plant and animal life, all floating in free-fall. Five hundred years after the crew of the Earth ship Discipline mutinied and deserted to this paradise, their descendants are still watched over by the ship's unbalanced computer mind. The machine is busy manipulating its one small contact group into exploring the larger city they have been avoiding for years. Aspects of this society are intriguingfor instance, the disdain of the better-adapted taller, thinner people for the "dwarfish" throwbacks, even though only the short can fit into the scientific relics of the old ship. As usual with Niven, character and story are just an excuse for working out the properties of his wonderful imaginary world, where people can fly like birds and ponds full of fish hang in midair. Unfortunately, in this book he fails to marshal the visual and dramatic flair needed to show it off to best effect.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Del Rey
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0345302575
• ISBN 13: 9780345302571
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 237