The Integral Trees (State (Blackstone))

Larry Niven

ISBN 10: 1470898802 ISBN 13: 9781470898809

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2013

Synopsis

[Read by Tom Weiner]

Leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline were prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided - and secretly spied upon - by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. What they weren't prepared for, however, was the smoke ring - an immense, gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free fall. When Discipline encountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis.

Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In this novel, Niven presents a fully-fleshed culture of evolved humans who live without gravity in the gas cloud surrounding a neutron star. In this Smoke Ring, free-floating life forms flourish, and all of them, from fish to fowl, can fly...

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. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1470898802
• ISBN 13: 9781470898809
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English