Elephant-like aliens attack Earth. Plucky Earthlings fight back. It's actually not at all bad if you like that kind of thing.This book was described somewhere as "a rich tapestry". I recently read 99 Ways To Tell A Story , which has a witty page telling the story using the conventions of the Bayeux Tapestry, and I suddenly saw Footfall retold in the same way.I think it would work quite well. To start off with, in a tapestry you expect all the characters to be two-dimensional. What else would

Alien Invasion! Ruthless warriors want to conquer the Earth and will literally squash all opposition. They can do this because they are the size of elephants!It started with lights in the sky.Lights that moved towards Earth and powered down.Some one was coming!She followed them into a small, cluttered room. There was a big viewscreen in one corner. Dr. Mouton did things to the controls and a field of stars showed on the screen. She did something else, and the star field blinked on and off; as it...

This book contains approximately 300 pages of embarrassing misogynistic crap, sad cliches, and stupid characters that ruin what could have been a great 250 page alien invasion story. Lucifer's Hammer was the same BS. And that's a damn dirty shame because The Mote In God's Eye was an incredibly vibrant story, which spurred me to read more Niven/Pournelle books. Move on...nuthin to read here :[

In the vast reaches of the immeasurable cosmos, a tiny dot is traveling at immense speed in the background of the flickering lights, seen from the oblivious distant Earth, the unimaginable is arriving a small unimportant looking object, first not recognized by the people of the third planet, ( the preoccupied astronomers, for what it is) orbiting an average star, called Sol... Aliens, at last are coming we are not, is it good or bad who knows? Alone...the destination is our world, unprepared, di...

Bad baby elephants in Spaace!I still think this is the best alien-invasion story I've ever read. Granted, it's hard to write a sensible invasion story, given that:a) it's hard to think of a reason for rational aliens to invade, andb) if they did, they should win overwhelmingly. See rifles vs. spears.But it makes a great *story*, and N&P have given probably as reasonable a backstory as anyone could. As an example of high-level page-turner storytelling, Footfall still rings my chimes. I've read it...

I thought long and hard about giving this one 4 stars. It was really a toss-up...I think on a different day, I might have done so. I really enjoyed this book, but sometimes it felt like there was a lot of "fluff" in it. I listened to the audio of the book, hoping to finish in time to discuss it with the SFF Audio crew. Unfortunately, I didn't quite finish in time. Their podcast episode was pretty good, it summed up a lot of my feelings.One thing mentioned on the podcast was that this book wasn't...

I was hooked on Niven and Pournelle ever since I read A Mote in God's Eye, which hit every right button for a space-based alien contact epic. Footfall told a story closer to home, asking what if the aliens came to us at Earth, what would we really do, how would different groups of people react, and how would the aliens respond to the alien-ness of us? Though it's familiar territory, Footfall really delves into the human aspect, extrapolating from hard science and politics to paint a very plausib...

More catastrophe survivalist misogyny from Niven and Pournelle. Maybe it's because I just recently read Lucifer's Hammer, or maybe I'm getting older, but I'm finding my earlier affection for Niven's work fading. I'm sure there's a literary term for what the author's have done in Footfall and L.H., but I'm going to have to describe it- All of the characters we meet (and there are a lot) make the right decisions and are clearly superior to the common people who we don't ever really get to know. Pu...

Moderately entertaining artifact of the 1980s, predictably sociologically dated (and occasionally downright embarrassing in its treatment of sexual issues), but that isn't the biggest problem here. Footfall is a shining example of science fiction's general refusal to face up to the challenge of conceiving a plausible invasion by an extraterrestrial power without stacking the deck severely in humanity's favor through biology, psychology, or plain old stupidity. Here our species faces the peril of...

Although I generally enjoy Niven and Pournelle's work, this one was just too heavy handed. Footfall was everything I dislike about sci-fi condensed into one book: self-gratifying and self-absorbed writers writing themselves as heroes, ridiculous aliens, extreme nationalism, sexism up the whazoo, and a complete disregard for character development. Some of these are explainable (though not justifiable) from a context-sensitive reading. Indeed, maybe I wouldn't have hated this book if I'd read it i...

This is an excellent "invasion from outer space" book. The kind of good, old fashioned slam-bang adventure that was very prevalent in SF at one time.One quirk of these elephantine invaders is: they will fight but if they surrender, they belong to the winning side permanently. So they are confused when humans surrender--and then fight back. They consider those humans to be dangerously "rogue", and kill them instead of conquering them.Also, one of the aliens is captured by our side--and becomes a

In this day of wonderful, kind, helpful aliens or omnipotent, unstoppable, tree hugging, environmentalist aliens a nice old fashioned "invaders from outer space" story is kind of nice. I like it. I enjoyed it. Not only a good "yarn" (like the word??? okay, "a good story"...sigh) but also some nice insights into the way people think. While I can't quite give a blanket recommendation to Larry Niven's works, this is one I really like. So, prepare for the worst...and ready yourself for aliens who wa...

I strongly suspect and freely admit that my expectations going into a book substantially impact my enjoyment and ratings. I seem to be unable to manage this. Well, I went into this particular book with low expectations. It’s a 1985 hard sci-fi dealing with first contact and alien invasion. I prefer my sci-fi with a little less science and a little more wonder and atmosphere than most hard sci-fi. But dang it if I didn’t enjoy the heck out of this one. Sure, it starts a bit slow, it’s mildly miso...

A good alien invasion story with some fresh aspects to it. The enemy resemble small elephants and have a herd culture to match. This leads to many misunderstandings but also to some opportunities. I thought the opening was really good, with the introduction of some interesting characters. It was fun to learn about the enemy, called "snouts" by humans. The late middle sagged a bit for me but it picked up again at the end. SF writers become some heroes in this one. That was cool. The book is long

Footfall is a fun alien invasion story, full of up-tempo optimism and enthusiastic good feeling for humanity, science fiction, and The Right Stuff. It's a happy, fast-paced beach read in the spirit of Independence Day.

Just good, old fashioned alien invasion, action, science. What else would you want for a good summer read!

Footfall is an Independence Day (the movie) type book, about an alien invasion and a wide range of humans across the globe reacting to said invasion. I'm sure you've seen Independence Day and I hope you didn't like it because it sucked. but have you seen Mars Attacks? now that is a great alien invasion film. smart and hilarious. Footfall is much better than Independence Day but it is a far cry from Mars Attacks.the first thing you should know about Footfall is that the aliens in question who

Well firstly, I have read it before, many moons ago (late 80s ? ), and I always have enjoyed both Niven solo and with Pournelle, so when it came time to grab a big fat book to take as hand luggage on a brief trip to southern France, thus seemed the ideal companion. Unfortunately I was enjoying it too much and despite it being exactly 700 pages, the book ran out before the 4 day break did, not really the books fault I suppose. If you enjoy alien invasion and some good characterisation in a sci-fi...

Audiobook is 24 hrs. About 4&1/2 hours in. There's a zillion (well 124) characters, lots of women and sexual intrigue, and it's set nearly in the present, with an oncoming alien attack. I guess they were going for a mainstream bestseller like Lucifer's Hammer (8 years earlier), and apparently they succeeded, back in the 80's. It starts slow. I'm listening in the car, and get confused as to who's talking. There's a lot of Russian/Cold War stuff that we don't worry about much these days. At least

Compulsively readable page turner. Perhaps the most "realistic" aliens invasion of earth novel I have ever read. My second time around reading this, 15 years later, left me with nearly the same high level of delight as last time.And the importance of science fiction writers to the war effort? Maybe less realistic, but still a lot of fun.Of course, aliens invading earth is really the perfect setup for what is a pro-military somewhat "conservative" world view. Endless accumulation of nuclear weapo...