i'm so sad that i didn't finish this book. i was so distracted by other books :(maybe next time i'll enjoy it more.

Shares a lot of plot features with the Ringworld, so followers of that series won't find it totally new, but it was still very thoughtful and enjoyable.

Skip the introduction. Seriously, skip it. The story begins when the protagonist awakes from Deep Sleep in Chapter One. The rest is back story. Boring and unnecessary.That they can’t get the story opened (or closed) despite being famous, award-winning authors tips the reader to the rest of the problem: this is way below what they are capable of. Think: Ringworld in the half-round.The story-telling is good, but the science is shaky. For example, they don’t seem to understand that centrifugal forc...

Normally I enjoy reading about interplanetary exploration and the oddities of the universe- but Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven was a struggle to read. To be honest, I really only enjoyed the first half- the rest of the book just fizzled under its own weight. It almost had a feeling like the authors started with a good idea but ultimately had difficulty working together. Firstly, this book was filled with confusing and vaguely-described areas that seemed to depend mostly on the...

With Old School, Hard SF like this, the characterisation is not that subtle: 57% into the Kindle version, we get this gem: "Ayaan was an Arab woman who dressed in deck uniform like everyone else, but occasionally at dinner wore a stylish veil and glinting emerald earrings." Cannot forget the bling.At 85% we get this wince-inducing moment: "Long silence. Terry glanced at Aybe, and Cliff suddenly remembered that one of them was gay. Which one? For the life of him, he could not remember. Damn! All

pg 111/412: Very traditional, Ringworld or Rendezvous with Rama-like sf novel. Should take me only 10 hours to read. Has got plenty of science, space, and aliens, but it's not bogged down in it. None of that singularity stuff.pg 215/412: Hey, I'm halfway though. I just might finish this thing. Although it's more of a jungle story now that they're on the inner bowl surface. But there's still some interesting science that comes into play. A cool thing about this environment is different areas have...

I just finished reading “Bowl of Heaven” by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. It should be noted that I won an advanced reading copy on Goodreads.com First Reads program. I recommend this book, but with certain reservations. I’ll get to those in just a few paragraphs.The “Bowl of Heaven” opens with a party on Earth. The crew and builders of a star ship are celebrating the incipient launch of the ship. In it, the crew, except for a rotating cadre of watchkeepers, will sleep for hundreds of years w...

What happens when two masters of Science Fiction collaborate on an entirely new novel of mankind’s future among the stars?You get something so bad that it’s worth sitting up and paying attention.Honestly, this book is definitively, and I’m being serious here, the most poorly crafted professionally produced novel I’ve ever seen. I dare you to find its equal. But let me back up a bit. See, I’ve spent the past month or more riding high on a flurry of Science Fiction novels, television, and movies.

Well, the first portion of the book got my attention and reeled me in. That was pretty much it. The rest of the novel truly sucked. I mean, truly, truly sucked. The main characters discover this spaceship that's using a star to power it, which means the space ship is truly massive, like the size of a solar system. Ok, this could be interesting. So they land at the front door and these giant chicken type aliens come out acting all friendly, then suddenly attack and start taking people prisoner. O...

Larry Niven's offerings often, since after the Ringworld series, have shown weakness in editing. It's always the same thing: events are written in one way, and then within about a page appear in rewritten form later. But this book is so rife with error as to migrate a nuisance into a deep embarrassment. A character is captured by aliens @ p. 104, then reappears, patching up a wound at p. 106. This is the point where I got really tired of the sloppiness, not the sole example. Not to mention that

Bowl of Heaven is a story of space exploration and alien encounters as much as it is a study in the human condition. Authors Gregory Benford and Larry Niven have written a futuristic science fiction book about a crew heading to another planet that is thought to be habitable, when they dock at a giant alien space station engulfing a star with the goal of satiating their curiosities while hopefully resupplying their starship at the same time. The aliens capture some of the crew, while the others g...

GOOD BOOK. With Niven as co-author.

Four problems with this book series:1. Each book should stand alone as a story - but this book is just an introduction that sets up the situation. And a pointlessly looooong introduction at that.2. Ridiculous Action - A colony ship with thousands passengers and the captain decides to drive it up a dangerous plasma stream because its fun and faster? A ground crew is sent to INVADE the first ever encountered, clearly inhabited, alien ship with no recon or communications? And so on. Its impossible

I paid money for this???I think I'm through with Niven. This is the second dud in a row (though at least I finished this one).I bought this because I've always been a fan of Niven, and I've loved the few Benford books I've read. But this is probably the worst edited book I've ever seen from a major publishing house. I was suspicious. Right from the beginning, I thought "Niven's already written Ringworld, what is he going to do new, with a similar structure with only slightly different geometry."...

Felt like "Ringworld" meets "Rendezvous with Rama" but with very little of the wonder that made those classics. If you haven't read them, this might be a much more interesting read for you. Interesting mostly for the hard sci-fi concepts/thought experiments it puts out there, less so for the character interaction or plot action. I didn't find the world the authors have created to be super engaging, but I kept reading hoping that I would get swept up in it. I never really did, though. Biggest pro...

<This wasn't as bad on the second read. A continuing sense of wonder and adventure, a rich and unimaginably huge playground full of aliens, and alien cultures and interesting tech. The story moves along with deepening sense and burgeoning understanding of what the Bowl is and was. Maybe I was just bummed the first time because the book stopped abruptly in an obvious publication split. The sequel is out, and I have it slotted, so all is forgiven. Upping the rating an extra star. It is quite lyric...

This is a very solid read. The combination of Benford and Niven works fairly well in this story about an EXTREMELY Big Dumb object. And I mean BIG. There is nothing like this out in scifi with something at this scale. The only parallel I can see to this story is Alastair Reynold's "House of Suns" which dealt with time the same way "Bowl of Heaven" does with Big Dumb Objects. You can definitely tell the difference in the writing style and which guy was tasked to do which part of the writing. The

Just when I was thinking that I had been really missing some Big Dumb Objects in my life... this book comes to save me!Yay!It's a riff on Niven's old theme of Ringworld, true, but with a rather huge twist. This is a stir-fry bowl of unimaginable proportions. No. Actually, it's just a bowl driven by a star. A hemisphere of a Dyson Sphere. With hundreds of thousands of Earth-size landmasses, a locked sunlight schedule, and many, many types of aliens.Can you say adventure? I can say adventure! Bird...

This book is horridly boring. There is not one moment of interest at any point in the story. Please don't read unless you want to fall asleep.