Protector - Larry Niven Book Review

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Review Summaries

"Man has pretty much conquered inner space. The Moon, Mars, Mercury, asteroid mining, spaceships, fusion drives, human hibernation to cope with long journeys and boredom...the hard sci-fi fan has plenty to enjoy here. Niven is good at picking up realistic science, across the disciplines, particularly physics and biology, and taking the ideas to the next stage, and the next, and the next. By and large it hangs together well. But the real reason I like this one is the entertaining alien species, the Pak. The pinnacle of evolutionary success for this race is the Protector, the full-adult warrior class member who lives to fight and further his genetic blood line by winning territory and destroying all competition. It is as if Mr Niven anticipated Dawkin's 'Selfish Gene' hypothesis and 'Independence Day' in a leap of the imagination one day in the early 1970's. The nearest thing on earth to the Pak was probably the militaristic Spartan civilisation of ancient Greece. And now the Pak are coming. Earth is a failed Pak colony, a two-and-a-half million year old experiment gone awry. Man was never meant to evolve under his own steam. They want their territory back..."
Michael JR Jose, Resident Larry Niven Scholar

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Overall Review

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 20%
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 20%

FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Explore/1st contact/ enviro story Yes
Plotlets: - exploring a wondrous planet or phenomena - primitive/present day space voyage
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - explorer
Age: - 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - bulging muscles

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - long-lived adults
Profession/status: - killer
Eccentric: Yes - obsessed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - an average amount
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - bulging muscles

Setting
Terrain - Mountains - Planet surface, need spacesuit - Space, need spacesuit - Asteroid
Which planet? - Mars - Asteroids - Uranus/Neptune
Earth setting: - medium future 22-24th century
Spaceship setting: - alien spaceship - someone is depressurized - futuristic human freighter/transport - one or two man fighter/scoutship
A substantial portion of this book takes place on a non-Earth planetary body: - humans in a futuristic society - unfriendly aliens
Takes place on Earth? Yes
Planet outside solar system? Yes
Takes place in spaceship? Yes
Not Earth, in Solar System? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths
scientific jargon? (SF only) - quite a lot of techical jargon
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references only
How much dialogue? - significantly more descript than dialog

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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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