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The State #3
The Smoke Ring
In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring, descendants of the crew of theDisciplineno longer remember their Earth roots or the existence of Sharls Davis Kendy, the despot of the ship. Only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree Scientist, knows that Kendy is still watching and waiting. Then, when the Citizens Tree people rescue a family of loggers, they learn of the Admiralty, a large society living amid the floating debris called the Clump. It is likely that the Admiralty has maintained, intact,Discipline's original computer library. Exploration is a temptation neither Jeffer nor Kendy can resist, and neither will ever be the same again.
323 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1987
65 people are currently reading
1231 people want to read
About the author
Larry Niven
687 books3,308 followersLaurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
July 26, 2017
Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 2/5
I read the Integral Trees just three months ago, but I couldn't recall the identities of the characters when they reappeared in this novel. That is in part due to their weak development in the last book but also to the few reminders in this one. I found it difficult to tell them apart from one another here as well. Basically the "Scientist" answers the scientific questions, the "Chairman" makes the decisions, and the lusty teenage boy...well...lusts.... I would regularly forget who was who and would only figure it out again when they performed one of their stereotypical tasks.
The writing was about as bad as I read in professionally published science fiction. This reminded me a lot of Niven's third Ringworld book, The Ringworld Throne. This is what I imagine an early draft looking like. You write out the main sequences, intending to go back and fill in the details, make clear some fuzzy points, flesh out the characters, provide transition sentences between paragraphs and scenes, and figure out the pacing for anticipation and suspense. Niven never went back to finish it. It was devoid of overt grammatical or spelling mistakes, but one can't read this and think that this was a finished product. Still, the environment remains believably spectacular and one can find enjoyment in seeing Niven puzzle through the physics and mechanical challenges.
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 1/5
World: 2/5
Perfunctory [per-fuhngk-tuh-ree]Such is the dominant quality of this book. Niven wanted to explore the hard science qualities of the Smoke Ring he had concocted in the second of the series, The Integral Trees, and he threw some background, minor plotting, and a few new characters in so as to be able to call it a novel. One can't help but notice, however, that Niven is simply going through the motions of a novel so that he can explore Legrange points and tidal effects.
adjective 1. performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial:
I read the Integral Trees just three months ago, but I couldn't recall the identities of the characters when they reappeared in this novel. That is in part due to their weak development in the last book but also to the few reminders in this one. I found it difficult to tell them apart from one another here as well. Basically the "Scientist" answers the scientific questions, the "Chairman" makes the decisions, and the lusty teenage boy...well...lusts.... I would regularly forget who was who and would only figure it out again when they performed one of their stereotypical tasks.
The writing was about as bad as I read in professionally published science fiction. This reminded me a lot of Niven's third Ringworld book, The Ringworld Throne. This is what I imagine an early draft looking like. You write out the main sequences, intending to go back and fill in the details, make clear some fuzzy points, flesh out the characters, provide transition sentences between paragraphs and scenes, and figure out the pacing for anticipation and suspense. Niven never went back to finish it. It was devoid of overt grammatical or spelling mistakes, but one can't read this and think that this was a finished product. Still, the environment remains believably spectacular and one can find enjoyment in seeing Niven puzzle through the physics and mechanical challenges.
January 29, 2010
The sequel to Niven's
The Integral Trees
, it build upon it and does well as an independent book. I first discovered the Smoke Ring when this book was serialized in Analog, and had no problem reading this second book first.
That said, I do recommend starting with The Integral Trees, because while the plots are largely independent, this one does build upon the first book. It is maybe 16 years after the first book, and the characters from that have been living happily ever after, leaving this book to a mix of some familiar faces and a all-new cast.
As ever, Niven's strong point is not his characterization, though this book is better than most for him. The plot structure (which is what I care more about anyway) is very strong, and the world-building is as solid as ever. Possibly more so, as he nuanced a few things a bit better this time, probably because he'd spent more time thinking about the environment. There's also a well-handled revelation of something that had been hinted at in the first book, but Niven had wisely kept from going into and distracting the plot. In fact, I get the idea that he had had this book in mind as he was writing the first one.
That said, I do recommend starting with The Integral Trees, because while the plots are largely independent, this one does build upon the first book. It is maybe 16 years after the first book, and the characters from that have been living happily ever after, leaving this book to a mix of some familiar faces and a all-new cast.
As ever, Niven's strong point is not his characterization, though this book is better than most for him. The plot structure (which is what I care more about anyway) is very strong, and the world-building is as solid as ever. Possibly more so, as he nuanced a few things a bit better this time, probably because he'd spent more time thinking about the environment. There's also a well-handled revelation of something that had been hinted at in the first book, but Niven had wisely kept from going into and distracting the plot. In fact, I get the idea that he had had this book in mind as he was writing the first one.
September 28, 2009
This book was, unusually, better than its precedessor (The Integral Trees), in my opinion. There's some actual character development (although most of it occurs for the non-human computer), and the overall plot is much more interesting. The Integral Trees set a new and unusual scene (living in variable gravity in a smoke ring around a neutron star), but then nothing much came of it; The Smoke Ring explores much further, both into the past and the present, and there's much more complexity discovered about the world and its inhabitants.
July 23, 2007
This is the sequel to Niven's The Integral Trees, which established one of the most daringly inventive natural environments in all of speculative fiction. While the first novel contains a lot of backstory and exposition, this is the real meat of the tale for me; I think you can get by just fine with The Smoke Ring, and maybe preserve more of a sense of wonder by starting in medias res.
January 29, 2016
Excellent SiFi story by one of the master of the genre. Very good and quick read. Very recommended
September 8, 2019
How could I have forgotten what a great writer Larry Niven can be. This book follows on from the Integral Trees, about 20 years later. To recap - the smoke ring is a zone of atmosphere and water that forms a stable torus around an old neutron star. Native life forms have developed there including some truly huge trees. The humans in the story are descendants of a group of scientists and navy officers who were sent to investigate the star about 500 years earlier. The empty space ship is still in orbit and its AI is still functioning. The humans have adapted to various habitable niches in this strange environment, mostly using natural resources although a few scattered bits of old technology survive. They have mostly forgotten how or why they are here.
In the previous book we met a motley group of people who had escaped from slavery on London Tree by stealing the only remaining functioning shuttle pod. They have found a tree of their own to settle and have created a fairly democratic and equal little society. When they rescue a family of loggers from a burning steam propelled 'rocket', they learn of a much larger and more civilised group called the Admiralty. Naturally, some of them want to pay a visit and learn what it's all about.
Kendy, the space ship's AI can contact this group of people when they are using the shuttle pod. He has his own reasons for wanting to see what's going on in the Admiralty, reasons which don't always include the safety and freedom of the citizens.
A lot of the book is taken up with descriptions of ingenious solutions to the problems this unusual environment throws at people - for example how do you cook in free fall? But this never gets boring thanks to the way Larry Niven writes. There is some action too when a son of the tree citizens has to try and bluff his way into the Admiralty hq disguised as an officer in order to get Kendy connected to their library computer.
My one complaint is that you feel there's more of this story to come but as far as I know, Niven never wrote a third book in this series.
In the previous book we met a motley group of people who had escaped from slavery on London Tree by stealing the only remaining functioning shuttle pod. They have found a tree of their own to settle and have created a fairly democratic and equal little society. When they rescue a family of loggers from a burning steam propelled 'rocket', they learn of a much larger and more civilised group called the Admiralty. Naturally, some of them want to pay a visit and learn what it's all about.
Kendy, the space ship's AI can contact this group of people when they are using the shuttle pod. He has his own reasons for wanting to see what's going on in the Admiralty, reasons which don't always include the safety and freedom of the citizens.
A lot of the book is taken up with descriptions of ingenious solutions to the problems this unusual environment throws at people - for example how do you cook in free fall? But this never gets boring thanks to the way Larry Niven writes. There is some action too when a son of the tree citizens has to try and bluff his way into the Admiralty hq disguised as an officer in order to get Kendy connected to their library computer.
My one complaint is that you feel there's more of this story to come but as far as I know, Niven never wrote a third book in this series.
January 19, 2008
This book is set in Niven's State universe, as opposed to his Ringworld universe in which most of his other books are set. A good adventure takes place but the real draw of this book is its setting. The smoke ring is a habitable ring of dense air around an ancient Neutron Star, being bled from a gas giant in tight orbit around the star. It is a huge area full of life but without gravity. The prequel to this book, The Integral Trees, is named for the largest life forms in the ring. These hundred kilometer long trees orient themselves by tidal effects felt rather strongly at their endpoints. So among the frenzy of life in free-fall, there are tiny islands of 'gravity' and high winds... Let's just say it's the most impressive fantasy habitat I've ever heard of, from sci-fi or any other genre.
June 9, 2016
While not quite as good as, and a bit more confusing than, The Integral Trees, this was still quite enjoyable. It was good to pick up the characters where the story left off and get a bit more of the backstory, especially on the mysterious Kendy. It would be even better if Niven ever decides to wrap up the remaining loose ends, perhaps showing what the Smoke Ring civilization might look like a generation or two down the line, but I would bet against him picking the thread back up again twenty years after the last installment.
April 2, 2015
I did not enjoy this as much as The Integral Trees. In this story, the Citizens Tree people discover a more advanced community living elsewhere in the smoke ring. It seems to have possession of the original library of the ship that brought their ancestors to the system, and naturally the Citizens scientist is eager to access it.
As before, the characters are simply there to serve the action. It says a lot that the most intriguing is a computer program descended from a long-dead State official. By the final section of the novel, I had pretty much lost interest.
As before, the characters are simply there to serve the action. It says a lot that the most intriguing is a computer program descended from a long-dead State official. By the final section of the novel, I had pretty much lost interest.
April 30, 2012
I hadn't read this in years, and it's even better than I remember. Wonderfully realized alien environment, a free-fall breathable atmosphere with thirty times the volume of Earth.
If only there were more than three books in the Smoke Ring/State universe - I read The Kiteman after this, but alas it doesn't look like the The Ghost Ships will ever happen. I want to see the three million year history at which A World Out of Time only hinted, as humanity's totalitarian State fragments into Sol System and the Outer Colonies.
If only there were more than three books in the Smoke Ring/State universe - I read The Kiteman after this, but alas it doesn't look like the The Ghost Ships will ever happen. I want to see the three million year history at which A World Out of Time only hinted, as humanity's totalitarian State fragments into Sol System and the Outer Colonies.
April 17, 2013
DRAFT
I very much enjoyed this book, more so than the first one. I like the more cohesive story, especially enjoyed Rather's point of view.
I felt that The Integral Trees was more disjointed I didn't like it. This one is much more streamlined story. Jeffer the Scientist is a more interesting character in this book. It was also interesting to see how everyone ended up. I like what Niven did with the group.
Liked that there were more advanced people in the Smoke Ring.
I very much enjoyed this book, more so than the first one. I like the more cohesive story, especially enjoyed Rather's point of view.
I felt that The Integral Trees was more disjointed I didn't like it. This one is much more streamlined story. Jeffer the Scientist is a more interesting character in this book. It was also interesting to see how everyone ended up. I like what Niven did with the group.
Liked that there were more advanced people in the Smoke Ring.
November 16, 2018
Some really neat ideas that are explored a bit more than in the previous book, but the plot has a major issue: there's no climax. The story more or less follows the Hero's Journey archetype, with Rather serving as the hero, but the closest we have is Kendry's freak-out late in the book. Also Niven's descriptions leave something to be desired, especially with his tendency to drop in strange and obscure terms in the middle of them. Still, a fun read.
March 15, 2011
Re-reading via audiobook. I don't think I've read this since it first came out in 1988. It still holds up, despite a rather lackluster narrator for the audiobook. And it begs for a sequel. Niven's recently done other unexpected sequels, so it's not entirely impossible. This book is a sequel to The Integral Trees, which should be read first. Highly recommended.
May 31, 2022
I could recount my Larry Niven journey, but I'll sum it up: this was my fourth Niven novel. I liked the short story collection I read. None of his novels have, as of yet, married great ideas with good storytelling. And while I'll give the Smoke Ring more credit than the others, it doesn't quite reach three stars. Even though it was really close and it probably wasn't even this book's fault.
In reviewing an 80s hard sci-fi book, let's first look at the science fiction. It's fairly good. It reuses the neutron star setting of book one, the Integral Trees, but everything flows just a little smoother in this book. The worldbuilding was never really clunky but it was still smoother here. The world is cool, although the new civilization introduced doesn't jive well with the Integral Trees in my personal opinion. Still, this is a really cool world that could set the scene for some really cool adventures.
But not with these characters! Honestly... they weren't bad. They were more sci-fi-white-bread than anything else. I'll compare them to a little known book called Camelot 30K by Robert Forward. The characters aren't anything special, but they serve as a mechanism for a cool sci-fi plot. That's what happened here. Still, I don't really like that they are or are descended from the Integral Trees characters because they were just... all over the place. And one or two of the women in this book serve way too... reproductive... purposes, but overall I didn't mind these players.
The plot was alright too. As I said, it felt a little out of place after the first book, but it didn't really feel unnatural. I really don't know how to put the feel of this book into words. There are certainly words, and there's a certain feel of B-book to it, but... it's not a bad read. I didn't dread at. To the contrary, once or twice, I was truly engaged in what was happening. This book definitely surpassed its predecessor. But... at the end of the day... it is born of the Integral Trees, and that's a sin that I cannot overlook. Better luck next time (with... Ringworld Engineers?), Larry Niven.
In reviewing an 80s hard sci-fi book, let's first look at the science fiction. It's fairly good. It reuses the neutron star setting of book one, the Integral Trees, but everything flows just a little smoother in this book. The worldbuilding was never really clunky but it was still smoother here. The world is cool, although the new civilization introduced doesn't jive well with the Integral Trees in my personal opinion. Still, this is a really cool world that could set the scene for some really cool adventures.
But not with these characters! Honestly... they weren't bad. They were more sci-fi-white-bread than anything else. I'll compare them to a little known book called Camelot 30K by Robert Forward. The characters aren't anything special, but they serve as a mechanism for a cool sci-fi plot. That's what happened here. Still, I don't really like that they are or are descended from the Integral Trees characters because they were just... all over the place. And one or two of the women in this book serve way too... reproductive... purposes, but overall I didn't mind these players.
The plot was alright too. As I said, it felt a little out of place after the first book, but it didn't really feel unnatural. I really don't know how to put the feel of this book into words. There are certainly words, and there's a certain feel of B-book to it, but... it's not a bad read. I didn't dread at. To the contrary, once or twice, I was truly engaged in what was happening. This book definitely surpassed its predecessor. But... at the end of the day... it is born of the Integral Trees, and that's a sin that I cannot overlook. Better luck next time (with... Ringworld Engineers?), Larry Niven.
Read
January 8, 2013This is the edition I own, but I don't have the dust cover.
This edition is dedicated "It is reassuring to know that the human race is still capable of producing big, roomy, minds. This book is dedicated to Dan Alderson." Dan Alderson (it says on Google) was a scientist at JPL. He died in 1989. I don't quite know what Niven finds so implausible about 'big, roomy minds'. The odds are pretty good that you couldn't throw a rock at JPL at any time without hitting somebody with a 'big, roomy, mind'. Or MIT, or CERN, or any of a dozen other places. Why would Niven find it even surprising?
The diagrams in this book are similar to, but not identical to, the ones in The Integral Trees. At the end is a character list, and a glossary.
The question of population is discussed throughout, though mostly in the Kendy sections. The population at this point in the history of humans in the Smoke Ring is estimated as less than 50,000 (including children, who are not counted because of high infant mortality). This is pretty impressive population growth for an initial population of about twenty, in about 500 Earth years. But it's an estimate. And it must be borne in mind that the parents of these 50,000 would likely have been chosen to be as genetically varied as possible--which still wouldn't be very varied.
There is very little evidence of any significant increase in genetic variation in the Smoke Ring. Kendy's argument that there will be an explosive population growth in the next few generations is arguably not very well founded. There are people who would be 'disabled' on a planet, who are fully competent citizens in the Smoke Ring. Some have legs and arms of different lengths, some completely lack one or more limbs. Whether the percentage of such people is greater than on Earth is not clear. But note that there are few albinos, for example--and that there are no people with high sensitivity to light, sounds, etc. Normal color vision, hearing, etc is taken for granted.
There remains a surprisingly high amount of variation in skin color, hair color and length, etc. The only real genetic variation I can detect is seen as a 'throwback'--the 'dwarves'. It's not clear why these few don't grow to 'normal' heights: taller than two meters, with long and agile fingers and toes.
The main story of this volume is a shopping trip. There's a secondary story about a major shock to Kendy. It has impacts, but I have to say not many. Kendy at the end of the book seems very little different in terms of personality and character than before. He has simply realized that his primary loyalty is no longer to the State, which he hasn't heard from since its representatives essentially betrayed him. The ending of the book left me with an impulse to shout "Feed it to the tree, Kendy!"
I have serious doubts about the description of Kendy's nature. If he is 'really' intelligent, there's quite a bit of evidence that he would not be able to think faster than humans. Douglas Hofstadter pointed out that one of the reasons that computers 'think' faster than organic creatures is that they are not doing as much 'high-option' (to use Heinlein's terminology) thinking as humans. 'Intelligent' machines are likely to think at about the same speed as their human predecessors. And they would likely be as variable in terms of things like ingenuity as humans--particularly if they're preprogrammed by 'imprinting' a personality.
The 'Admiralty' is interesting to me, but it surprises me that nobody in the trees and jungles had thought of such elementary things as wings and toothbrushes. I'd like to hear an Odyssey-type story of somebody who set out, for example, to circumnavigate the Smoke Ring.
The position of 'Scientists' in the Smoke Ring seems to imply that learning, exploration, and ingenuity would be prized. But I see little evidence of it. Most citizens seem to be very unwilling to change. And when they do explore, it tends to take the form of appeal to authority rather than experimentation. A source of new records is seen as more important than, for example, interviewing the man who figured out how to use triunes to hunt Dark Sharks. This is less true in the Admiralty than in outlying areas, but the secretizing of the Library is an additional source of worry there.
The population of the Smoke Ring tends to be quite massy. Rather the 'dwarf' is less than two meters tall. His mass, when measured, comes out to 81 kilograms. Using the mnemonic "Two and a quarter pounds of jam/weigh about a kilogram", this would mean that, on Earth, he would weigh about 183 pounds, at six feet or less height. And Rather, though he has significantly more muscle mass than most inhabitants of the Smoke Ring, is likely not more massy in general than his siblings, cousins, etc.
I found the amount of violence in such a small, sparse population quite surprising. Violence in small populations is usually much lower. I note, however, that there's no gunpowder. It's not surprising, given that there are not likely to be a lot of bat caves. But other things that are needed are improvised: cookpots, laundry vats, rockets... It seems likely that the human crew of Discipline made considered choices as to what technology needed to be passed on to their offspring. They experimented with things like low-grav looms. But they also developed a certain amount of metalsmithing (they reused parts of CARMS, etc, but they also have metal products that were produced after they were living in the Smoke Ring). They produced what they valued: but they did not bother with what they didn't want.
Kendy's definition of 'civilization' is suspect from the start. But the citizens of the Smoke Ring make similar prejudicial judgments. One thing--I don't see much in the way of arts. There's some effort at zero-g architecture in the Clump. There are decorated chopsticks, and clothes, and they do have paint. But what about music? Sculpture? Drawing? Fiction? The claim that the Smoke Ring is unmappable may be true, or it may not. What about orreries?
Furthermore, the determined agnosticism of the 'Scientists' as regards the information available to them about (for example), the Solar System is somewhat odd. Is there NOBODY who's willing to put together a study group to try to figure out what those old records mean?
This edition is dedicated "It is reassuring to know that the human race is still capable of producing big, roomy, minds. This book is dedicated to Dan Alderson." Dan Alderson (it says on Google) was a scientist at JPL. He died in 1989. I don't quite know what Niven finds so implausible about 'big, roomy minds'. The odds are pretty good that you couldn't throw a rock at JPL at any time without hitting somebody with a 'big, roomy, mind'. Or MIT, or CERN, or any of a dozen other places. Why would Niven find it even surprising?
The diagrams in this book are similar to, but not identical to, the ones in The Integral Trees. At the end is a character list, and a glossary.
The question of population is discussed throughout, though mostly in the Kendy sections. The population at this point in the history of humans in the Smoke Ring is estimated as less than 50,000 (including children, who are not counted because of high infant mortality). This is pretty impressive population growth for an initial population of about twenty, in about 500 Earth years. But it's an estimate. And it must be borne in mind that the parents of these 50,000 would likely have been chosen to be as genetically varied as possible--which still wouldn't be very varied.
There is very little evidence of any significant increase in genetic variation in the Smoke Ring. Kendy's argument that there will be an explosive population growth in the next few generations is arguably not very well founded. There are people who would be 'disabled' on a planet, who are fully competent citizens in the Smoke Ring. Some have legs and arms of different lengths, some completely lack one or more limbs. Whether the percentage of such people is greater than on Earth is not clear. But note that there are few albinos, for example--and that there are no people with high sensitivity to light, sounds, etc. Normal color vision, hearing, etc is taken for granted.
There remains a surprisingly high amount of variation in skin color, hair color and length, etc. The only real genetic variation I can detect is seen as a 'throwback'--the 'dwarves'. It's not clear why these few don't grow to 'normal' heights: taller than two meters, with long and agile fingers and toes.
The main story of this volume is a shopping trip. There's a secondary story about a major shock to Kendy. It has impacts, but I have to say not many. Kendy at the end of the book seems very little different in terms of personality and character than before. He has simply realized that his primary loyalty is no longer to the State, which he hasn't heard from since its representatives essentially betrayed him. The ending of the book left me with an impulse to shout "Feed it to the tree, Kendy!"
I have serious doubts about the description of Kendy's nature. If he is 'really' intelligent, there's quite a bit of evidence that he would not be able to think faster than humans. Douglas Hofstadter pointed out that one of the reasons that computers 'think' faster than organic creatures is that they are not doing as much 'high-option' (to use Heinlein's terminology) thinking as humans. 'Intelligent' machines are likely to think at about the same speed as their human predecessors. And they would likely be as variable in terms of things like ingenuity as humans--particularly if they're preprogrammed by 'imprinting' a personality.
The 'Admiralty' is interesting to me, but it surprises me that nobody in the trees and jungles had thought of such elementary things as wings and toothbrushes. I'd like to hear an Odyssey-type story of somebody who set out, for example, to circumnavigate the Smoke Ring.
The position of 'Scientists' in the Smoke Ring seems to imply that learning, exploration, and ingenuity would be prized. But I see little evidence of it. Most citizens seem to be very unwilling to change. And when they do explore, it tends to take the form of appeal to authority rather than experimentation. A source of new records is seen as more important than, for example, interviewing the man who figured out how to use triunes to hunt Dark Sharks. This is less true in the Admiralty than in outlying areas, but the secretizing of the Library is an additional source of worry there.
The population of the Smoke Ring tends to be quite massy. Rather the 'dwarf' is less than two meters tall. His mass, when measured, comes out to 81 kilograms. Using the mnemonic "Two and a quarter pounds of jam/weigh about a kilogram", this would mean that, on Earth, he would weigh about 183 pounds, at six feet or less height. And Rather, though he has significantly more muscle mass than most inhabitants of the Smoke Ring, is likely not more massy in general than his siblings, cousins, etc.
I found the amount of violence in such a small, sparse population quite surprising. Violence in small populations is usually much lower. I note, however, that there's no gunpowder. It's not surprising, given that there are not likely to be a lot of bat caves. But other things that are needed are improvised: cookpots, laundry vats, rockets... It seems likely that the human crew of Discipline made considered choices as to what technology needed to be passed on to their offspring. They experimented with things like low-grav looms. But they also developed a certain amount of metalsmithing (they reused parts of CARMS, etc, but they also have metal products that were produced after they were living in the Smoke Ring). They produced what they valued: but they did not bother with what they didn't want.
Kendy's definition of 'civilization' is suspect from the start. But the citizens of the Smoke Ring make similar prejudicial judgments. One thing--I don't see much in the way of arts. There's some effort at zero-g architecture in the Clump. There are decorated chopsticks, and clothes, and they do have paint. But what about music? Sculpture? Drawing? Fiction? The claim that the Smoke Ring is unmappable may be true, or it may not. What about orreries?
Furthermore, the determined agnosticism of the 'Scientists' as regards the information available to them about (for example), the Solar System is somewhat odd. Is there NOBODY who's willing to put together a study group to try to figure out what those old records mean?
June 23, 2025
I don't often read the other reviews on Goodreads, but I did for this one because the structure of this book was so different from The Integral Trees. Trees set a breakneck pace, far more interested in showing off the interesting world than dwelling too long on any individual element. The Smoke Ring by contrast is much more contemplative, focusing more on the Humans and Human systems in this alien environment.
Imagine my surprise that most of the reviews fixated on the (perceived) absence of character development. I certainly felt that there was much more time spend on characterization here than in Trees (which I also enjoyed). It was characterization in service to societal world-building, but it was definitely there. I can sort of see some merit to complaints that the characters weren't particularly unique...
... except for Sharls Davis Kendy. He's generally not the focus of the action of the book, but I'd still call him the main character. And what an interesting and unique character! He's a human intelligence stored in a computer (in a book from 1987), portrayed as a machine but also very much not a machine. I would have read this book for the world-building alone and thoroughly enjoyed it, but Kendy's characterization tipped this book into highly recommended territory.
Imagine my surprise that most of the reviews fixated on the (perceived) absence of character development. I certainly felt that there was much more time spend on characterization here than in Trees (which I also enjoyed). It was characterization in service to societal world-building, but it was definitely there. I can sort of see some merit to complaints that the characters weren't particularly unique...
... except for Sharls Davis Kendy. He's generally not the focus of the action of the book, but I'd still call him the main character. And what an interesting and unique character! He's a human intelligence stored in a computer (in a book from 1987), portrayed as a machine but also very much not a machine. I would have read this book for the world-building alone and thoroughly enjoyed it, but Kendy's characterization tipped this book into highly recommended territory.
March 12, 2022
It's been many years since I've read The Integral Trees, and I hardly remembered anything about it except that I generally liked it and the twist of the phrase "going for gold" at the end.
With that I spent a bit of time in this book feeling lost in something meant to be familiar.
The plot itself is a bit stretched and only towards the end gets interesting for itself and not just for world-building and/or referencing plots and characters from the backstory.
I especially enjoyed Rather's storyline towards the end.
The tech and sci-fi ideas are very cool and the world very complete and interesting. The silver suit feuling mechanism, the trees navigation methods, the different tree communities and the admirality, it can create a very compelling world.
I was in a bit of a reading rut and was thinking that something that relates to a book I remember liking many years ago would be a safe bet to get out of it, but it wasn't. I slogged through this thinking of quitting it several times while feeling that there are too many things I don't recall and it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Became aware of this book because Omer recommended the pair of books, and of course I have The Integral Trees on my bookshelf still.
With that I spent a bit of time in this book feeling lost in something meant to be familiar.
The plot itself is a bit stretched and only towards the end gets interesting for itself and not just for world-building and/or referencing plots and characters from the backstory.
I especially enjoyed Rather's storyline towards the end.
The tech and sci-fi ideas are very cool and the world very complete and interesting. The silver suit feuling mechanism, the trees navigation methods, the different tree communities and the admirality, it can create a very compelling world.
I was in a bit of a reading rut and was thinking that something that relates to a book I remember liking many years ago would be a safe bet to get out of it, but it wasn't. I slogged through this thinking of quitting it several times while feeling that there are too many things I don't recall and it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
Became aware of this book because Omer recommended the pair of books, and of course I have The Integral Trees on my bookshelf still.
October 25, 2020
Ok Niven has come up with a faaaaar out idea here, having created a world quite unlike anything I've seen in science fiction. Like his Known Space series, this world is another human colony settled by Earth. The colonists have at this point lost any real knowledge of their origins (I'm not sure how this happens in sci-fi, but it does) and live in more or less a failed state only a few degrees above total barbarism.
What I don't like about this book is its absurdity. What I like about it is it's ambition. It's truly a unique world, however, the whole time I was secretly rooting for the characters to all find a way to leave it. As far as that goes, because of the overall absurdity of the planet, I didn't care which characters left... just all of them. There were no real protagonists, antagonists, just a bunch of people in a mind-bendingly weird setting.
On we go. Now I need some more Ringworld to bring my Niven experience back into normalcy.
What I don't like about this book is its absurdity. What I like about it is it's ambition. It's truly a unique world, however, the whole time I was secretly rooting for the characters to all find a way to leave it. As far as that goes, because of the overall absurdity of the planet, I didn't care which characters left... just all of them. There were no real protagonists, antagonists, just a bunch of people in a mind-bendingly weird setting.
On we go. Now I need some more Ringworld to bring my Niven experience back into normalcy.
May 12, 2021
3.5 stars, gets the Larry Niven round-up.
I think I liked this one better than The Integral Trees, maybe I just learned to ignore the wildly improbably setting and just go with the story. This makes it complete, I think, another book in The State that has very little to do with The State. Little bit of a twist on the back story, although I think I figured it out about a half book before I was supposed to.
All in all, not my favorite Niven series, but still worth reading. Not sure I have much of his left at this point - a few of the sequels to his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle maybe.
I think I liked this one better than The Integral Trees, maybe I just learned to ignore the wildly improbably setting and just go with the story. This makes it complete, I think, another book in The State that has very little to do with The State. Little bit of a twist on the back story, although I think I figured it out about a half book before I was supposed to.
All in all, not my favorite Niven series, but still worth reading. Not sure I have much of his left at this point - a few of the sequels to his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle maybe.
December 10, 2018
Niven, Larry. The Smoke Ring. The State No. 3. Del Rey, 1988.
Nobody builds more outrageous and interesting worlds than Larry Niven in his prime. First, we have a gas torus with breathable atmosphere around a neutron star. Who knew? Where did all that oxygen come from—well from big trees, naturally. The things are 60 miles from end to end. They provide habitat and transportation and other resources for a community of castaway humans who have evolved to adapt this unusual environment. Hanging out in orbit is Kenly, an AI with the most bureaucratic personality in all AI-dom. Let us just say, he has control issues. For me, most amazing of all, is the idea that this is not just fantasy, that the science of the smoke ring is actually plausible. It is readable after all these years.
Nobody builds more outrageous and interesting worlds than Larry Niven in his prime. First, we have a gas torus with breathable atmosphere around a neutron star. Who knew? Where did all that oxygen come from—well from big trees, naturally. The things are 60 miles from end to end. They provide habitat and transportation and other resources for a community of castaway humans who have evolved to adapt this unusual environment. Hanging out in orbit is Kenly, an AI with the most bureaucratic personality in all AI-dom. Let us just say, he has control issues. For me, most amazing of all, is the idea that this is not just fantasy, that the science of the smoke ring is actually plausible. It is readable after all these years.
May 2, 2021
The ending of this book is garbage in my opinion. Kendy must be bored as hell by now. People in this novel were way to quick to uproot their lives (see what I did there) for each other. I really enjoyed Integral Trees and I liked the beginning of this book quite a bit. I thought there was a lot of places where it could go once the reader discovers that people are in the clump. However I feel as if this is where the story went flat and began to get boring, focusing way too much on character arcs than the plot. Like there was only one part involving dark diving and Rather in his suit. This part could have been made way cooler and added more action to the novel. Overall, I think Integral Trees was decent, but this follow-up fell a bit short.
February 17, 2018
Het einde van de trilogie waarin we een heleboel antwoorden krijgen en een zicht op de toekomst. Eigen aan de stijl van Larry Niven is dat niet alle vragen beantwoord worden.
Een aantal tot hier toe minder belichte karakters en enkele nieuwe aanwinsten spelen de hoofdrol. Vindingrijkheid en aanpassingsvermogen vormen interessant leesvoer. Aktie, spanning en humor vormen een onweeerstaanbare cocktail.
Dit boek beschrijft één van de meest vreemde werelden waarover ik ooit gelezen heb en Larry Niven doet dat consequent op een prachtig gedetailleerde wijze zodat zowel de voor- als de nadelen duidelijk worden.
Synthese: hier kunnen mensen vliegen!
Een aantal tot hier toe minder belichte karakters en enkele nieuwe aanwinsten spelen de hoofdrol. Vindingrijkheid en aanpassingsvermogen vormen interessant leesvoer. Aktie, spanning en humor vormen een onweeerstaanbare cocktail.
Dit boek beschrijft één van de meest vreemde werelden waarover ik ooit gelezen heb en Larry Niven doet dat consequent op een prachtig gedetailleerde wijze zodat zowel de voor- als de nadelen duidelijk worden.
Synthese: hier kunnen mensen vliegen!
July 7, 2021
What do you get when you mix a steampunk society, low gravity and one of the best scifi authors ever? Well, in this case a pretty boring book. There's no real action, no brilliant ideas like we're used to from Niven, just a detailed look into the life of a pretty hypothetical group of people, in a very alien environment. Ok, it gives closure to the story started in Integral Trees (or even before in World Out of Time), has more character development than its predecessor, and there's quite some open-air sexual acrobatics, but there's no real tension, and one of the main story threads, one that has driven a lot of the plot, turns out to be an absolute non-starter. It's a pity.
October 15, 2018
Mediocre conclusion to a mediocre trilogy. The idea of huge trees in space, and an extremely-long duration mostly-failed empire, could be good, but the actual stories and characters were bad to mediocre throughout. Niven is great at coming up with concepts behind worlds (Ringworld even more so than The State), but bad downstream from that. Skip. (Also a pretty bad audiobook; narrator speaks words quickly but with large gaps between words, so it isn't as intelligible at 2x as many others at 3x.)
February 23, 2019
Tedious. The first 2 books of the trilogy were far better. In this one, Nevin let himself get bogged down in the minutia. Far too much detail where none was needed to move the story along, or to even give you a sense of the world. It was just excess. Then the ending. Nevin isn't writing anymore (that I'm aware of), so I guess we'll never get a book 4 despite the blatant cliff hanger at the very end. I don't recommend this book unless you just have to read the entire series.
June 30, 2025
I’ve read several of Niven’s books now, and I think he’s a lot better at worldbuilding than he is at crafting narratives. The smoke ring environment is truly unique and was fascinating to dive into, but it requires some work on the reader’s part; this book starts with 6 pages of diagrams that I had to reference several times while I was trying to orient myself in the free-fall environment. I think this hampers the storytelling a bit, but is a very cool idea.
The story was pretty good for the first two thirds, but fizzled out a lot towards the end, which was pretty disappointing.
The story was pretty good for the first two thirds, but fizzled out a lot towards the end, which was pretty disappointing.
January 17, 2018
A sequel to The Integral Trees, and a big step down. I enjoy reading it because it includes so much more fascinating information about the world Niven has created -- including the revelation about how the starship crew was stranded in the Smoke Ring five hundred years earlier -- but it lacks the spark of the first novel and falls even deeper into the trap of presenting male fantasies as if they were female sexual empowerment.
September 10, 2018
This book follows book 2 as part of a 2 book series, continuing the plot.
Colonists living in a donut-shaped atmosphere trapped around suns, with "trees" orbiting in the atmosphere. This one focuses on a more interior cloudy part where more technology has settled.
The Integral Trees' plot flowed a bit better. I found I didn't care as much for the characters in this book, by this point, and the novelty of the world had worn off.
Colonists living in a donut-shaped atmosphere trapped around suns, with "trees" orbiting in the atmosphere. This one focuses on a more interior cloudy part where more technology has settled.
The Integral Trees' plot flowed a bit better. I found I didn't care as much for the characters in this book, by this point, and the novelty of the world had worn off.
November 26, 2017
Set is Niven's State Universe, The Smoke Ring is a sequel to The Integral Trees. The setting is fascinating and the socio-political speculation interesting, but I didn't think he really added much to the original concept with this continuation. The plot and characters seem very secondary to the rest. The previous book should definitely be read before tackling this one.
May 4, 2018
A must read for hardcore science fictions fans.
A mediocre read for shitheads with short attention span.
World building and science fiction is superb. Character development and well, literary skills... not that good.
Yay, I've finished the series! And forgot immediately everything about it, so no cookie for me.
A mediocre read for shitheads with short attention span.
World building and science fiction is superb. Character development and well, literary skills... not that good.
Yay, I've finished the series! And forgot immediately everything about it, so no cookie for me.
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