Bowl of Heaven

Bowl of Heaven #1

by Gregory Benford, Larry Niven

Човешка експедиция към отдалечена звездна система се натъква на изумителна находка: гигантска конструкция, обгръщаща половин звезда, която се движи в същата посока и разполага с обитаема площ многократно по-голяма от Земята.

Част от полевия екип е заловена от гигантските извънземни обитатели.

Загадките за произхода и предназначението на Купата тласкат изследователите към открития, които ще променят представите за мястото на човечеството във вселената.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Hard Science Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club

414 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.

Reviews

[Rusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

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. I thought the joyride of greatness was never going to end. I picked up this nugget of SF from the used bookstore for a few dollars and thought it was just another sign from the SF gods that my destiny was to never have to experience the real world, ever again. I could just keep losing myself in tale after tale of space travel and aliens.

But with this work, all that came to a screeching halt. Too bad, there was something interesting happening in those pages. But whatever it was got buried by a ton of shit.

Larry Niven will always be a hero of mine for his Ringworld books, and Benford for his Ocean of Night novels. In this collaboration we’ve got the classic BDO (one of my favorite subjects in SF – the Big Dumb Object), a solar system sized artifact shaped like a bowl that is tethered to star that has been traveling through the interstellar medium since long before humans existed in anything like their modern form.

Our intrepid heroes from earth get trapped on this giant bowl and have to uncover its many mysteries… before they starve, or are hunted by the things living there.

Again, lots to love from that premise, at least from my perspective. So why do I feel so much hate for it?

Well, one has to be my expectations. I assumed this was going to be very good. Instead, I got something like a pilot for television show, we’re only getting the premise. No resolution on any single plot point raised. Period. It’s just like they were busily typing away and decided it was long enough and so they stopped. Book over.

Second, guys, seriously, I love Tor books, and I’ve already mentioned my love for the authors. But this thing is clearly a working draft that accidently got sent to the printers. How bad was it? Well, so bad that after 50 pages or so I got out a piece of paper and stuffed it inside the book, whenever I would come across something inexplicable, I’d write a quick note. There is no way I could remember all that stuff that started going goofy.

Seriously, this stuff is beyond unforgivable. When Cliff comes out of his hyper sleep he quickly realizes they’ve been asleep for about 80 years (pg 26)… during that time they’ve traveled 40 light years (pg 28). Now, I’ll start off right there mentioning that ramscoop drives in SF have been around for a while, and the physics of how they’d work are pretty well understood (even if the engineering isn’t). They won’t go half the speed of light, that’s off by a couple of orders of magnitude. But whatever, this is supposed to be a hard-science fiction novel, so that sort of stuff is annoying, but I can live with it. But then it gets mentioned that they’ve been traveling .0081 the speed of light (pg 36). Oh, well, that fixes one problem and creates another. They would have traveled a bit over 3 light years since they’ve been away from earth, not 40.

Again, who really cares, right? Except, it’s just that stuff like that bugs me. How about the fact that it’s mentioned casually that they lost contact with earth over a century ago (pg263)? Wait… what? They’ve only been traveling for 80 years, remember? No, they’ve been traveling for ‘centuries’ (pg 348).

But wait! Turns out, they’ve been getting regular updates from earth the whole time (pg 409). So nevermind that last thing. At least they’re safe there in orbit of that Orange dwarf star where the bowl is ((almost the size of the sun) pg 39), except that it becomes a red dwarf for the rest of the book (for those not into astronomical trivia, a red dwarf is just a tad larger than Jupiter, and the bowl would have to be considerably smaller to be in the temperate zone around the star. None of the numbers they would have given would make any sense then).

Okay, so I’m sure that if sounds like I’m being an ass, I mean, so these guys writing a ‘hard’ science fiction novel suck at math (well, arithmetic)… and pull numbers out their asses and don’t bother to keep them consistent. A story isn’t about math, it’s about, characters, prose, plot… not numbers.

Fine, does it bug you that Howard gets injured, patched up, then re-patched up a few paragraphs later? And I don’t mean they checked back with him, I mean they pulled the same bit of debris from his arm more than once… they bandaged the same wound (after removing said debris) twice (pg 106).

Or, Cliff, our story’s protagonist, inexplicably is called Carl (pg 327) before going back to being Cliff again.

Or, Abye states, dramatically, that they’re being hunted by aliens (pg 378), then, on the VERY NEXT PAGE (pg 379) when a traveling companion says they’re being hunted by aliens Abye reacts by saying ‘they’re after us?’ His eyes ‘go wide’ and everything. I mean, the dialog makes zero sense.

Speaking of actual words… at one point a group finds a tool left behind by some alien and the narrator asks, rhetorically, ‘Dared they try it.’

What the f**k does that mean? Later, after witnessing the slaughter of a group of aliens by a third alien group, a character states, rather poignantly, ‘They lost a lot of dead.’

Um, seriously, what the hell is that supposed to even mean? And I’ve not even got into problems I had with Cliff, our sociopathic lead character who, minutes after his life’s true love gets kidnapped by an alien, decides to start screwing the only girl he can find. He never even hints at feeling shitty about it. Just idly thinks that things could get complicated later.

And of course the plot itself seems to revolve around getting the characters onto the bowl. Once there, they all sort of wondered around, no plan of action, just kind of vaguely trying to not get caught by the aliens… and sampling every damned piece of matter they come across to see if they can eat it. – Hey, it’s bird, think we can eat it? Look, a tree, think we can eat it? Whoa, dirt, think we can eat it? Dude, it’s alien shit, think we can eat it?

At some point, if I’m being honest with you, I started enjoying this. The same way I enjoy watching MST3K. It’s such an epic disaster than I started to revel in it. I realized I’m reading something that was pounded out over a weekend, probably while the authors were drinking. They clearly think I’m a moron, that I’m stupid, that readers in general are, and decided to vomit out some words and call it finished.

Screw us. We just need to shut up and hand over money I guess. I’m giving this two stars instead of one because of the balls it took them to write such shit and still have the nerve to put this out for public consumption.

Also, I did like the cover, and the interior had a few illustrations. So, yay for that.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 aliens, a much bigger cast of aliens compared to Niven's other series, and a particularly interesting reliance on a conscious/unconscious theme.

I'm not going to say that the characters in this book are all that special, but when you're dealing with exploring spacecraft and an exploring STAR, tons of hi-tech, adopted aliens, and people doing what people always seem to do, it's not really meant to be a character study.

It's an adventure with a huge scope.

Just what the doctor ordered.

[Metodi Markov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Един добър научнофантастичен роман, който доста ми хареса.

Пътувайки с космически кораб към годна за обитаване планета, хората се натъкват на огромен изкуствен свят, обитаем от различни интелигентни извънземни раси...

Проблем е, че това е първа част от поредица и от издателството не са си направили труда да го споменат в анотацията поне.

Втората част е излязла на английски, Бард най-вероятно няма да я преведат...

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 for me to suspend belief sufficiently to accept that the "creme of humanity, extensively filtered and trained for years" would make such ridiculous choices.

3. Stunningly Bad Science - for example the lead science officer estimates that a ground car going 600km an hour would travel the rim in a few weeks - not the correct answer of 306 years. For MANY more examples, see the reviews on Amazon.

4. No point to the book - This story, while set on a very interesting alien artifact, does little to explore the implications of the technology, the science implied, or reflect back on the human experience in any way.

As one reviewer put it, this is a Buck Rogers story - all mindless action, no science. In this case its a wilderness survival story that is incidentally set on an alien artifact. I recommend you buy a real wilderness survival story instead.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 reader to already have an understanding of the concepts. For example, Beth, one of the main characters, and her team- while hiking through the alien world- decided they should "move along the tops of the trees" to avoid arduous struggles through the undergrowth (p. 269). So are they swinging like Tarzan from tree to tree? Maybe they have set up zip lines somehow? Unfortunately, we don't understand that they were actually 'swimming' through the trees due to the low gravity until nearly 100 pages later (p. 365). Sadly, this book is filled with plenty of vague descriptions just like this.

The authors of Bowl of Heaven did a terrible job with character development, or making characters that stand out and create emotional attachments. I didn't feel like I really knew any of the characters until the end of the book. By that time, I didn't care anymore. Seriously, the characters in this book could have been animatronic dummies from Disney World for all the personality they had.

What little I learned about the main character, Cliff, was seriously more disappointing than emotionally engaging. For example, at one point, we learn that in the future, the people of earth undertake a nature-restoration campaign to clear the planet of pollution and restrict the overabundance of certain animals and plants to their own natural region. While ruminating on this, Cliff reveals that he enjoyed clearing away pampas grass better than going after trout or deer (p. 325). Again, this may be one of those vague areas I mentioned before, but how could anyone enjoy pulling weeds more than hunting and fishing? This was the main character and already I felt like he was an idiot.

Also, another sparse tidbit we learn about Cliff: though he loves his wife, Beth, he also enjoys adultery. Okay, so they've touched down on an alien world and made an amazing escape. What comes next? How 'bout having sex with one of the talking mannequins in your crew, specifically- Irma? The part I found most disturbing, he didn't even think very hard about it. Would somebody please thump Benford and Niven on the heads? As the reader, I know extremely little about this main character (which is tragic in itself)- but now I learn that he will have sex at the drop of a hat with anyone. I hate this guy. This was completely in poor taste and unnecessary. And unfortunately, we learn that pretty much everyone is thinking about sex by the end of this novel. How old are these people? Don't they have cold showers in space?

Who is Carl? While Cliff's team is cruising through the alien terrain in a hovering magnetic car, Carl suddenly realizes he hears his own breath rasping in and out (p. 327). Uhh, so Carl was never mentioned before... In fact, if you look at the 'Cast of Characters' at the beginning of the book, there is no Carl. We can even see that there is no Carl in Cliff's team in the Cast of Characters. So where did this guy come from? How did he just appear and why doesn't anyone seem surprised? Is this the same Karl who stayed in the ship (p. 350)? I assume the authors and editor made a mistake and meant Cliff. Boy, this book just stunk of people who really didn't care about it. As mentioned before, it really seemed like the authors had difficulty working together- like they mainly just wanted to get it over with.

And one last note, the humor in this book may have been adequate for the soulless animatronic characters- but it really wasn't funny. For example, '"Look, we're in a crazy place. But don't let your preoccupation with reality stifle your imagination. We're bound for Glory." In their pealing laughter he heard joy (p. 406).' So they were originally going to a planet called Glory- and this little joke never occurred to them before? Aren't these supposed to be really smart people?

Ultimately, Bowl of Heaven was a tragic waste of a good idea. I understand there is a second book (or there will be soon). My only thought in regards to this is, "why?"

[Tamahome · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 different levels of gravity. There's also an interesting alien point of view in some chapters.


All done. Err, there's no ending. Don't you love all the series in publishing these days? So I mostly liked the beginning part where they discover the Big Dumb Object in space. I'm not a big fan of jungle stories, like in the middle. There was a little more tech towards the end, but then it's to be continued in the next in the series. At least it's relatively short for a novel these days. At least I finished it, which is rare for me.

Pretty good video of the authors at Google with a slideshow: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012...

At least they promise it's only a 2 book series.

[Martin Doychinov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Такааа... силно любимият ми Лари Нивън влиза в сътрудничество с не особено познатия Грегъри Бенфорд. Последният има преведени на майчин език два романа - продължение на Фондацията (време е да я препрочета), и номер 33 от червената серия на Бард - "Пейзажите на времето" - тайм-фантастика, която отлежава на рафта за четене в библиотеката ми. Има и разкази в четири родни сборника, пак нечетени. Изобщо - непознат ми е.
Обектът, дал име на романа, представлява изкуствено създадена полусфера, обгърнала звезда точно в обитаемата й зона. Двете заедно пътуват към система, излъчваща необясними гравитационни вълни, към която и се е запътил човешки междузвезден кораб. Последният, разбира се, забелязва невъобразимата конструкция, и решава да се отбие да разгледа.
Дотук добре, даже и аналогията с "Пръстенов свят" е само бегла (последното май е за съжаление). Оттам следва кацане, бягане, криене, биене и т.н., което е горе-долу ок, но за съжаление не се случва нищо особено...
Защо?
Защото това е първата част от (поне) трилогия. Последното далеч не е лошо, но проблемът е, че "Купата..." на практика не е самостоятелно произведение. Няма и помен от някаква развръзка, която трябва да присъства дори и в (произволно цяло число на латински)-логия. Нито една от сюжетните линии не е завършена - "романът" просто приключва в нищото...
Има и втора част (третата се пише в момента) - "Shipstar", която (разбира се), пенделите от "Бард" не са издали.
Това е първи том от роман, а не самостоятелен такъв! И действието е ненужно разтегнато, може би да се надуе обема...
Все пак е добър увод в една интересна история - надявам се втората част да даде малко завършеност. Ще се чете, но съм безкрайно неприятно изненадан, че за авторите това е цял роман.

[Donald Cook · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 the same wound is treated twice on a single page.
Should not have been published in this form. I may have to give up on this one.
More sloppiness, plus an uncompleted story "to be completed in a 'second volume'", which I bet will either never get written or will be pushed out solely to avoid breaching a contract. Meh!
In the end, I think I will not await Volume 2 with 'bated breath.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

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." Trust me, ... nothing.

It reads as if Niven and Benford separately sometimes wrote the same scenes, and then nobody bothered to properly merge them. 

So we have a situation where the Earth expedition sends a landing party to the "Bowl", and the party gets split in halves. First, "Coiled tubes…reached Tananareve, caught her." Then the rest of her half of the party get caught, while those who had already entered an airlock get away on the other side. But the next thing we see, Tananareve is providing first aid to one of the guys who escaped. Then, three paragraphs later, Cliff and Irma are providing first aid to the same guy... Later, we know that the people in command of the Bowl are known as Astronomers, but suddenly one is called an Astronaut—and it's only a couple of pages later that we're told that "The Astronomers also included some called Astronauts." Geez, can't you even do basic continuity? "That seemed now like many days ago.… That was now a bigger problem for them all—telling when an Earth day had gone by." Why? They're all carrying something very like a modern smart phone—it can't keep time? And really, why is it that important to know that an Earth day has passed—they'll never actually see another Earth day. Towards the end, they're in an elevator: "They went on, Cliff limping." Except, they're still in the elevator! Where's he going?

Motivations are completely suspect (which, to be sort-of fair, is a problem with Ringworld, too). When a generation-ship heading for a star 45 light-years (I think) from Earth, comes across an enormous bowl-shaped habitat with a star at its focus, apparently moving through space under its own power, they actually have to THINK about whether to stop and check it out. Even when they already know that their calculations were wrong, and they are unlikely to even reach their destination! Duh.

Later, one party finds the Bowl's transportation system: "The e-train zoomed on, at speeds Cliff estimated to be at least ten kilometers per second." What? How is he estimating that? It's a subway. 

I'd give this one 1-star, except that I reserve that for books I couldn't finish. otoh, it breaks my cardinal rule for series novels: it's not self-contained. There is no conclusion to this story, everybody is just left hanging (though, it's not even suspenseful enough to be called a cliff-hanger—it's more like they submitted 1000 manuscript pages to the publisher, and the publisher cut it into three equal portions). So, I've talked myself into it: they haven't actually LET me finish this story, and I'm definitely not buying the sequel.

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 force is perpendicular to the plane of rotation not, as in gravity, perpendicular (sort of) to the surface of the mass. Therefore, near the pole of the hemisphere the pseudo gravity is roughly parallel to the surface. No standing.

The solar system-sized hemisphere rotates to create artificial gravity. Okay, but if the period of rotate is nine days long, the pseudo gravity would be more than 0.8 g. A bone-crushing lot more considering the hemisphere is the diameter of either Earth’s or Mercury’s orbit. (I’ll talk about their proof reading later.)

Clouds hundreds of kilometers high with a seven kilometer “ceiling” membrane?

Live pigs for food on an interstellar mission with resource issues?

“Expelling her lungs” Ooo. Ugly mental picture.

They spend pages and pages lecturing the reader about how evolution solves all problems, except most species of the Bowl of Heaven were genetically designed.

Lots of repetition. Leaves the reader to suspect no one read this all the way through after it was in final form. In fact, the whole thing seems dashed off.

How does the story turn out? No clue. It doesn’t end, it stops. One of those “to be continued” books which authors and publishers love these days.

Why not one star? Because it’s a great set up and interesting cast.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 this time!"

So I had to knock a star off for what can best be described as perfunctory characterisation -- though only on the human side; the aliens are convincing and thrilling.

As for the rest, this collaboration between two Grand Masters of the genre is a triumph, a classic Big Dumb Object (BDO) yarn that revels in the speculation and science. Yes, the Curious Mammoth Object Orbiting A Star, Abandoned But Full of Alien Life, has been done before -- Rama, Eon, Ringworld, Helix -- but Benford and Niven bring a rigour to their high concept that is supremely entertaining.

And they are masters at plot, ratcheting up the narrative tension and revelations until the suitably Grand Scale, but sadly premature, ending ... we have to wait until 'Shipstar' is published to find out how it ends. At least it is only two books, I suppose ...

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

<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 lyrical and readable, not so dry or stiff, but just be sure you have the next book ready.)

Scenario: There's a strange megastructure artifact in space, and some curious folk want to take a look-see. The premise, quite a well-traveled science fiction road, recalls favorites such as the ring of Larry Niven's Ringworld, the cylinder in Arthur Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, the sphere in Bob Shaw's Orbitsville, the pipes in Alastair Reynolds's Pushing Ice, even the hole through the planet in Benford's own Tides of Light Furious Gulf.

The basic elements are the discovery, the trip, the entry, the exploration, the encounter with strange beings and the escape. Bowl of Heaven goes through discovery-trip-entry fairly quickly in the opening chapters, and here, the hard sf backgrounds of the authors certainly come to the fore and provide impetus for the story. Of course, one has to like hard sf to be able to tolerate all the physics references, otherwise this segment could be a chore. Then, the exploration-encounter phase sets in and this is where, perhaps, the story bogs down a bit.

Things pick up again as the aliens decide to focus in on the human escapees, and a hot pursuit begins. However, just as soon as the action picks up than the book ends. This is probably a publishing quirk, splitting a book into two, increasing margins and whatnot, but quite annoying. I would still take a look at the continuation of the series just for some form of resolution.

Recommended for fans of the genre and of these authors in particular. The style may be too stiff for many readers, like listening to a training manual. That does say a lot about my personal likes though.

[Will Maddox · Rating 1 out of 5]

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. One group escapes, and spends the rest of the novel running across the "Bowl" as it's known... I just found the whole thing absurd. Massive chicken/bird aliens can build a spaceship out of a star, but they can't chase down 5/6 humans running around their ship? What's the plot supposed to actually be? Yes, the writer's hinted at some deeper plotting elements. But that's it, they hinted. You DO NOT WRITE HUNDREDS OF PAGES WITHOUT A PLAUSIBLE STORY. You just don't! I was especially disgusted when the male character who the writers established early on was on the spaceship with the love of his life, soul mate, one true love, etc. etc. (because they really laid it on thick) just decides to randomly start banging some chick that happens to be on the run with his little group. Why? Cause he could. REALLY? Your soulmate has been captured by the Colonel's worst nightmare and maybe right now is being tortured or killed and you grab the first piece of ass you can? Sorry, Gregory Benford, If I could figure out how to give your book a negative star rating, I would. It was that bad. I had to put it down part way through and read two GOOD books (review them shortly) just to finish this garbage. Please, if you're on a reading budget, skip this. If you like intelligent writing. Skip this. .... Save your brain cells.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had MUCH higher hopes for this book. It is, after all, co-written by two excellent novelists. Unfortunately, this does NOT show through. I found the writing actually bad at times, and confusing at others. Perhaps Mr. Benford and Mr. Niven did not talk to each other much while working on their sections to get their story straight. Way too many "wait.. what?" moments.

[Traveling Cloak · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 get away. As the governing aliens decide the fate of the captured explorers and attempt to track the remaining members, both groups concoct plans to escape.

Let’s talk sci-fi elements, first. For the most part, I really thought the authors did a nice job with this aspect of the book. What I like most about this story is how unique it is. At first, the idea of this “bowl of heaven” encircling a star seemed a little far fetched to me. But, as I got more into the story and theories about what the structure is and how it came to be becomes really intriguing. The other two big plot points are the exploration of the bowl, and the interaction with the aliens who govern it – both experienced by different crews and written from their respective perspectives. Strange animals, rocky terrain, mindgames, rebellions, intimate hookups, and many episodes of “Is This Safe to Eat?” make an appearance. It was all so interesting and exciting, and I found myself always wondering what was going to happen next.

I do want to note that this book felt more like classic science fiction to me than most of the complex space stories that are trending. It is definitely not a space opera, as its focus is pretty singular. The story does not involve other planets or systems, for the most part, and human-alien encounters are limited to the bowl. In my opinion, that is not a bad thing, though. While we all love a good space opera, sometimes it is nice to experience a more classically-told story, as well, as there is a certain connotation that comes along with it. As a reader, classic sci-fi puts me in a certain place, a particular mindset. I like the fact that this book took me there.

I mention the human condition before, because there is a lot of focus on the way humans respond and interact versus the aliens. This is not uncommon for a story such as this (it actually reminded me a lot of the TV show Falling Skies; a show that I really enjoyed), where the aliens are surprised by how witty the humans are and how much willpower they have. The humans are adaptable and work as a team; whereas the aliens are much more split in their actions. This is a fun way to present this type of story, though I do think it tends to get a little kitschy after a while.

One opinion I have held fast on is the fact that I think sci-fi is the hardest genre to write, for many reasons. One of the aspects that I find difficult is writing our world from our time but also different because it is in the future. I found that to be one of the challenges with this book, as a lot of the culture references (regarding music, literature, etc) are ones we would make today; for instance, one of the crew members quoted Shakespeare and everyone not only knew it well but seemed to understand the subtext. And, while I have no doubt Shakespeare’s work will still be around and well-known a hundred years from now, I am not sure if it will be an automatic reference everyone will understand. I do not consider this to be a huge flaw, but it is one worth mentioning as there are times where it stands out in the story.

Bowl of Heaven is a fun and exciting science fiction novel. It has a unique storyline that creates and a lot of intrigue and drives the plot. I recommend it for fans of sci-fi, and especially those looking for one that is written in a more classic style. I am looking forward to what book 2 in the series, Shipstar, has in store.

[Denise Eggleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 while they fly to an Earth-like planet called Glory. The main character, a biologist named Cliff, is rudely awoken from his long chemically-induced slumber. Captain Redwing and a few others are also awoken.

Their ship has approached an anomaly, a bowl-shaped object with a captive red-dwarf sun. The bowl is immense; the size of a solar system and inside the bowl is an unimaginably-sized territory. They find a land of lush forests, deserts, rivers, and seas. They decide to explore the bowl they nickname Cupworld.

The explorers end up divided on this new world. One group is captured and studied by immense bird-like creatures. The other group escapes into Cupworld and is chased by its inhabitants. The rest of this volume is about the experiences of each group with a bit about Captain Redwing hanging about the sky.

That’s basically the story and I hope I’ve avoided spoilers. Now for the reservations. The book is very close to Larry Niven’s “Ringworld” concept. Cupworld and Ringworld are two immense constructions surrounding captive suns. Each world is based on the fictional concept of a Dyson Sphere built around a sun (the actual concept is the more practical satellite rings around a sun and not a construction the size of solar systems).

Each book has its protagonists dealing with the natives of the constructions. Each construction is almost inconceivably old.

The books are not identical though and “Bowl of Heaven” is enjoyable on its own terms. In some ways, "Bowl of Heaven" is more philosophical (and I mean that in a good way) than "Ringworld." But, if you’ve read any of the “Ringworld” books, you will not be able to get the echo out of your head.

One other reservation; the book ends with a note that a second volume will soon be released. Arrgh. I want to know what happens to Cliff, Captain Redwing, and all the others. I have to wait. Sigh.

[Гергана Васева · Rating 4 out of 5]

На преден план е човекът и благосъстоянието на цялото човешко общество. Винаги трябва да мислим за утре, а днес е само стъпка към него...
,,Въпросът опираше до ограниченията на Народа, до неговото превъзходство-и дори до свободата му."
Човешка експедиция е изпратена към отдалечена звездна система. Целта- да направят обитаема поредната планета, която има потенциал. Цената-никога да не се върнеш към своята родна планета.
,,Себепознанието обикновено носи лоши вести."
Векове след изпращането на човешката експедиция сред открития космос, където властва други времеви пространства и представи, разумът се натъква на една умопомрачителна гледка: огромна конструкция, прилична на Купа, обгръщаща звезда, движеща се в същата посока. Самата конструкция разполага с необятно по-голяма обитаема площ от Земята, както и от всичко познато до сега...

За още:https://faithisnodoubt.blogspot.bg/

[Lyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Sarah B · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are searching for a mind-expanding science fiction book then this might be it. The inside flap tells you what the crew of the SunSeeker will find out in the deep reaches of space - a massive bowl-shaped artificial structure built by someone - but you don't really understand the scale of this construct until you start reading. I was absolutely mind blown! A thousand Earths could fit inside this giant "wok". And there is a captured star inside being used to propel this wok-shaped ship through space! And it's been traveling for millions or billions of years! Even stranger the inside is like a planet.

I can't even comprehend the scale of this. It's like the inner part of our solar system! This is certainly not like anything I have read before... Well not this part about the alien spacecraft ...

The plot is definitely an adventure story. There is some science thrown in but the main storyline is about the different groups of human characters as they explore this huge area inside this Bowl of Heaven (that is what the alien Bird Folk call it). This is also definitely a survival story. It's the humans against the odd fauna and flora inside this ship.

There isn't very much suspense or thrills. It's more action adventure. The characters have to use their ingenuity to stay ahead of the evil aliens who want to capture them. That leads to many dangerous situations; it's even more dangerous because they have no idea where they are going. In some ways it seems kind of random and makes me think of those fantasy movies from the 1980s.

One bit of science I learned from reading this was the Coriolis Effect, which I had never heard of before.

Even after reading this, I am struggling trying to understand how something someone built could be so big. It boggles the mind.

Part of the plot in here is about society. And how newcomers can be a threat that leads to change. It also talks about the environment on a world wide scale.

Towards the end of the book there are hints at something mysterious waiting at their original destination. Now that definitely has my interest! One nice thing about reading these older books is there's no waiting to read a sequel. They are already published and waiting for me to pick up. In fact I stopped by my library today and picked up the other two books that complete this trilogy.

I really didn't connect very much with any of the characters in here but the story itself was very entertaining and it moved at a good pace. Memor the lead Bird Folk in here - she is having much difficulty dealing with the humans. They keep outsmarting her. And on a side note, if you have ever listened to any of those popular YouTube channels that tell stories about earth being a Deathworld, well, this might be a novel version of that. And that alone makes the book quite satisfying. We "monkeys" certainly confused the birds.

But what is waiting in the Glory system???

[Zack Subin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[David King · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bowl of Heaven" is a science fiction novel created collaboratively between Gregory Benford & Larry Niven. As both these authors are known as masters of the genre I was looking forward to reading it even though I have never actually read a novel by either of them before. What I found, was a hard science fiction novel, full of exposition and mystery that I found both interesting and intriguing.

The story itself follows the Sunseeker, a new starship that is aiming to traverse the cosmos to colonise a new world in a journey that will take centuries. All the crew except those needed to pilot the ship will be put into hibernation with these piloting teams being rotated every few years. However, during the journey two issues occur that force the on duty crew to wake up additional people from their hibernation chambers.

The first of these issues is related to the ship's speed which appeared to be slowing to the point that the food supply on board the ship may be unable to sustain the crew that are awake during the rest of the journey. However, the second issue is the most amazing; they have discovered a massive structure in the shape of a bowl that is heading in the same direction as them. It is therefore decided that the only hope for the crew is to land on this structure and try to find enough food and water to ensure they can complete their journey. Of course, when they finally manage to land on the bowl they soon discover other creatures living there, some of which don't appear to appreciate the intrusion.

The quality of the writing in novel is superb, with the reader feeling truly immersed in the strange new world that has been created. The descriptions were excellent considering the scale of what was being described and I had no issue visualizing the various structures, creatures and environments. This is all helped by some close and in depth attention to the science which ensured there was a realistic feel to the entire adventure. I really enjoyed how the authors used many aspects of science from Biology to Geology to help stretch out the mystery so that the reader was putting the puzzle together alongside the characters.

The biggest let down in the book was probably the characters though who really did play second fiddle to the environment itself and the various alien creatures. There was a severe lack of complicated personalities and the interactions themselves were all very soap operatic. This didn't really fit with me as the people were meant be highly trained scientists and professionals. I could have understood the authors making the characters into more simple caricatures had this been a pulp light science fiction novel but it is meant to be hard science fiction and therefore I had expected interesting and intelligent characters.

A final issue I had with the novel though was in regards to the ending which left nearly everything unresolved and unexplained. Personally, I was disappointed when I realised I wasn't going to get anything answered by the final pages as I didn't see anything in the synopsis or cover to highlight the fact that I would need to read two novels to get a complete story. It won't have been a major issue to some people, but it did spoil the final 50-60 pages of the book for me as I made a futile attempt to try and work out how the story could be neatly tied up.

Overall, this was a enjoyable hard science fiction novel that whilst not being that original, was well put together with some great elements of exposition and head scratching intrigue. The characters are the novel's weakest point, but the way in which Benford and Niven have created this wonderful and mysterious world more than makes up for it. On a personal level, whilst I am a little bit annoyed that I have to wait for a 2nd book I wasn't expecting, I will still be picking up the sequel so that I can receive some answers to the many mysteries that remain.

[Shellie (Layers of Thought) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Original review by John posted at Layers of Thought.

John’s quick take: Grand science fiction ideas and an epic-scale story, but a disappointingly executed novel.

John’s description: An expedition sets off from Earth to explore a distant star system and to populate a (hopefully) Earth-like plant. The journey will take many decades and most of the travelers are put into a deep sleep while skeleton crews take it in turn to pilot the starship. But after just eighty years Cliff Kammash, one of the lead biologists, is awoken early.

It soon becomes apparent to Cliff that there is a problem, but the problem pales beside the discovery of an unimaginably huge artifact that is the size of a solar system. Indeed, the bowl-shaped object seems to encompass a star and have a surface area that is millions of times that of earth. It also seems to heading towards the same star system targeted by the humans.

With the starship inexplicably losing velocity and struggling to reach its goal, the crew decide to investigate the bowl, hoping to replenish supplies that are being depleted too quickly. More of the crew are awakened and a landing party is sent down to the surface of the bowl. There they discover strange bird-like aliens, but half of the party are captured. The two separated groups then struggle to explore and understand the strange world, unsure of how they can ever get back to their own ship.

John’s thoughts: Oh dear. One of my pet hates is a book that masquerades as a standalone novel but in reality is only the first episode in a series – with no satisfactory conclusion to any of the plot threads. There are ways of creating a series that still provide a satisfying experience to someone who just wants to read one of the books, but no attempt is made to do that in Bowl of Heaven. Worse still, nowhere on the jacket or book description are you made aware that this is just the first in the series. This is the worst example of my pet hate that I have come across in a long time. Very frustrating.

Will I be tempted to seek out the next in the series? No. There are some interesting ideas in the book and I like some of the interaction between the different species, but the story drags on too much and lacks pace - I had a hard time reading more than a dozen pages at a time. It doesn’t help that the characters are all a bit two dimensional and some of the interplay between them just doesn’t feel plausible. It also doesn’t help that there is some weird editing in the book. There were at least three obvious discontinuities or contradictions in the story.

I can only rate this book 2 stars; and the only people I could recommend it to are die-hard fanatical follower of Benford or Niven who are prepared for the long haul of a series and can get beyond some of the shortcomings of this read.

[John Boettcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 story is broken into two pieces for the majority of the book, the people stuck in space, and the people stuck on the Big Dumb Object.

Neither writer is really better or worse than the other, but without spoiling it, I found one of the two stories much more captivating than the other. I won't say which one either to avoid offending one of the two authors as well!

This is one of those books where you don't mind all the exposition. It is one of those scifi books where you actually WANT exposition, just to see what is going on. And when you have one of your two authors as a trained physicist, you can get some "fairly" hard sci-fi concepts. At the back of the second book, they go through how they conceptualized everything and claim that virtually everything in the book is physically possible and they tried to make up as little as possible.

After reading through the second book before writing this review, I know how the entire thing ends. If you have made it through the first book and want more, just start reading "Shipstar". While they didn't say this outright, they said that the story was too long for just one book. It reads like they just stopped the story at a good cliffhanger and made it into two different books. But it reads like one. No change in pacing, storytelling or anything like that.

Give it a shot, this book sat on my shelf for a couple years before I got to it, but I was glad I did.

[Barney! · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 problem: this book sets several grand arcs in motion but ends abruptly with zero resolution of any plot threads. Most promising: the authors clearly have some good twists up their sleeves, but are holding on to them for the next book (presumably).

[Scott Shjefte · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOOD BOOK. With Niven as co-author.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven is the first book in the "Bowl of Heaven" trilogy. This book is set in a far future where mankind is exploring the galaxy in slower-than-light ram scoop ships. While most of the crew slumber away the centuries it is the task of some crewmen to be awake for several years at the time to monitor the ship and make any repairs that are needed. A large, obviously artificial object is spotted in the path of the ship. The captain and some of the command crew are awakened and decide to alter course and investigate. They discover the object to be a solar system-sized cup-shaped world. They decide to land a scientific party to investigate. They soon run into problems because the natives are definitely not friendly. If you liked Larry Niven's "Ringworld" you should enjoy this book too. The start of another outstanding series.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have not read either of these authors' independent work, so I cannot make any comparisons in that regard. I liked this book well enough to probably be suckered into waiting for the next in the series. However, I didn't buy this one (Go SPL!) and I won't buy the next one either because while I enjoyed Bowl of Heaven well enough to want to read the sequel, the books weren't that great. The main issue I had was the book's repetitiveness, its hollow characters and some obvious plot holes/mistakes (discussed below).

The basic premise is that Earth sends out a spaceship that will take the best and brightest scientific minds to the nearest (millions of light years away) habitable planet, Glory, so that they can terraform it and make it human-friendly. Everybody gets frozen for the journey except rotating teams of pilots. Cliff, senior officer and biologist supreme gets woken up early. There's a big thing in the sky and the pilots don't know what to do about it. You'll get plenty of description of this thing, so I won't go there except to saw that it's a bowl with a hole in the middle, and it seems to be the size of our solar system. Running short on supplies, of course, the newly awoken captain and a few others brought out of stasis decide to make contact. Chaos ensues, the humans are on the run, the place is kind of like Earth but way more weird and not really like Earth at all, etc. Let me repeat that last bit a few hundred times: the place is kinda like Earth, but not. It's weirder, really weirder. Did you get that? It's weird. And it's HUGE. Let me repeat that a few more hundred times. It's beyond human comprehension how HUGE it is! And the aliens, yeah, they're weird too. Like Big Bird. No really. And let me repeat a few hundred times that according to the Big Birds, humans are sooooo primitive and stupid and helpless and ridiculous. And yet so elusive and tricky and hard to catch!

Look, I'm geting pretty tired of this Ascendency of the Human Race thing, where no matter how advanced or more capable the aliens humanity encounters, humans still prevail due to their scrappiness, their smarts, their humanity, or even worse, their capability to love (here's looking at you The Host). The Bird Folk created in this series could be genuinely interesting, and they clearly have a complex hierarchy and political system that would be really fun to explore, especially considering how the book ends, but they are stunted by the authors' need to show that human beings are always better than anything else that's out there. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to really give a shit about any of the human characters because there are no real characters. There are more like character types, and maybe because they're all scientist-types, almost none of them show any sort of emotion (I'm qualifying that statement in case there was some incredible subtlety that a mere casual reader like myself might have missed or not been smart enough to *get*). Due in large part to this, the entire book has the same narrative tone, even though there are at least 5 different character viewpoints. The only one that is distinctive is Memor's, and that's because she's the alien dripping with scorn for the humans.

Remember that scene in Jurassic Park (out in 3D soon?) where they're in the car and the T-rex breaks through the wires? Well, it come out on level ground on the right-hand side, if you're looking at the cars. In a scene shortly after, there is a huge drop on that same side that some of the characters face. It was a small thing, but fairly easy to have corrected. Similar things happen in this book, most noticeably with Beth's group at the beginning. This seems to happen in part due to the multiple-view-points narrative construct. So we first see the main action of landing on the Bowl through Cliff's eyes, the other main character. Then, after the split, we see some of that same action through Beth's and there are discrepancies, but not the kind that come from post-modern-fractured-narrative style. Straight up discrepancies. One of the reviews on Amazon claimed that this book read more like an unfinished draft because of such basic mistakes, and while I wouldn't go that far, there could have been more done to make sure the narrative views aligned and were consistent with one another.

And yet. I give this book three stars because it was fun to read. I liked it and sped through it pretty fast. The basic on-the-run-narrative trope works well enough here, though it ends with no resolution whatsoever. I personally didn't mind that much, probably because I wasn't horribly invested in it enough to shake my fist in rage at the authors and damn them for not publishing the sequel until June 2013. Whatever. If I remember that then, I'll put in on hold at the library. If not, well, it won't leave me sleepless and wondering. A mediocre sentiment for what promises to be a fairly mediocre series.

[Burgoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the midst of their voyage, a troubled colony ship encounters a strange object, a bowl shaped structure half-enclosing a star, with a surface area many times that of the Earth. The ship’s crew decides to investigate, both out of curiosity & in hope of restocking their dwindling supplies. Of course the landing party encounters problems, with half being captured while the other half are hunted across the Bowl.

Early in their adventures, a group encounters a large animal emerging from water. Amazed, they realize they are viewing a dinosaur. In a nutshell, that’s my reaction to Bowl of Heaven. For better or worse, it reads much the same as a hard SF novel from 30 or 40 years ago.

The strength of the book is the artifact itself. An immense, self-propelled shipstar (yes, that is the phrase that is used) created from repurposing the mass of a solar system. Extensively modified, it is home of seemingly hundreds of species and ecosystems. Benford & Niven develop the Bowl in great detail and apparent scientific rigor. Fans of SF built around BDOs are sure to enjoy the descriptions.

Benford & Niven provide insight into the people and culture of the Bowl via the use of Memor, an Astronomer of the Folk, as a POV. Memor is tasked with observation and interaction with the captured colonists. We learn about the Folk as she contrasts the colonists with herself and her people.

Given the chase/escape plot of most of this book, the story zips right along. The colonists race from one danger to another, with their explorations providing an opportunity for the reader to discover and explore the strange world of the Bowl along with them. It’s a simple devise, but in this sort of novel, where the location itself is the primary interest, it works wonderfully
.
Unfortunately, while the object is so loving developed and described, the same cannot be said for our human protagonists. Their side of the story is told primarily through the POVs of 3 crewmembers, Captain Redwing, Cliff Kammash, & Beth Marble, both biologists. All three are little more than thinly constructed pieces of cardboard that function more as plot devices or as opportunities for exposition. Who are they? What are their motivations? By the end of the book they were just as enigmatic as they were at the beginning.

In fact, by the end of the book, I seemed to have as many questions as I did upon the start. Why were there no military or security personnel on the ship? Were all the colonists primarily technicians of one sort or another? Did they really expect to force their way into an alien artifact and not encounter any aliens? Shouldn’t someone have mentioned that at the staff meeting so that they could plan for it?

Your enjoyment of Bowl of Heaven is going to be directly related to how much you enjoy certain types of hard SF as written 30 years ago. Be forewarned, this is only the first half of a duology, with the second portion expected next year.

[Daniel Kenefick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ringworld, but worse.

[Dev Null · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a type of fantasy I call the Travelogue Fantasy, wherein character and plot are sacrificed to an endless stream of "And then we went to this amazing fantastical place with no relevance to the story; let me describe it in excruciating detail!" And I've recently realized that there is an equivalent in science fiction, where character and plot are sacrificed to an endless series of technical details. I shall call it Tech Porn. And while I prefer some story to my fiction, Tech Porn can actually be kind of fun; it's like a conversation at the pub over maybe one-too-many beers with a bunch of your geek friends; it may not go anywhere, but it can be fun for the ride.

This book is pure Tech Porn, and it gets the technical details consistently and unbelievably wrong.

I don't want to try to list all the things they get wrong - no one wants to read that, and I'd be here for days - but as an example, the CupWorld they describe is "bigger than the orbit of Mercury", rotates once every 10 days, and has an effective "spin" gravity at the rim of 0.8g. The fact that I know all of these things is because the authors take the time to point them out, and this kind of technical detail appears to be the whole point of the novel; Tech Porn, remember? The only problem is that the math doesn't work; a cup of that size spinning that fast would top out at about 0.3g. That's pretty far wrong! And getting one thing wrong is no big deal, but there's one of these sorts of glaring errors about every second page through the whole book. Niven and Benford both have rep as "hard" science fiction writers, and they both can afford a research assistant, or at least an editor who knows their chops and owns a calculator, so there's really no excuse for this. You might forgive it - or even fail to notice it - if it was the backdrop for a compelling and believable narrative about interesting characters, but as I said, there's none of that here. The characters are wooden and serve mostly to make random observations about technical "facts" they would have no way of knowing in any case. The plot is just loopy silly; humans can survive eating alien biology, and learn to speak an alien language from scratch to discussing metaphysics and esoteric grammar in days. And more, the book continuously reminds me of this, by pointing out how astonishing it is that these things are happening, and not bothering to even pretend to have an explanation for why. This is a Tech Porn snuff film, and what's dying is my respect for these authors.