Fleet of Worlds

This gets four stars from me, but if fractional stars were possible I'd have given it a 3.8.

Larry Niven's Fleet of Worlds is a welcome reversion to Niven's better writing style. His work had become rather weak in the past ten to fifteen years; it seemed that as with so many writers, age was robbing him of his abilities and voice.

His many co-authors didn't help, either. Most of them weren't that good, and they brought him down. At his best, Niven used beautifully clear, diamond-like prose to convey startling hard-science concepts and speculation; his fantasy was equally clever and imaginative.

But bompared to his best works, his many recent novels plod. They're better than a lot of the crap that's been published as science fiction lately, but they're disappointing nonetheless.

While Fleet of Worlds doesn't attain the heights of Niven's best work, it is a quite respectable book and definitely worthy of Niven's literary legacy. It ties in to plot elements from previous Known Space stories without exploiting or ruining those stories, and without being annoying. All in all, it works. I haven't heard of the co-author, Edward M. Lerner, before, but so far I'd rate him the best co-author Niven has worked with. Although some of his work with Pournelle was also quite good.

I'll definitely read this one again!