Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182762 in Books
• Published on: 1992-01-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 218 pages

Customer Reviews

A haunting idea and a well-told yarn
What if the human adult were actually just the child stage of a more advanced creature, accidentally lost in space millions of years ago and eternally prevented from reaching adulthood by a quirk of food biology? And what if one of our true "adults" managed to find us and tried to make us like him? This is the interesting premise. Unlike Arthur C Clarke's "Childhood's End", it is not so clear that we earth-humans should go along with our "daddy's" wishes. And the final decision falls to the fate of the only human to be thus mutated. A particularly solid, thought-provoking and enjoyable piece of work from Niven, with plenty of his characteristic scientific angles.

Very readable prequel to the 'Ringworld' series
It's odd that this book is out of print given the success of Niven's 'Ringworld' books, since this is pretty much a prequel to them.
For those that know 'Ringworld', we learned in 'Ringworld Engineers' that the Ringworld was built by Pak Protectors, and that Pak are tough, super-intelligent and dedicated to protecting their species, whatever it takes. In 'Protector' we learn more about the Pak and their links with humanity, and how one human - the prospector Jack Brennan - became a protector to our species and our planet...

Even if you haven't read any of the 'Ringworld' books, I'd rate this as an enjoyable read. The relationship between the Pak and humankind is a shockingly plausible bit of science fiction (I won't spoil it by revealing too much) and the story, which takes place across a timespan of several decades, romps along without getting bogged down in background detail. If you are able to get hold of this book and you enjoy SF, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Classic Niven
OK; fair enough. Nobody who doesn't at least like science fiction should go any where within spitting distance of this book. But for those who do like SF, it's quintessential Niven, with the logic of an albiet unlikely permise worked out with thoroughness and intelligence, and pace. It's full of sensawunder technological coups, and memorable future goodies as well, cumulating in one of the literatures most rigorously imagined space sequences. Niven is scrupulous in the science, less so in the characterisation and prose, but this comes with the territory. The plotting is good though, with shocks and twists a-plenty, and assumes greater significance when slotted into its rightful place in the Known Space mythos, like most of Niven's early work. To quote Thomas Disch on Hal Clement, 'it may be dense, but so's pecan pie.'