sonja@genie.UUCP (Sonja Bock) (07/05/85)
FOOTFALL
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Ballantine Books, New York, 1985
Larry and Jerry have done it again!!
"WHAT!?", I hear you cry. Another near classic homo sapiens meets aliens with
tragic flaw like "The Mote In God's Eye"? Or another end-of-civilization epic
like "Lucifer's Hammer"?
Yes, and Yes.
In fact, "Footfall" provides us with both, as earthlings encounter their first
alien species AND heavenly bodies fall from the skies into the ocean. It is not
difficult to imagine the dynamic duo in the writing room gathering together
left-over brain-storms from the previous two books, shuffling them together,
padding out the holes and producing this hybrid.
Characterization: Many readers complain that science fiction writers ignore
characterizatin in their efforts. This is certainly true in this case. The hu-
man characters in this book have one thing in common. They don't have any, no
personalities or definable motivations. In fact, these people are not so much
characters as roles from a tv mini-series: the dissatisfied military wife; the
ambitious, philandering reporter; the dashing but impotent astronaut; the boozy
biker turned hero; the soggy-brained sci-fi writer; the space-happy congressman;
the wishy-washy President; the wily Kosmonaut; the trendy survivalists. Each
and every one bustles through the overall plot like a wind-up toy.
As for the aliens, it is understandable, perhaps, that the reader have difficul-
ty comprehending the inner workings of an alien psyche, but in this case, so
little is revealed about the aliens and their origin that the Invaders are mere-
ly antagonists in the most literal (and literary) sense of the word. One su-
poses that they are given the form and characteristics of a slightly familiar
earth species in order for the reader to catch on without undo description. The
trickiest aspect of these Invaders is their names. Unless you are a Pole with a
lisp, you will spend a good deal of time flipping back and forth through the
pages trying to keep track of who's who (with one exception). Not only do they
all look alike, they all sound like a sneeze through wired jaws.
Well, how about ideas? Footfall trots out a few, some standard sci-fi shticks,
some perhaps original. 1) Whoever controls space controls activity on the
planet. How timely. 2) The intrepid Americans take a stand when nobody else
will. 3) The military will save the day while the civilians dither. 4) Extra-
terrestrial species have been aided in their evolution by a previous (usually
now extinct) race (see Heechee). Human beings, of course, are the cosmic
bootstrappers. 5) The obvious talents of science-fiction writers are finally
recognized, as civilization turns to their superior insights to psych out the
aliens.
In summary, there is very little (if anything) new or innovative in Footfall.
It is certainly not on a par with "Mote" or "Lucifer's Hammer", or just about
any of the other Niven-Pournelle offerings. And unless you are particularly
taken by the dust-cover, it might be just as well to wait and see what they come
up with next, together or individually.
Some Other New Books This Summer:
Frederik Pohl Black Star Rising Ballantine Books 1985
Robert Silverberg Tom O'Bedlam Donald I. Fine, Inc. 1985
Roger Zelazny Trumps of Doom (Another Amber Series Book)
Arbor House 1985
Stephen King Skeleton Crew (Anthology)
G.P. Putnam and Sons 1985