Author | Larry Niven |
---|---|
Cover artist | Dean Ellis |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | 1973 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
ISBN | 0-345-23486-3 |
Protector is a 1973 science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. It was nominated for the Hugo in 1974, and placed fourth in the annual Locus poll for that year. [1]
The work fleshes out a species called the Pak, originally introduced in a 1967 story called "The Adults", which forms the first half of the novel (there titled Phssthpok); the second half is titled Vandervecken. The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later works, including the later volumes of the Ringworld series and the novel Destroyer of Worlds which serves as a semi-sequel to Protector.
The novel comprises two phases in the same space that are separated by 220 years of time. Its central conceit is that Humans evolved from the juvenile stage of the Pak, a species with a distinct adult form ("Protectors") that has immense strength and intelligence and cares only about younger Pak of their bloodline. A key plot point is that transition to the Protector stage is mediated by consumption of the root of a particular plant called Tree-of-Life, which cannot be effectively cultivated on Earth.
The first half of the book follows the path of a Pak named Phssthpok, who has travelled from the Pak homeworld in search of a colony of Pak in the distant system of Sol (our Solar System). Upon his arrival, he captures a Belter (a worker from the asteroid belt) named Jack Brennan, who is infected by Phssthpok's store of tree-of-life root and is transformed into a Protector (or at least a Human variant). They land on Mars where Brennan kills Phssthpok and is rescued by two Humans, Nick Sohl and Lucas Garner, who had set out to meet the alien. The first half of the novel ends with Brennan telling his story to the Humans before he heads for the outer reaches of the solar system.
The second half of the book follows the path of a Human named Roy Truesdale who has been abducted with no memory of the event. While searching for his abductor, he befriends a Belter named Alice Jordan who helps him figure out that the man he has sought is none other than Jack Brennan. Truesdale and Jordan find Brennan in the outer solar system on a fabricated world of Brennan's design called Kobold. Brennan discovers that a Pak invasion fleet is headed towards human space and takes Truesdale to a Human outpost colony called Home in an effort to divert attention away from Earth. During their journey they battle with scout ships from the Pak fleet. Brennan and Truesdale arrive at Home only to have Truesdale realize that Brennan plans to convert the colony into a defensive Human Protector army. Truesdale kills Brennan and lands on Home, but is himself infected with a mutated strain of the Tree-of-Life virus that quickly spreads to a number of other colonists, thus carrying out Brennan's plan despite Truesdale's initial attempts to thwart it. Upon his conversion to Protector form, Truesdale immediately comes to view Brennan's plan as necessary and completes it by breaking out of hospital confinement and infecting the entire population of Home. The modified virus either kills or converts the remaining inhabitants, resulting in an army of childless Protectors. The new Protectors think that they absolutely must act quickly to save the rest of Humanity, and start preparing for battle with the Pak invasion fleet.
As an aside, it is mentioned that during his sojourn in the outer Solar System Brennan had engineered a genocide on Mars, sending a large ice asteroid to crash into the planet in order to raise the water content of its atmosphere. Water is lethal to the Martians' metabolism, thus this effectively wiped out the species. This incident serves to underscore the Pak Protectors' inherent xenophobia and utter ruthlessness in pursuing their ultimate goal of protecting their descendants.
The events which impelled Brennan to this action are those narrated in "How the Heroes Die" and "At the Bottom of a Hole", two short 1966 stories which Niven originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction and later collected in Inconstant Moon . As depicted in these stories, there were two incidents in which Martians killed some humans who landed on their world, after which humans just left Mars alone. In the mind of the Protector Brennan – committed to defending humans and having no consideration whatever for others – that was sufficient reason to exterminate the entire species.
Sidney Coleman reviewed the novel favorably in F&SF ; although describing it as really "two long novelettes passing as a novel," he noted that "both halves of the book are permeated with the ingenuity that has been the driving energy of Niven's stories since his earliest work." [2]
Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.
Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. Ringworld tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, a rotating wheel artificial world, an alien construct in space 186 million miles in diameter. Niven later added three sequel novels and then cowrote, with Edward M. Lerner, four prequels and a final sequel; the five latter novels constitute the Fleet of Worlds series. All the novels in the Ringworld series tie into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.
The Ringworld science fiction role-playing game was published by Chaosium in 1984, using the Basic Role-Playing system for its rules and Larry Niven's Ringworld novels as a setting.
The Kzinti are a fictional, warlike and bloodthirsty race of cat-like aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space series.
Pierson's Puppeteers, often known just as Puppeteers, are a fictional alien race from American author Larry Niven's Known Space books. The race first appeared in Niven’s novella Neutron Star.
Footfall is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The book depicts the arrival of members of an alien species called the Fithp that have traveled to the Solar System from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft driven by a Bussard ramjet. Their intent is conquest of the planet Earth.
Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two developmental stages of fictional life in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The Pak first appeared in "The Adults", which appeared in Galaxy in 1967; this story was expanded into the novel Protector by Larry Niven (1973). The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later novels, notably those set in the Ringworld.
An Alderson disk is a hypothetical artificial astronomical megastructure, like Larry Niven's Ringworld and the Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant platter with a thickness of several thousand miles. The Sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer perimeter of an Alderson disk would be roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. According to the proposal, a sufficiently large disk would have a larger mass than its Sun.
Buck Rogers XXVC is a game setting created by TSR, Inc. in the late 1980s. Products based on this setting include novels, graphic novels, a role-playing game (RPG), board game, and video games. The setting was active from 1988 until 1995.
A World Out of Time is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven and published in 1976. It is set outside the Known Space universe of many of Niven's stories, but is otherwise fairly representative of his 1970s hard science fiction novels. The main part of the novel was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine as "Children of the State"; another part was originally published as the short story "Rammer". A World Out of Time placed fifth in the annual Locus Poll in 1977.
The V.C.s was a future war series that appeared in the science fiction comic 2000 AD No. 140 – 178 (1979–1980). Written by Gerry Finley-Day, the first episode was drawn by Mike McMahon who designed the craft and the main characters. The main series artists were Cam Kennedy, Garry Leach and John Richardson. Dan Abnett has recently finished the series at Book 5 with the help of artist Anthony Williams who has been working with Abnett on this for quite a while.
The Ringworld Engineers is a 1979 science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven. It is the first sequel to Niven's Ringworld and was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1981.
The Man-Kzin Wars is a series of military science fiction anthologies and is the name of the first. The short stories detail the eponymous conflicts between mankind and the Kzinti, set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. However, Niven himself has written only a small number of the stories; most were written by other science fiction writers, as Niven opened this part of the Known Space to collaboration in the form of a shared universe. The cover art for the books in the series is created by Stephen Hickman.
World of Ptavvs is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his Known Space universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 magazine story of the same name.
The fictional portrayal of the Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality. Some of these objects were, at one time, seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed, or were hypothesized to be orbiting the Sun in order to explain certain celestial phenomena. Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned.
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.
X is a science fiction space trading and combat simulator series created by German developer Egosoft. The series is set in the X-Universe where several races populate a number of worlds connected by jumpgates. The games feature free roaming gameplay with trading, combat, empire building, and missions; leading to the series' phrase: "Trade, Fight, Build, Think". The series, which was launched in 1999 on the Windows platform, consists of five base games: X: Beyond the Frontier, X2: The Threat, X3: Reunion, X Rebirth, and X4: Foundations. X Rebirth introduced a new rendering engine as well as a new plot, one which X4: Foundations now extends the storyline beyond ten years after the events in X Rebirth.
"The State" is a fictional totalitarian world government in a future history that forms the back-story of three of Larry Niven's novels: A World Out of Time (1976), The Integral Trees (1984), and The Smoke Ring (1987). It is also the setting of two short stories, "Rammer" and "The Kiteman" as well as a stalled fourth novel, The Ghost Ships. After several years in development, Niven announced that The Ghost Ships would never be made, and wrote The Ringworld Throne instead. The novel would have focused on a race of self-aware natural Bussard ramjets birthed in the supernova that created Levoy's Star and were returning to their place of birth to mate. According to Playgrounds of the Mind, Kendy and the kite-fliers from "The Kiteman" would have returned also.
Destroyer of Worlds is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner, set in the Known Space series. It is a sequel to their previous novels, Fleet of Worlds and Juggler of Worlds. It is set ten years after Juggler of Worlds, drawing heavily from Protector, but, like the rest of the series, can stand alone.