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Summary: Interesting stuff.
Review: This book is three stories about a species called the Pak, which we're related to, because they're the adult form of plant-transformed homo habilis, though they live on a world near the center of the Galaxy and we don't know about them, that is, didn't until a weird looking spaceship with an alien in it spouting his inpronounceable name, (Phssthpok), came alongside a nice human ore mining ship in the asteroid belt who was just minding his own business and kidnapped the guy inside. The rest of the book springs from this point and is very enjoyable as are all of Niven's works that I've read to date.
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Summary: A crucial book to fully understand Ringworld
Review: This is a crucial book to read to gain the full picture of what is involved in the Ringworld novels. The Pak Protectors are quite a race. They are both complicated in origin, but simple in purpose. This book was very interesting, as it describes the evolution of the protectors more than the Ringworld novels do. Larry Niven is a genius at the technical side of Science Fiction, and this novel was facinating and filled with action. I enjoyed it from many angles.
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Summary: An interesting sci-fi fable of human origin.
Review: This is a sometimes funny, sometimes serious tale from Niven's "Known Space" series. It tells the story of a creature from a nearly immortal race of protectors from the galactic core who seeded human life on earth. Having heard nothing back from the expedition, a single protector goes on a quest to Earth to see what happened, with unexpected results. Truly entertaining mid-60s Science Fiction.
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Summary: A very good book by one of my favourite writers.
Review: This is just one book in the golden series of stories about known space. It helps greatly in understanding Ringworld series, but that is not the only quality it has. It is a gripping story filled with vivid characters and very plausible plot.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Niven's best.
Review: This is the Niven novel I have read and re-read more than any other. The story is enjoyable, and Larry injects a perfect quantity of layman-esque hard sci-fi to satisfy your cravings. The yarn covers millions of years, and you'll find yourself wishing Pak/Jack Brennan could have found an alternative to what he had to do to "save" humanity. Also, it offers yet another great hypothesis of mankind's origins.
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Summary: Classic Larry Niven
Review: This story, set early in the "Known Space" period, is an important part of Larry Niven's future universe, full of his accustomed ingenuity in both the plots and the science. The Protectors don't fit quite comfortably into the "Known Space" Universe, and have raised some problems later, for example in the famous "Man-Kzin Wars," where the "Known Space" universe has been shared by other writers, including Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, SM Stirling and Hal Colebatch, but the story is fine space opera and entertainment, and has a genuine sense of strangeness and wonder that all too often is lacking from contemporary SF.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Larry Niven
Review: This story, set early in the "Known Space" period, is an important part of Larry Niven's future universe, full of his accustomed ingenuity in both the plots and the science. The Protectors don't fit quite comfortably into the "Known Space" Universe, and have raised some problems later, for example in the famous "Man-Kzin Wars," where the "Known Space" universe has been shared by other writers, including Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, SM Stirling and Hal Colebatch, but the story is fine space opera and entertainment, and has a genuine sense of strangeness and wonder that all too often is lacking from contemporary SF.
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Summary: Unbelievebly excellent .
Review: Time after time Larry Niven's powers of scientific speculation and extrapolation left me gaping.This book is not cruicial to the understanding of "Ringworld" , as one of the reviwers claimed , but it will add a welcome information and explanations as to it's origins and the true origin of humans. The Pac race is brilliantly presented and is fascinating. They are all geniuses and super-intellectuals - forced to live by their insticts. THE PLOT : Psssst-Poc is a offspringless-pac - and that's trouble. he must find a purpose for living or he'll just lose his appetite and die. Going trough the grand archives of his race library while allready starving , he finds a clue as to the whereabouts of a lost Pac colony. The lost cuase gives purpose to his life. He builds a spaceship (first time I understood how a ramscoop works , and I was 11 when I read it for the first time!), and goes on a 32,000 years trip. Don't worry , due to the speed of his ship and relativity he'll only age about 30,000 years. Oh , yeah. I forgot to say that pacs can live thousands of years. nobody knows how many , cause they die violent deaths all the time , or lose their appetites. Anyway , when Pssst-poc arrives earth (didn'tcha get it already?) he's amazed the star-faring civilization he sees and it's advenced technolegy. and the pacs have changed. they're mutants! From this point on the story really soars into a wonderfull exemple of scientific theory (in both fields of evolution and phisics) , Niven-style action , and great universe-building (the "known-space" is considered , in my opinion , the best). Niven's charecterizations are remarkeble , his writing is pure reading pleasure , his ideas and conceptions are strikingly bright , and the story - as fluent as water. It is a book you will remember , being a Niven fan or not. To those who read every known-space book or short story - I think that apart from "Ringworld" itself , "Protector" is the best known-space novel. Can you disagree? VERY RECOMMENDED.
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Summary: Classic of Known Space!
Review: What can you say about this tale to someone who hasn't read it? How about that if they want to get to know excellent science-fiction, or if they just want a story with crackling dialogue, pages bursting with ideas, and an essential part of an ongoing Future History, or an combination of the previous, then they don't have to look any further than this novel? I might even consider this book better than Ringworld, mostly because I can comprehend the ideas better and the plot was easier to follow than the other book. Also, this novel is one that most of the other Known Space stories refer to, making it a must for any Larry Niven fan.
The story of the Pak Protectors is also essental to the Ringworld saga, as anyone who read The Ringworld Engineers would know. But I don't want to spoil the surprise, or the sheer joy of reading a classic novel for anyone. Just go out and buy the book, borrow it from the library, or steal it from a friend, already! What more do you want?
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