Scatterbrain

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Scatterbrained Collection
Review: This latest collection from Larry Niven lives up to its title. The subject matter is all over the place with novel excerpts, stories, essays, logs, e-mails, and notes.

Unfortunately for Niven fans, this collection came out late enough that they will probably have all of the novels excerpted here. But there are also tales of Gil Hamilton, Beowulf Shaefer, and Draco's Tavern. We are also treated to communications between Mr. Niven and collaborators and editors that helps to show how ideas come to fruition.

Mr. Niven also talks about how his mind works. Sort of a slower da Vinci, Niven spawns ideas and pushes them to their conclusions in almost frightening ways. He calls himself scatterbrained but really he can just see the path of an idea and where it leads (i.e. heat exchangers on Pluto).

The other drawback to the collection is it seems too short. It isn't, but it seems that way. If you have already read the novels excerpted, the rest seems to fly by just a little too quickly. Of course most of the reason is that it reads well and thus faster. Still, I can't help but feel it will be too long before I get another crack at a fresh collection from one of my favorite authors.