Rating: 
Summary: Perplexingly bad
Review: Gerrold and Niven are both excellent SF writers. I usually enjoy their books, and both have built up large and high-quality bodies of work. That's why the badness of "Flying Sorcerers" is so baffling. It's like they banged this out in a weekend on a bet.
Much is made of the alleged humor of this novel. Fannish jokes and puns belong at Worldcon, not in a book put out for sale to the general public. Their humor value fails to rise over the level of Granpa's thighslappers. For example, two young alien boys who build a flying machine are called "Wilville" and "Orbur." Ho, ho. My sides! And the gags go downhill from there.
So why 2 stars instead of one? Despite all of its flaws, this is still an amiable book. "Ringworld Throne" aside, both Niven and Gerrold have enough talent to make this book at least somewhat interesting, and to keep the thin plot moving.
If you're interested in these authors, and you should be, pick out almost anything from their extensive catalogs before you purchase this.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, Fun, & More Fun
Review: I first read this book about 15 years ago, and have been trying to but it for many years now. As a larry Niven fan, I first read it because of his name being on the cover. It is unlike other books by Niven, and not part of his 'known space' series. If you find it, please give it a try! It certainly made me smile.
Rating: 
Summary: A very pleasing read
Review: I first read this book about 15 years ago, and have been trying to but it for many years now. As a larry Niven fan, I first read it because of his name being on the cover. It is unlike other books by Niven, and not part of his 'known space' series. If you find it, please give it a try! It certainly made me smile.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable and Fun
Review: I love this book - it is funny. I have had the book for at least 10 years but I have yet to figure out - what is Purple's real name? It has something to do with "as a color, shade of purple-gray" and "mauve" but I cannot piece it together. Any help would be appreciated!
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable and Fun
Review: I love this book - it is funny. I have had the book for at least 10 years but I have yet to figure out - what is Purple's real name? It has something to do with "as a color, shade of purple-gray" and "mauve" but I cannot piece it together. Any help would be appreciated!
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable and Fun
Review: I love this book - it is funny. I have had the book for at least 10 years but I have yet to figure out - what is Purple's real name? It has something to do with "as a color, shade of purple-gray" and "mauve" but I cannot piece it together. Any help would be appreciated!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful romp
Review: I picked this up (or it was loaned to me) because I was tickled by the title. It's a very entertaining story about a technologically advanced traveller's visit to a fairly primitive world, narrated by one of the primitives. It's an hilarious treatment of Clarke's Law in action, and a colossal pun near the end will delight long-time SF readers enormously. This is definitely a 'G'-rated title in my book.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, Fun, & More Fun
Review: I read this book about 15 years ago and found it nothing but fun. Niven plays with the reader as well as the characters in the book. I have just found this book (out of stock) and await shipment so that I can visit this world again. I gave my first copy away and regret it. Not real science fiction but just loads of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Niven puts his name on a Lame-o book.
Review: I saw this title on list on Niven books and decided I'd read it if I found it somewhere. I figured, "I love all of his other books, how could I go wrong?" Five pages into this book I was silently screaming for the torture to stop. Obviously, this is a novellete or short story that Niven read and decided to slap his name onto. As a science fiction story it is fair to midling, as literature, however, it is complete and utter drivel. The social commentary is so elementary, so tired, so totaly washed up, that I have pains in my head from trying to block it out. The whole thing with Wilville and Orbur, bycicle carvers turned air-machine makers, and the introduction of coins as "spell tokens" just makes me retch. Throw in a pinch of woman's lib and assebly line technology, and what we get is a seventh grader's story about an interesting and even exiting culture that could have really worked, had Niven actually put any work into the darn thing. It left a bad taste in my mouth. If you're a Niven Worshiper, as I am, do yourself a favor and pass this one by. Re-read All the Myriad Ways again.
Rating:
Summary: Light, fun, tongue in cheek SF
Review: Light, fun, SF story that will mean more to SF fans in general and Asimov fans in particular. I highly recommend it. I read it every few years and enjoy it each time. Not really a sorcery book and certainly not fantasy. The story involves a culture that embodies Clarke's statement on magic and technology and how easy it is to assign magical reasons to that which we don't understand.
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