Rainbow Mars

Rating:
Summary: I read the first seventy-five pages...
Review: ...and had to put it down. As far as I'm concerned, Robert Heinlein proved in "Number of the Beast" that it is NOT possible to write a readable novel with nothing but fast-paced dialog. I'm awed by some of Niven's other stories, but I had to drop this one.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After 60 pages, I closed it and put it on the shelf. A waste of time and money. Although I loved Ringworld, The Integral Trees, etc., stories about time travel should be left to someone like Keith Laumer, the best IMHO.

Rating:
Summary: Niven's Back on his Bounce Again!
Review: After a few dubious alliances (and I don't count Jerry Pournelle in that class), and a Ringworld story that was just one too many, Larry Niven is back in sparkling form with Rainbow Mars.

Slightly disappointing is the inclusion of 5 earlier Svetz stories, those of us who have them will enjoy having a quality copy, but you're paying extra for something many fans have already.

Svetz's Time Machine is exactly not that. The Time Machine projects Svetz into fantasy worlds of the past; so naturally when he goes to Mars, he finds the best of the "little green men" and "Flash Gordon" style of Martians.

Well written, and a pleasure to read - I expect to read it again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A disapointing read.
Review: After reading Niven's "Destinys Road" I was looking forward to another great plot with developed characters, but found this collection of stories lacking completeness. I kept waiting for the story and characters to gain some depth but sadly I was disapointed. The twists and turns of the plot with no real direction was very frustrating. Not to mention the unfinished endings. I would only recommend this book for very light sci-fi readers who just want a quick story tease.

Rating:
Summary: Style gets in the way of substance.
Review: An author is entitled to experiment. This is one a failure of style. Should the reader have to persist so far down a bad road of staccato prose that he risks ruining the suspension of disbelief, or of trust that the style will get better enough to finish the book? I don't think so. Sufficient self-indulgence merits self-publishing. Didn't and won't finish this piece of corduroy.

Rating:
Summary: Rainbow Mars
Review: Dissapointing. Unforgivable planetery mistake. My humble opinion is: in an attempt to be 'compelling fiction' the story tends to confuse the reader, not propell her along. If it has a good ending I'll never know, for three fourths of the way through I put it down, unable to force myself to finish it. Sorry. Thumbs down for Rainbow Mars.

Rating:
Summary: Poor
Review: I am a Larry Niven fan and liked most of his books. (Integral Trees was mediocre, but I finished.) However, I gave up on this book pretty soon, and I almost never give up on a book before finishing. I returned it to the library after I started the very confusing time/space (?) travel to Mars (?) chapter. Maybe I should have followed some of the other reviewers advise and read the short stories first so I could understand what was going on. The dialoge was trite and unbelievable. Even for science fiction/fantasy, none of the concepts made any sense.

I consider myself even dumber for having wasted 1/2 hour on starting this book.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible
Review: I am a Larry Niven fan and liked most of his books. (Integral Trees was mediocre, but I finished.) However, I gave up on this book pretty soon, and I almost never give up on a book before finishing. I returned it to the library after I started the very confusing time/space (?) travel to Mars (?) chapter. Maybe I should have followed some of the other reviewers advise and read the short stories first so I could understand what was going on. The dialoge was trite and unbelievable. Even for science fiction/fantasy, none of the concepts made any sense.

I consider myself even dumber for having wasted 1/2 hour on starting this book.

Rating:
Summary: Rainbow Mars
Review: I am a long time reader of Science Fiction who has enjoyed Larry Niven's works but Rainbow Mars was a severe disappointment. I found the book, particularly the dialog, confusing and rife with non sequiturs. It's almost as if Mr Niven had written a book twice as long and then went back and deleted every other line.

Rating:
Summary: It's good!
Review: I don't know what everyone's griping about. It's a damn good read! Anyone who grew up reading SF "knows" Mars is lousy with green four armed aliens. I loved it! Reading it was like revisiting books I loved in my youth. For all of you that didn't like it I think you should not look at this book as hard-core science fiction (which it certainly isn't) but more as a fish-out-of-water outsider look at the books we all loved when we all thought 2001 was in the deep future.