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: Straight from Svetz report.
Review: I found myself having difficulty classifying this book. From its lingering descriptions of the bizarre things going on, I at first assumed that it was 'hard sci-fi' where the scientific speculation is more important than the plot. But the science is ludicrous! It's filled with the kind of hand-waving one sees in 'soft sci-fi' where the science is there only to further the plot, and need not be more than superficially plausible.

So is the focus on the story? The story is passable but doesn't set your heart racing. The bottom line is that it doesn't take itself seriously either.

What Niven seems to be going for is a conversion of fantasy and old science-fiction ideas to a modern science-fictional genre. It's an entertaining idea, but everything still ends up feeling like fantasy. He's made a few cosmetic changes, is all--what Orson Scott Card described as "science fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees." Rainbow Mars can't seem to do away with the trees.

Rating:
Summary: Mixture of Old (Wonderful) and New (Lackluster)
Review: I have read just about everything Larry has put to paper and I was told to avoid this book. Despite the advice I picked it up and I liked it. Well, almost liked it. The odd placement of the novella BEFORE the short stories was and odd choice since you end up reading the chronology backwards by the time your done. It is one of the few "time travel" books I have ever read and liked. I hate time travel books, period. The jokes are cute but the casual fan of si-fi may not spot them all. Niven's style is as solid as ever. Shallow people with no depth and aliens that act alien. If you like Larry's books, pick this one up but read it BACKWARDS. Start with the short stories and work you way to novella. You won't regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Niven missed....
Review: I'm a hardcore Niven fan and have been ever since I first read "A Gift From Earth", but with that said - this book is mediocre at best. I suppose it is just a matter of taste, but I found this book to be tedious and confusing. I usually appreciate his sense of humor, (anyone who hasn't read Man Of Steel/Woman of Kleenex is really missing out) but this time I have to say I just don't get it.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: Larry Niven has written some of the best science fiction ever, but this book is very disappointing. It reads a bit like a fever dream, and is never very coherent nor logical.

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Romp
Review: Rainbow Mars isn't a contender for Best SF of the Year. But it's a good read, with some chuckles and some mind-bending time travel pradoxes.

You'll get most out of it if you're quite familiar with classic SF set on Mars.

Rating:
Summary: Poor
Review: This is actually a fantasy book disguised as SF. That, of itself, isn't a bad thing. But Niven's writing style is very disjointed and erratic; it has none of the polish that his novels with Jerry Pournelle (and Steve Barnes) have. It's as if Niven is writing with a wink and a nod to his huge fan base--the wink being for "in" jokes and a nod given to the hard-core fan who understands what he's writing about. He writes in such a way as to leave things out, such as transitional phrases or descriptions, assuming (I think) that the reader will fill in the rest. This was an awful book in a great package. Tor seems to be doing this lately: great packages for lousy novels (Card is one, Williamson is another).

Rating:
Summary: Screenplay-itis
Review: This is an excellent story, as most of Niven's are, but without the help of his usual collaborators (Pournelle and Barnes) it suffers from being very badly written. Same problem he had with the Ringworld sequel, which was unreadable. He's lost something. My suspicion is that he has been caught up mentally in the screenplay syndrom, where you sit down at your PC with the plot of your book whizzing in your head visually and just type furiously without thinking of syntax or verbal description. It's like: "Ooh!" "What?" "ZAP" "Damn, they just blew up our spaceship." Who did? How? What's going on here? Books don't have special effects floating out of their pages yet, unfortunately. The writer is supposed to supply that, and Niven doesn't.

Otherwise, I agree with the other review I read here. Very nice idea that time travel is really into fantasy-land, not reality as it was. That if you have to go back in (Earth) time to the era before the Industrial Revolution, when it was suspected that Mars was inhabited, not barren as the NASA expeditions have shown us -- then of course if you transport to Mars, it will be -- with four-armed Burroughsian humanoids, canals, egg-laying humans, and Wellsian Octopoids.

Rating:
Summary: Light, fast-paced and fun -- a must-read for Niven fans.
Review: Wayback in the sixties, Niven started a series of humorous time-
travel stories: Svetz the hero-klutz is sent back from the 31st Century
to capture extinct animals, but he never quite finds the "right"
beastie.... I remembered these as throwaways, but they've aged well.
Rainbow Mars is a novel-length sequel, so you'd be well-advised to
thumb over to the reprints first, to properly set the stage for the main
event....

Which involves -- hmm, how to say this without spoiling the fun --
a *very* fast-paced visit to a Martian past that's an amalgam of
(and hommage to) Burroughs, Wells, Bradbury, Heinlein -- with
Integral Tree-style beanstalks thrown in as an illustration of Being
Careful of what you wish for. Not to mention a Princess of Mars, and
how she learned to surf. And sex in a hot-tub. And enough insider
jokes and references to challenge the memory of the best-read fan.

"This is my take on Mars, and Yggdrasil, and (God help me) the space program" -- done up in a delicious hard-fantasy souffle'. Bon appetit!

Niven's pretty near the top of his form here -- he obviously had great
fun writing this. I liked the "mature" tone of Destiny's Road -- but (to
quote Dave Barry), "what I look forward to, is continued immaturity
followed by death." Maybe "young Larry" is writing more good old
new stuff? Lots more? Hope, hope....

Rainbow Mars is getting mixed reviews; recursive-sf humor clearly
isn't to everyone's taste. If you haven't liked previous light Niven --
Svetz, Warlock, Fallen Angels -- this may not be for you. Rainbow
Mars may not win him many new converts, but Niven trufans -- and
readers who like a tall tale well-told -- will be well-pleased.