Glorious
A Science Fiction Novel
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3.7 • 43 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Glorious continues the hard science fiction Bowl of Heaven series from multi-award-winning authors Gregory Benford and Larry Niven.
Audacious astronauts encounter bizarre, sometimes deadly life forms, and strange, exotic, cosmic phenomena, including miniature black holes, dense fields of interstellar plasma, powerful gravity-emitters, and spectacularly massive space-based, alien-built labyrinths.
Tasked with exploring this brave, new, highly dangerous world, they must also deal with their own personal triumphs and conflicts.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The disappointing third space opera in the Bowl of Heaven series from hard sci-fi doyens Benford and Niven (after 2014's Shipstar) returns to a galaxy in which extraterrestrial life-forms have created a "vast bowl built to capture and refocus a star's own radiation" used for space-faring adventures. Instead of expanding on this imaginative premise, Benford and Niven focus on the thinly-drawn human crew of the spaceship SunSeeker, among them husband-and-wife biologist team Cliff Kammash and Beth Marble. SunSeeker's exploration of the galaxy leads the crew to encounter a series of bizarre extraterrestrial beings, including carnivorous kangaroo-like creatures and a benevolent, many-armed alien given the distractingly cutesy nickname Twisty. Throughout, the authors introduce exciting but underdeveloped concepts sentient plasma, miniature black holes that casual readers will struggle to grasp. Benford and Niven also lean too heavily on genre convention: the expendable crew members used to establish the stakes will put readers in mind of the redshirts on Star Trek, and Twisty's unconventional dialogue occasionally veers into Yoda territory ("You tired must be from journeys"). This does not live up to expectations.
Customer Reviews
Enjoyable but odd writing style
I really found this conclusion to the trilogy enjoyable. The mental imagery I could conjure up was spectacular. The final solution, though, was a bit rushed and could have used more development. A more serious criticism involved the writing style in parts, and I am not referring to the convolutions of Twisty-speak the main review mentions in the opening page of this web preview. The main characters speak in a convoluted style that sometimes is difficult to understand. Sometimes this leads to responses to something another character has said that make no sense, leaving the reader to wonder “…what the heck did that mean?…"
5-Star with a caveat
This is one of those rare sci-fi books in which “science” is actually the story. True, there is a story which is built around the science. If you are looking for an action-packed star-wars sci-fi book - this is NOT it. Like many of Niven and co-authors’ works it creates a world/universe that relies on plausible rules - in this case the rules are based on real science. If you have an understanding of astrophysics and evolution then this book will be a fun and interesting read. It is the third book of the trilogy and it weaves philosophy with science in a thought provoking way. The story is interesting in its own rite but it really works because of the science and not in spite of it. This may not be a read for everyone even if you liked the first two in the series x hence the 5-star with the warning. I loved it but then I am an evolutionist.
Triumphant Close to the Bowl of Heaven Trilogy
Gregory Benford and Larry Niven have delivered a crescendo close to their awe-inspiring Bowl of Heaven trilogy. Demonstrating how good science fiction is underwritten by good science, two of the genre’s most accomplished authors again show how to go big and convincing on ideas and tech while unleashing a galaxy’s worth of mind-bending aliens to engage with the saga’s intrepid human protagonists. For readers of the first two novels in the trilogy, Bowl of Heaven and Shipstar, the highly satisfying final act has arrived. For those who have enjoyed other works by Benford and Niven, or are new to their vast catalogs, a trilogy both grand in scale and intricate in detail awaits.