Protector

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

This Hugo-nominated work is a classic of Niven's Known Space saga.

Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission was to save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before.

Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days, and Brennan figured to meet that ship first.

He was never seen again - at least not by those alive at the time.

©1973 Larry Niven (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

great

loved this story, read destroyer of world's and betrayed of world's the oak are coming.

An Interesting Bit of Speculative Sci Fi

While perhaps requiring more suspension of disbelief than other scu fi books simply due to the idea that humans didn't originate on Earth, it is none the less extremely enjoyable and will make you think on many of the topics presented.

My all time favorite

Read this all night in my twenties. Very smart. All Niven, the all time best SF writer.

Nice Reading

Was fun to listen to during commute. Novel was pure Niven, Enjoyed story again.
Very descriptive and romantic version of interstellar flight and war.

Filled in gaps I had from Ring World Engineers.

loved the story line. Fills in another segment of the Known Space story. I highly recommend it after reading the Ring World Series.

Among Niven's Best

The reader does these characters incredibly well. His women's voices aren't as good as some readers, but his alien voice creates a haunting character that chilled me to the bone. I couldn't stop listening to this book, sucked me right in! The science is mind blowing!

Great thought experiment good narrator so-so plot

What if the normal effects of human aging (hair loss, arthritis, tooth loss, supposed loss of sex drive) were really part of a design to create a superhuman "adult" to protect the earlier, more vulnerable stages of humanity? And what if we could discover how to make it work?

These stories (there are really 2 stories combined into a single volume) were the first time Larry Niven played with his idea of the Pak---an imagined ancestor species to early hominids---and the Pak Protectors---ideal thinking and fighting machines who guard their bloodline. What happens if, in the future, space-faring humans encounter the Pak? What if humans could turn into Protectors?

It was an interesting thought experiment, and it turned into a powerful idea, one that Niven revisits multiple times in some of his later "known space" novels (e.g. Ringworld Engineers and Destroyer of Worlds). If you plan to read these books (or you have and are puzzled by the Pak backstory, this is the place for answers).

While the idea of the Protectors are an interesting one, the story around it is relatively bland. There is a lot of exposition on the nature of the Protectors but the actual action is rather thin.

So, if you like an interesting thought experiment or want more backstory on the Pak, this is worth picking up.

Tom Weiner is a very good narrator and he does a very good job here.

very cool lots of science

very cool lots of science and a little back story for what we heard in the ring wold engineers

Classic Hard SF

I've read almost everything Niven's ever written, this one still shines as a great, sprawling adventure across the stars, with mystery, hardware, and family ties. The audiobook was a treat, I especially liked the Australian accents of the Belters, that was a nice touch.

Honest: best SF I have ever read

I have read this book four times and listened to it once. Every time I am more than impressed. I have read a good bit of SF, including most of the ‘great’ recent series (Hyperion, revelation space, Skippy, etc.) and found most of them unsatisfying or worse, annoying. This short story (it is only a 6 hour listen) is pure gold.