Footfall

By: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender - or death for all humans.

©1986 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Nobody does it better than Niven and Pournelle. I loved it!” (Tom Clancy)

"Rousing – the best of the genre.” ( The New York Times Book Review)

Dated but still good.

I’m not sure who was imitating who but Footfall is a 1985 SciFi novel not unlike the Colonization series by Turtledove. Now these guys do not need praise or criticism from somebody three decades later but it is astounding how this work has stood the test of time...written as it was, a near term work.

Pachyderm-like aliens invade our solar system to try and take Earth from us. They bombard us with kinetic weapons, lasers and other crap they inherited from their predecessors. We on the other hand, are stimulated into innovations for fighting back. Can you hear the jingoistic species martial music in the background?

By the way, where else can a borderline alcoholic biker guy become a hero and then a space combatant ship do it all engineer? I liked this book back when I read the dead-tree version and I still like it in audio. Four stars for some hard SciFi.

Better than reading the book.

Read the book while at sea (USN) in the late 80's. The Cold War with the Soviets at that time does come through in the story. I digress. Great book - read or audible. Must read/listen.

good invasion story

I liked the book. it never got boreing characters well developed and believable. no political message in the book. I enjoyed it.

Mouthful of Pasta

The story was pretty good. However it was almost unlistenable due to the alien voices the narrator was using. It really sounded to me like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of pasta every time he was reading the alien's dialog. That was distracting all the way through.

Slow start, captivating later

Any additional comments?

Takes a bit to get going, about 5 hours I would say, then it is very engrossing. Stick with it.

Mixed experience

Would you try another book from Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and/or MacLeod Andrews?

Definately.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Ending was good and enjoyable.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The voices of russians and aliens ... Oh my. Luckily, along the way these did not irritate as much as in the beginning.

Could you see Footfall being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

This actually might work nicely as a movie.

Any additional comments?

The first two thirds was not fun, but when the third part started ...

Classic

Still tops. Read this years ago, still great. I thought the narrator was excellent and did a fantastic job handling multiple characters to include a number of aliens and a variety of accents. How he kept them all straight is a wonderful.

Where do they get this stuff?

Great listen, strange in places but very real and entertaining. I will be getting another Larry Niven soon.

Great book and performance.

I have to say that I thought the story was excellent in both plot and pace with the anticipation and final resolution leaving you guessing until the end. The only problem I had while listening was the names of some of the alien characters were harder to keep straight because of the alien names.

Great Concept Shows Age

An excellent concept that I hope continues to influence science fiction. The alien culture is well developed not overly canonized or anthropomorphic. The 'action' tends to be a little scant--mostly modest third person descriptions that proceed almost as if the writers considered themselves constrained by a special effects budget or limitations of a stage play. A biblical-length novel later and they blow their 'budget' on a big, fast ending.
The Earthside drama and characterizations are tedious and unimaginative, cringe-worthy even for 1985. Too many generic characters with their expected motivations, standard ambitions and typical plot armor. 'Liberated' women check out the man tush and those heroic males lumber about like Flash Gordon on antidepressants.
Footfall works with an enigmatic alien culture and a threat that doesn't twist their mustaches. This originality is well worth wincing through the overlong 70's sitcom human element that only seems to improve with direct contact with the extraterrestrials. A good concept and imaginative but sluggish progression.
In short, a good science fiction body with a bad soap opera frame. Inspired alien innovation and autopilot human slop makes one pine for the oddly non-specific Armageddon and the hang-gliding baby elephants' POV.