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)

Great story - awful narration

I'm really glad this wasn't the first Audible title I listened to; if it had been, I never would have tried another. I read this when it first came out and loved it, so even though I knew there were problems with the narration, I thought I'd still enjoy it. Actually, the narrator did a pretty good job with the alien voices and the alien names. It was the human characters that drove me crazy. I guess there were too many characters for one person to do, but about half way through, I started imagining the characters being done by elementary school kids pretending to be adults – complete with oversized clothing and hats. Most of the adult voices sounded childlike and over the top - especially the "military" voices. My recommendation: skip this unless you are a die-hard Niven / Pournelle fan who is willing to forgive a lot.

An odd thing happened on the way to the circus

Even while following conventions of the type there is something a little different about this alien invasion yarn and the tone belies a deep undertow of satire. If that's not enough, brilliantly sharing some of the story line from the point of view of the invading species only sets the human condition in high relief. Fun adventure and thought provoking drama mixed with a little hard Sci-fi give Footfall an original approach to well warn pathways.

Superb

I listen to the entire book in one sitting with a 2-hour nap so that I didn't pass out at the end. This piece of fiction is satisfying, informative and cathartic. Larry Niven does a fantastic job of intertwining hard sci-fi with believable sociological factors. If only every day can be so amazing.

excellent story telling

Great story by niven and the reader was also excellent. Pulled into the story in the first chapter.

Enjoyable, not great

This book is rather dated, not only in plot content (cold war tension with soviets, etc.) but in the ideas and attitudes - it seems very 80s to me. The aliens were interesting as were many of the subplots with humans but many of the characters were more like caricatures, and some of the political subtext was pretty heavy-handed. The end of the book was abrupt and left quite a few plot threads dangling. The narration was also less than stellar, I agree with many of the other reviewers that the narrator's efforts at alien speech were needlessly difficult to understand.

Good SciFi, technology is believable.

If you could sum up Footfall in three words, what would they be?

Believable, great yarn

Who was your favorite character and why?

The Congressman, he's like the every-man of the story.

What does MacLeod Andrews bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Pronunciation of the alien names was difficult when reading the print version.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes but it was great for a long car ride.

SPECTACULAR audiobook

I have never felt the urge to write a review of the many audiobooks to which I have listened before. The reading of this book is spectacular. I have a copy of Footfall in paperback sitting on the shelf at home, but I could not get past the first section where the aliens are talking. I could not get a handle on the alien jargon just reading the book. Mr. Andrew gives this book real life. He has created over 20 different voices for the many human and alien characters, and his management of the alien speech is astounding. The book itself is truly a great work in my opinion, although since it was written before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are some things that are out of date. I recommend this audiobook very highly.

Cold war elephantine alien invasion

Footfall, by the writing team of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is an alien invasion tale. Set during the cold war in the 2nd half of the 20th century, a large alien vessel comes arrives and executes a take no prisoners smackdown of orbiting satellites and then proceeds to destroy dams and transportation hubs, all while Earth was preparing to welcome the visitors. The aliens have a 'pack' mentality and assume complete surrender. As Earth fights begins to fight back, it appears hopeless until a last-ditch effort is able to defeat the aliens.

Niven and Pournelle create an intriguing alien race which resemble elephants but are descended from a prior more intelligent race. As such, the aliens have glaring voids in their science and technology. The fog of war is in evidence on both sides as is the friction and confusion between the fiercely independent earthlings and the pack/herd aliens. Unfortunately, the cold war conditions are overdone with excessive Russian/communist stereotypes ("comrade, a mile long alien vessel is approaching Earth. It's a US plot to attack us.") with the KGB behaving stupidly. At the same time, there's a bit too much reliance on science fiction writers for insight. The writers end up explaining tactics and weapons that the US military played with to the very same military.

The narration is well done with good character distinction and respectable, but understandable accents. Pacing is smooth and brisk.

Good story but really slow start.

Narration of alien accent was believable but difficult to understand sometimes because of pronunciation.

Most memorable moment was the reporter's indecision and quest for glory.

Worse WORLDWAR

Alien to invasion has certainly been done better, but there are enough interesting ideas in here that it is still enjoyable.

Let’s start off with the pros:

1: The aliens are very interesting. Deviating delightfully from a humanoid shape, the quadrupedal Fipht are a fun look at how real intelligent aliens might act. With an alien psychology, though still familiar enough to recognize as intelligent, they are different from humans but still smart enough to figure us out (just as we figure them out as well).

2: Realistic invasion. Earth Isn’t being invaded for resources, but rather ideological reasons. As the depths of space have more and easier to access resources than earth ever could. This is pointed out many times in the book, and is a breath of fresh air.

3: Mostly interesting characters. All the alien characters and most of the human characters are engaging enough, which is nice.

Cons.

1: Cannot Write Women. The Authors really just can’t write women to save their lives. The only female characters that don’t all revolve around their love interest are either the alien females, or are children and thus aren’t interested in men. If that gets on your nerves, then do be warned it is eye rolling levels of aggravating l.

2: Everyone is Cheating. No one in this damn book is faithful to their significant other, which is suppose must reflect the authors’ own viewpoints on the matter. I know this won’t Botha some people, but for gods sake come on!

3: Egregious Self Inserts. The authors basically write themselves and all their writer friends into the book as the super elite task force the military gathers composed of science fiction writers, and only science fiction writers. You never see any actual scientists advising the president. Kind of silly.

4: USA Centric. Book never really focuses on any other country in any great detail, which is a lost opportunity IMO and it is a little distracting.

Now for some general thoughts.

Since this book is from the 1980s, the Cold War certainly has colored its writing. It is certainly quaint to read about the paranoid rivalry between the USA and USSR that rears its head as the aliens invade. It is rather quaint from the perspective of reading it in 2021, where the world order is generally much less paranoid.

The solution to the alien invasion stretches my suspension of disbelief pretty hard, given it is a large scale engineering project which is pulled off without a hitch, just a little unbelievable even if the end result is pretty cool. Which is why it is a forgivable sin.

As for some of the other reviews on the book, I would ignore the ones saying the silliest part of the book is that the aliens look like elephants and use “moonshoes and hang gliders”. You can tell they are people who rarely read sci-fi if that is silly to them.

My final thoughts are this: An ok book, well worth the read if you enjoy alien invasions. It is however, just a worse version of a series of better alien invasion books. Before reading this I would recommend you to go spend a credit on the first WORLDWAR book by Harry Turtledove. A series in which aliens invade during WW2 and which dives extensively into the consequences of such an action. Basically all my cons I listed are not in that series, and if you haven’t read it already you should do so before reading this.