World of Ptavvs

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Bradford Hastings

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Nothing quite prepared telepath Larry Greenberg for mind-to-mind contact with an alien. In the interest of science, Larry tapped the mind of Kzanol - and that was his first mistake.

Kzanol was a thrint from a distant galaxy. He had been trapped on Earth in a time-stasis field for two billion years. Now he was on the loose, and Larry knew everything he was thinking. Thrints lived to plunder and enslave lesser planets - and the planet Kzanol had in mind was Earth!

©2019 Larry Niven (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Larry Niven is amazing

I marathoned this book in a day and a half. I find the aliens that he writes to be fascinating. just like Babel 17, the mind and thought processes play a unique role ik the story.
My only problem is that Niven thought Dolphins had a moral code. I am sorry to say I read that and I choked on my tea because now we know Dolphins are monsters.

loved it

Loved it! Larry Niven's work is excellent. The characters are well thought out & relatable giving them almost addictive readability, and the performance was excellently done.

A decent listen

the narrator made the best out of a difficult book to listen to (vs reading)

1963? could have been written lat week!

Great story! Excellent performance. A little hard to follow at first. Nice development of characters early on. Listened and smiled as our hero (s) made their way towards a wonderful end. Bravo!!

We're all just Ptavvs on this bus

Larry Niven's World of Ptavvs is one of his earliest offerings set in his known universe. An alien artifact dug up on Earth is hypothesized to contain an alien in a stasis field which humanity has recently discovered. A telepath volunteers to enter the stasis field, but emerges with alien memories and an uncertain identity. The alien has been in stasis for 1,5 billion years after a space disaster. The alien is also a telepath and his race controlled the galaxy through mind control (Ptavvs is the term for slave, which is how the alien views Earth), but his thought amplifying equipment was sent to a moon of Neptune which is now the planetoid Pluto. The human/alien entity and the alien both steal spaceships in a race to the device. Meanwhile the asteroid belt contingent doesn't know what to believe and threatens to just blow everyone up.

For a relatively short tale, Niven throws in everything, but the kitchen sink. Stasis fields are almost treated as a throwaway. Telepathy is advanced with ongoing communications with dolphins. Solar system expansion is commonplace with an active economic exploitation of the asteroid belt that has resulted in a Cold war sort of détente between the belters and Earth. Then there's the interesting suggestion that Pluto is a former moon of Neptune. While the existence of a previous intelligent alien race running the galaxy 1.5 billion years ago is not novel, Niven has Earth used for food production which after their overthrow and dissolution of their galactic empire, life as we know it developed.

The narration is well done with good character distinction and reasonable pacing.

A little confusing at times.

But overall it's a good story and the narrator is really great. I am glad I read Neutron Star first or else I think I weighs have been completely lost.

Unique Premise, Slow Execution.

Larry Niven puts forward a very unique premise here, but unfortunately that is about all he puts forward.

While not bad, the book is slow and is only really interesting when playing around with its handful of, admittedly, unique concepts. Since it is so short it is definitely worth a listen if you are a Niven fan, or just need a casual Sci Fi book to burn through, but this really isn’t his best work.

missing something...

loved it, sorta but seemed to be missing something. I love Larry Niven and the series of ring world, but something about this. like missing chapters or something??

Well read

Been a fan of Niven since high school. I’ll have to listen to more. The story is very well narrated.

Where it all began

I read the original as a short story in Worlds of Tomorrow magazine in 1965. Don’t remember if I ever read this novelization, but the story hooked me on Niven and was the first of his many Tales of Known Space, of which Ringworld is the best known. Amazing how well it survives the advances of science and social attitudes over nearly 60 years; you have to overlook the pervasive use of tobacco and the continued existence of phone booths! There are women in professional roles but males, as in many stories of that era, are definitely the prominent actors. Nevertheless still a great story and essential reading for any Niven fan.