• Juggler of Worlds

  • 200 Years Before the Discovery of the Ringworld
  • By: Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner
  • Narrated by: Tom Weiner
  • Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (559 ratings)

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Juggler of Worlds  By  cover art

Juggler of Worlds

By: Larry Niven, Edward M. Lerner
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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Publisher's summary

Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is Earth's secret weapon, humanity's best defense against all conspiracies, real and imaginary, and all foes both human and alien. Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

But Sigmund may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly superior technologies. Even after the Puppeteers abruptly vanish from Known Space, Nessus schemes in the shadows with Earth's traitors and adversaries.

As a paranoid, Sigmund has always known things would end horribly for him; only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all eluded him. But even Sigmund never imagined that his destiny would be entwined with the fates of worlds...

©2008 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Niven and Lerner] clearly enjoy revisiting aliens familiar from Niven's menagerie while spinning an elaborate tale of interplanetary intrigue. Their many fans will, too." ( Booklist)

What listeners say about Juggler of Worlds

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    288
  • 4 Stars
    182
  • 3 Stars
    70
  • 2 Stars
    13
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
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  • 4 Stars
    112
  • 3 Stars
    32
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    238
  • 4 Stars
    123
  • 3 Stars
    47
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    5

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

boring rewrite

This book reminds me of one of those "clip show" tv shows where they clip together past scenes to make a new show when the writers are too lazy to come up with anything new.

This book is mostly a behind the scenes look at the known space short stories of Niven, but from the view of the ARM and Nessus. Like what they thought about Beowulf's journey to the center of the galaxy, or what happened after he encountered the antimatter system that destroyed the GP hull, etc. They are just all strung together in a mish mash with seemingly no plot to the story at all.

Very disappointed. Niven can do much better. I wonder if he even wrote any of it or just signed his name to it?

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

narrator is great but horrible at the same time

so I have read this book before and the one before it (Fleet of Worlds) and I liked the books, there were a couple of parts that were strange but over all it was great

the narrator is great but horrible at the same time, he does a great job and is easy to understand but after every sentence it is ended with a long trailing off of the word last spoken, even words that make no sense to say like that

what I am talking about is he will say something that ends with the word "world" and will say it like "worllllddd" taking way to long to stop talking, or the word "outing" will be said like "outiiinnnggg" - but words that dont lend them selves to being said that way are said like that also "sense" is said like "sennnse"

its just so dam annoying to the fullest and I cant believe this was allowed to happen in the recording

listen to the sample and you will see what I mean

the book is great so thats good

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Bounces around a bit

with what almost seem like mini stories with abrupt and sudden conclusions lacking detail and feeling incomplete like there was more of the story to be told within. This may be an effect of having the story read to you. They all fit together toward a rational and satisfying conclusion, however.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Mostly a rewrite of "Crashlander"

This is an 8 hour rewrite of Crashlander from the Sigmund/Nessus point of view, with 4 and a bit hours of new material at the very end. I felt slightly ripped off (hence only a rating of 3).

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

not as good as I expected


repetitive and repetitive and....
fragments of other stories.
I've read this before in other collections.
and he reiterates himself within the short story format.
meh.
I love his work but...
meh.
ptui.
meh.
FOAD.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration

This narrator’s work is usually excellent.
Accents were painfully overdone, especially Beowulf Shaeffer and Carlos Wu.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A different vision of, with a little

This book summarizes the story of Fleet of Worlds from perspective of Sigmund for what it seems 3/5 of the book. The rest is new stuff.
However, it does not disappoint nor seems repetitive, if you have already read Fleet of Worlds. Very entertaining.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Known Space meets Bladerunner

Though it is the second entry in the Fleet of Worlds Series, Juggler of Worlds is half prequel half sequel to the first entry. I'm not sure why people have been responding negatively to this title. Thus far, this is my favorite Known Space title. Perhaps more so than Ringworld Engineers. Perhaps readers did not expect this to be a cyberpunk detective story, but I find the intrigue and politics of this story simply irresistible. It adds so much depth the Known Space cannon, and the build up to the events of the Ringworld Series. I don't know why people don't like the narrator, I think he is fantastic. Give it a chance.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

good story in series, somewhat erratic narration

Having read the Ringworld series, I am now reading the series about the events that happened previously; the story is good, enough science-based elements to make it interesting without bogging down in technical details. (For us non-engineers anyway!)
I was irritated, tho, at what is supposed to be the same narrator changing pronunciation of names and words halfway through the book. Did he record half a book, then record the rest several months or years later? Otherwise the narrator made a good effort at creating different voices for the many characters; tho one has to wonder if humans would really have German or Asian sounding voices that far in the future under one world government. A minor point tho, as of course no one knows what accents or dialects would actually develop on space colonies centuries in the future!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Complicated story

Like game of thrones. Not as many characters but sometimes hard to follow who is screwing who.

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