The Integral Trees

(suggested soundtrack: Ellen Allien & Apparat - Jet)

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This should've been a comic book.

 

Long story short, if you want a good example of how to flesh out a fantastic ecosystem, read TIT.

If you want a bad example of how to lose readers in explanations... also read TIT.

While we're at it, if you're a profitable enough writer you can apparently title your book TIT and the censors don't even flinch. Go figure. (Don't even try to tell me he didn't do it on purpose; it's not like you really need the "the" in there.)

Side-note: given I don't know anyone and rarely want to, test readers are hard to come by, especially as I can't offer real entertainment. A bit of feedback after posting Deliver though did point out I failed at describing my alien landscape intelligibly. Well, at least I can take comfort in being similarly bemused at similarly confounding descriptions by actual, published, famous authors like Niven. If not for the occasional diagram or lexicon, you'd be completely lost.

 

But then I suppose you're forewarned of diving into nerd fiction when the very title references calculus symbols. Granted, the environment isn't too hard to wrap your head around once various details have been reiterated a few times. A gas torus around a neutron star, left behind by an orbiting gas giant gradually losing its mass to the star's tidal pull, within which torus float trees a hundred kilometers in length, leafy at both ends of their trunks. Unfortunately The Integral Trees starts and continues its action from the viewpoint of human remnants of an interstellar expedition, fallen back on preindustrial tribal structures. Either the setting or the viewpoint by itself could have been charming, but their combination renders a first read-through gratuitously obtuse. Imagine trying to describe Ringworld from the point of view of a ghoul or giant. 'Nuff said?

 

Doesn't help that the best expository character, Kendy, is mostly relegated to deus ex machina and sequel hook. Some of the nomenclature could've been better chosen, too. I spent half the novel mixing up "Gold" and "Voy" because one suggests golden light and the other voyaging... and it's the other way around. A few plot points like the original importance of the giant mushroom are glossed over. Best not get into characters' constant shifts in allegiance wedged into one or two paragraphs each, to build up the adventuring party and keep the action flowing.

 

Much like Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, this is quite noticeably a Romantic Age high seas adventure story, down to the bioship-to-bioship boarding scene. And, much like Heinlein, Niven nevertheless secured a solid SF footing by carrying through on his premise. The world itself is fascinating. The trees, the migratory life, the cultural and biological adaptations to a free-fall, fragmented, windblown ecosystem permeate the story, from jet-powered seed dispersal harnessed for transportation, to everyone carrying grapples at all times, to prehensile toes, to the weaponry eschewing gravity-powered blunt trauma to focus on projectiles, to animal life almost entirely favoring wings, to gas concentrations at different positions in the torus' core making the difference between life and death.

What can I say, I does loves me sum worldbuilding. You could nitpick various elements (especially the suspiciously earthlike evolution) but more than enough work was put into it to compensate.

Still, I have to note that much of what grinds and stalls in verbal decriptions of the otherwise captivating setting would benefit from a more objective viewpoint. Even if you turn up your nose at narrator exposition, read The Integral Trees and tell me it wouldn't've have been more warranted in this case.