“Shipstar” is the second in a series of three novels by noted science fiction authors Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. I reviewed the first novel in the series “The Bowl of Heaven” back on the 2nd of January 2021. As we began “The Bowl of Heaven” the Earth starship Sunseeker was on a mission to establish the first human colony in another star system on a planet that is given the name Glory.
In mid flight however Sunseeker encounters an unbelievable sight, a star that has been almost completely enclosed inside a shell. Such an object is commonly known as a Dyson sphere after physicist Freeman Dyson who proposed that such a structure would allow a high-technology civilization to capture and use the entire energy output of the enclosed star.
Now the star encountered by Sunseeker is not a complete Dyson sphere, there is a large hole in the sphere making the object more like a bowl, “The Bowl of Heaven” in the title. And the star’s solar wind has been magnetically channeled through that hole to provide a rocket exhaust making the star and it’s bowl into a ship, a “Shipstar”.
Investigating this marvel the Sunseeker sails inside the bowl and sends down a landing party to the inside surface of the bowl. On the surface the humans discover a large number of different intelligences, each of which appear to inhabit their own area on the inside of the bowl. The aliens who run the bowl, and who refer to themselves as ‘The Folk’ turn out to be rather domineering and capture half the landing party while the other half escapes into the bowl. After a series of adventures this is where “The Bowl of Heaven” ends.
“Shipstar” picks up where “The Bowl of Heaven” left off with half the landing party being interrogated by the folk while the rest are trying not to get caught. The first three-quarters of “Shipstar” consist of these adventures as the Earthlings learn more about the creatures that inhabit the bowl. Before long it becomes obvious that while the folk may appear to be in charge they clearly aren’t the original builders of the bowl. Several times in the novel one human character or another thinks to themselves “we’re missing something here” as the authors try to build up tension for the big reveal to come.
So the first three hundred pages of ‘Shipstar” are pretty much action-adventure, the escaped humans actually get involved in a rebellion by one of the other intelligent species on the bowl against the folk. The adventures and the aliens encountered are all interesting enough but really they’re just filler.
And that’s my problem with all of these SF series lately. The author or authors may start out with a good enough idea but because they have to spread it over three or more books the story becomes mostly filler, more like a western than real SF. Conflict is important in any story, you learn that your first day in any writing course, every story needs its protagonist(s) and antagonist(s). Science Fiction however is about big ideas not just a series of shootouts and fistfights.
Now as I said, with two top-notch SF writers like Benford and Niven the filler is worth reading and in the last hundred pages of “Shipstar” we do finally get some information, some resolution as well as a setup for the next book in the series. The story of the voyages of the Sunseeker and the Bowl of Heaven continues in “Glorious” and I’ll be certain to tell you all about it before too long.