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A review by sleeping_while_awake
The World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven
3.0
Since I had read Ringworld, I was more interested in The World of Ptaavs than I think I otherwise would have been.
The story is simple and straight to the point. A statue is recovered from the deep sea and is suspected to be an alien frozen in stasis. Scientists conduct an experiment to unfreeze the alien.
They release the alien, Kzanol, a thrintun, who crash-landed on Earth about two billion years ago. However, it all goes terribly wrong. Larry Greenburg, a telepath, is taken over by Kzanol's mind.
Larry ends up thinking he is truly Kzanol, although the real Kzanol is on the loose. Both of them travel to Neptune to locate a device Kzanol had left there (Larry still thinking he is Kzanol). And so ensues a long chase in which the scientists follow both of them.
There are many ideas talked about in the story but never really explained. Humans and dolphins can now communicate with one another, which I thought was a really fun idea. It's even suggested that maybe dolphins will travel into space.
However, there's not much elaborated on the dolphins, and maybe such a plotline would have been too ridiculous. But I would be all for dolphins colonizing the universe.
The telepathy, Belter and Earth politics, honeymooners and the Fertility Board - they're not elaborated in Ptavvs. Lots of ideas, but not much execution on them. Characters were shallow.
The beginning in which Kzanol imprints his mind on Larry is really confusing.
Fortunately, it is short. If the novel was longer, it would have become very tedious. I had fun reading it.
The story is simple and straight to the point. A statue is recovered from the deep sea and is suspected to be an alien frozen in stasis. Scientists conduct an experiment to unfreeze the alien.
They release the alien, Kzanol, a thrintun, who crash-landed on Earth about two billion years ago. However, it all goes terribly wrong. Larry Greenburg, a telepath, is taken over by Kzanol's mind.
Larry ends up thinking he is truly Kzanol, although the real Kzanol is on the loose. Both of them travel to Neptune to locate a device Kzanol had left there (Larry still thinking he is Kzanol). And so ensues a long chase in which the scientists follow both of them.
There are many ideas talked about in the story but never really explained. Humans and dolphins can now communicate with one another, which I thought was a really fun idea. It's even suggested that maybe dolphins will travel into space.
However, there's not much elaborated on the dolphins, and maybe such a plotline would have been too ridiculous. But I would be all for dolphins colonizing the universe.
The telepathy, Belter and Earth politics, honeymooners and the Fertility Board - they're not elaborated in Ptavvs. Lots of ideas, but not much execution on them. Characters were shallow.
The beginning in which Kzanol imprints his mind on Larry is really confusing.
Fortunately, it is short. If the novel was longer, it would have become very tedious. I had fun reading it.