The Legacy of Heorot – Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes (Heorot, Book 1)

Title: The Legacy of Heorot

Series: Heorot, Book 1

Author: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes

Genre: Science Fiction

This is quite an amazing book. The science, sociology, psychology – all of it! – is extremely well-thought out. And the pacing is rather incredible. Niven has quite a knack for moving things along quick enough for most of the book, and then really stepping things up a couple of notches for the huge climax. Great fun!

Humanity has finally decided to reach out to the stars and attempt to colonize a new planet. But being so far away, they’ve gotta freeze the people so they’ll make it there at a decently young age. The first difficulty the colonists have to deal with is that some of them were affected by the freezing. But that is minor compared with what is awaiting them on Avalon, their new land. What seems a perfect place, at first, turns into a nightmare – complete with monsters!

There is almost a horror feel to the book, due to the violence and how incredibly horrific the “grendels” are. But it is definitely science fiction, through and through. Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes have done an excellent job crafting the science and technology of the people, as well as creating very intriguing and convincing characters.

This is the first of three books set in the Heorot universe. Beowulf’s Children is a sequel to this. It actually takes place when the children born in this book get old enough to begin claiming the planet for themselves. If you enjoy this book, definitely get your hands on Beowulf’s Children. There is also another book, Destiny’s Road, which also takes place in the same universe, mentioning events from the first two, but which is not really a sequel or continuation of their storyline (at least the way I understand it).

There is a lot of violence in the book, but really no sexual material at all. There is a little inuendo or inference to sexual situations, but nothing specific and definitely nothing explicit.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It would probably not be appropriate for younger readers due to the violence as well as the much relaxed sexual mores of the settlement.

Worldview: Secular, slighly evolutionary

Age Recommendation: Definitely mid to late high school age, primarily due to the violence, but also because of some of the morality of the settlement