VASIMR good basis for space travel?

[Ford Prefect]

For that purpose, VASIMR may be as good a name as any. Even if it doesn't pan out as a form of space drive, it's viable enough that except for a very tiny fraction of your audience, it's a perfectly good option.

On the other hand, if he is going to use VASIMIR, then wanting to learn about it and how it functions is not a bad thing. The great majority of readers won't know much about it, and knowing about something is still useful in writing. I recently asked about the mechanics of fusion, in part because I write fanfiction. I doubt I'll ever actually go so far as to explicitly demonstrate that I know slightly more than the average bear, but knowing a little more about the mechanics makes it feel less like a plot device for making things go fast and more like a functional part of the universe. The reader may never know the difference, but I will, and that makes it more satisfying - even if the writer is often blind, they are often also their harshest critic.

[Bakustra]

For that purpose, VASIMR may be as good a name as any. Even if it doesn't pan out as a form of space drive, it's viable enough that except for a very tiny fraction of your audience, it's a perfectly good option.

On the other hand, if he is going to use VASIMIR, then wanting to learn about it and how it functions is not a bad thing. The great majority of readers won't know much about it, and knowing about something is still useful in writing. I recently asked about the mechanics of fusion, in part because I write fanfiction. I doubt I'll ever actually go so far as to explicitly demonstrate that I know slightly more than the average bear, but knowing a little more about the mechanics makes it feel less like a plot device for making things go fast and more like a functional part of the universe. The reader may never know the difference, but I will, and that makes it more satisfying - even if the writer is often blind, they are often also their harshest critic.

To be honest, knowing the behind-the-scenes workings of things within your story tends to lend it a feeling of authenticity and adds consistency, because the reader will generally grasp, and in some cases be able to work out, the limits behind the technology/magic/alien biology, even if they aren't explicitly worked out. See Glen Cook's Passage At Arms for a good example of this: the FTL technologies are given a cursory explanation so that the reader can understand that this is a space submarine, but with various consistent terms that suggest a internal physics to the universe, even if all the reader has is a couple of names.

[Sheridan]

That's actually a very good point. I find that my own suspension of disbelief is much easier to maintain if things consistantly work in the same manner from scene to scene or chapter to chapter. I don't mind swallowing a plot device that is impossible according to science as we know it (FTL travel being a very good example), as long as it is internally consistent--or if the outliers have a good explanation and are not overdone (the constant transporter malfunctions/blockages on Trek are a good example of them being overdone).

All in all, I don't mind if it's fantasy or science fiction, as long as it's internally consistent. That way, I can stop worrying about why things no longer work the way they're supposed to and get back to the real meat of the story: the characters and their interactions that make up the plot.

[Bakustra]

That's actually a very good point. I find that my own suspension of disbelief is much easier to maintain if things consistantly work in the same manner from scene to scene or chapter to chapter. I don't mind swallowing a plot device that is impossible according to science as we know it (FTL travel being a very good example), as long as it is internally consistent--or if the outliers have a good explanation and are not overdone (the constant transporter malfunctions/blockages on Trek are a good example of them being overdone).

All in all, I don't mind if it's fantasy or science fiction, as long as it's internally consistent. That way, I can stop worrying about why things no longer work the way they're supposed to and get back to the real meat of the story: the characters and their interactions that make up the plot.

The technical term for doing this is "creating verisimilitude", and people tend to do it unconsciously. I think that people react poorly to violations of it, so that, say the appearance of a vampire in the middle of a story about colonizing Mars will throw people off far more than that same vampire appearing in a story about a 1950s police detective, because he fits far more poorly in one than the other. Similarly, people tend to react poorly to the introduction of sci-fi elements into sword and sorcery fantasy, because the spaceships don't really fit. On the other hand, you can always modify the story to make the vampire/spaceship fit, by simply changing the story so that people will accept that vampires exist in this future Mars, or orcs really did come from space, or whatever, by altering the details to foreshadow the reveal. (Haemovore Protection Act narrowly defeated in UN General Assembly vote; legends of the orcs tell of how they fell from the sky) But that's just my opinion, and I'm using somewhat extreme examples.
Going into more personal details, that's a problem with several authors too. Larry Niven introduced so many elements into Known Space (teleportation via machine and psychic power, psychic powers in general, alternate origin of humanity that was never fully explored, three different supermaterials, stasis fields, genetic luck, etc.) that he completely shut down everything except Ringworld sequels for years. Isaac Asimov developed a number of inconsistencies when he welded together all of his Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation works into one whole, and added two independent novels to the mix. But those are stories for another time, and so I'll rant no more.

[RedImperator]

For that purpose, VASIMR may be as good a name as any. Even if it doesn't pan out as a form of space drive, it's viable enough that except for a very tiny fraction of your audience, it's a perfectly good option.

On the other hand, if he is going to use VASIMIR, then wanting to learn about it and how it functions is not a bad thing. The great majority of readers won't know much about it, and knowing about something is still useful in writing. I recently asked about the mechanics of fusion, in part because I write fanfiction. I doubt I'll ever actually go so far as to explicitly demonstrate that I know slightly more than the average bear, but knowing a little more about the mechanics makes it feel less like a plot device for making things go fast and more like a functional part of the universe. The reader may never know the difference, but I will, and that makes it more satisfying - even if the writer is often blind, they are often also their harshest critic.

What I found most valuable about knowing how my spaceships work (nuclear salt water rockets in my case) was that it crystallized in my mind a lot of how the story would go. It's not just knowing how it performs--though that's important, too--but how it fails, which is where the drama often lies.

[Bakustra]

For that purpose, VASIMR may be as good a name as any. Even if it doesn't pan out as a form of space drive, it's viable enough that except for a very tiny fraction of your audience, it's a perfectly good option.

On the other hand, if he is going to use VASIMIR, then wanting to learn about it and how it functions is not a bad thing. The great majority of readers won't know much about it, and knowing about something is still useful in writing. I recently asked about the mechanics of fusion, in part because I write fanfiction. I doubt I'll ever actually go so far as to explicitly demonstrate that I know slightly more than the average bear, but knowing a little more about the mechanics makes it feel less like a plot device for making things go fast and more like a functional part of the universe. The reader may never know the difference, but I will, and that makes it more satisfying - even if the writer is often blind, they are often also their harshest critic.

What I found most valuable about knowing how my spaceships work (nuclear salt water rockets in my case) was that it crystallized in my mind a lot of how the story would go. It's not just knowing how it performs--though that's important, too--but how it fails, which is where the drama often lies.

That's true for any well-designed system, though. It's just real-life ones tend to be far better thought-out, thanks to them often being developed by scientists and engineers. I mean, were I to write a story about exploring Mars or Mars colonization, I'd probably start out with Zubrin's Mars Direct, and go from there to look up further efforts to design a Martian colonization effort. The next step, as you said, is to stress the system. In the case of our Mars colony, what are the weaknesses of a Mars Direct-initiative? Well, one is that the initial colonies will be two years away from Earth. Another is that colonies will likely become fairly isolated, unless travel vehicles are fairly cheap, which requires a fuel source/plenty of excess electrical power and batteries. As a result, each individual colony will be more like a nation in miniature, and depending on the progress of the colonization, might become more and more independent and nation-esque, so that our Mars of the future is divided up into city-states surrounded by wasteland. I'd go on, but I fear I'm rambling.

[RedImperator]

That's true for any well-designed system, though. It's just real-life ones tend to be far better thought-out, thanks to them often being developed by scientists and engineers. I mean, were I to write a story about exploring Mars or Mars colonization, I'd probably start out with Zubrin's Mars Direct, and go from there to look up further efforts to design a Martian colonization effort. The next step, as you said, is to stress the system. In the case of our Mars colony, what are the weaknesses of a Mars Direct-initiative? Well, one is that the initial colonies will be two years away from Earth. Another is that colonies will likely become fairly isolated, unless travel vehicles are fairly cheap, which requires a fuel source/plenty of excess electrical power and batteries. As a result, each individual colony will be more like a nation in miniature, and depending on the progress of the colonization, might become more and more independent and nation-esque, so that our Mars of the future is divided up into city-states surrounded by wasteland. I'd go on, but I fear I'm rambling.

Yeah, exactly. It's perfectly possible to make up, out of whole cloth, a logical, internally consistent set of rules for how an imaginary technology works (good fantasy authors have to do this all the time). But it's exceptionally difficult, especially over multiple works set in the same universe. The utter mess that Star Trek's writers made is a perfect example of what can go wrong if you don't understand in advance what your technology can and can't do.

[Ford Prefect]

What I found most valuable about knowing how my spaceships work (nuclear salt water rockets in my case) was that it crystallized in my mind a lot of how the story would go. It's not just knowing how it performs--though that's important, too--but how it fails, which is where the drama often lies.

That's a good point. Knowing your limitations in advance means that you cannot necessarily misuse a certain technology to solve a problem, or even create a 'problem' to begin with that could be solved trivially with existing technology. For example I developed am agical technology which an honest to God completely impenetrable barrier, but from theo utset developed a number of rules to be stringently applied to them. A similar example is the field and drive from A Mote In God's Eye, where the completely fictional technology comes attached with a series of limitations which essentially drive the climax (the Moties' modification of the field, for example). These are examples using totally made up technology, but I'm sure you could find a real science example: just off the top of my head, there's the balance between your ability to tolerate heat and the need to rapidly escape from the Space Red Baron. You can only survive if you start pushing single digit gees, but your space rocket is depressingly not really designed to go much above two or three and you think the drive section is starting to melt ... but the alternative is to get stitched with laser beams. That could be quite tense, really.

[Nyrath]

What I found most valuable about knowing how my spaceships work (nuclear salt water rockets in my case) was that it crystallized in my mind a lot of how the story would go. It's not just knowing how it performs--though that's important, too--but how it fails, which is where the drama often lies.

Very true, but especially true with the nuclear salt water rocket and its rather spectacular failure modes.

[Junghalli]

If you are a lay person, don't worry about the technical aspects of your drive on your spaceships. It's not worth the headache. Just have them work well.

But I want "Shown Your Work" on my tvtropes article!

There's another term for that. It's called "I've Suffered For My Art (And Now It's Your Turn)".

A form of info-dump in which the author inflicts upon the reader hard-won, but irrelevant bits of data acquired while researching the story. As Algis Budrys once pointed out, homework exists to make the difficult look easy.

I think the best solution for an author who wants to "show his work" when it's difficult to work it smoothly into the narrative is to add a technical notes section in the back of the book/story/whatever. Readers who like that sort of thing get to have a peek behind the curtain while those who don't can skip it, and you lose the temptation to shoehorn in lectures on how your stuff works because it can be accessible to your readers without actually being in the story itself.

Also: Peter Watts is my recommended reading for anyone who wants to put complex science stuff in a story without resorting to eye-glazing infodumping. I especially recommend, well, everything he wrote but Blindsight, which isn't bad (actually I find it a fascinating book) but is his most difficult to read work (at least for me), so you might want to start with something else.. There's a bunch of his work available free online here, also one of his short story is available here.

[RedImperator]

What I found most valuable about knowing how my spaceships work (nuclear salt water rockets in my case) was that it crystallized in my mind a lot of how the story would go. It's not just knowing how it performs--though that's important, too--but how it fails, which is where the drama often lies.

Very true, but especially true with the nuclear salt water rocket and its rather spectacular failure modes.

Yes, I was quite pleased the first time I drew a line through the mass ratio and delta-v I wanted and speared the NSWR. Torch-drive performance from an old-school, radiation-spewing atomic rocket that blows up if you look at it funny. The perfect hard SF engine.

I think the best solution for an author who wants to "show his work" when it's difficult to work it smoothly into the narrative is to add a technical notes section in the back of the book/story/whatever. Readers who like that sort of thing get to have a peek behind the curtain while those who don't can skip it, and you lose the temptation to shoehorn in lectures on how your stuff works because it can be accessible to your readers without actually being in the story itself.

I've seen that a few times. Not just in science fiction, either. Historical novels often have short afterwords with additional historical information (often in the form of "I took dramatic liberties with these facts...").

[Ford Prefect]

Torch-drive performance from an old-school, radiation-spewing atomic rocket that blows up if you look at it funny. The perfect hard SF engine.

Torch drive performance? Aren't torch drives essentially Heinleinian magic?

[RedImperator]

Torch-drive performance from an old-school, radiation-spewing atomic rocket that blows up if you look at it funny. The perfect hard SF engine.

Torch drive performance? Aren't torch drives essentially Heinleinian magic?

I'm exaggerating a little (well, OK, a lot), but they do have good enough performance to open the entire Solar System out to Neptune without too much trouble (as long as you don't define "hauling thousands of tons of ill-tempered uranium broth" as "trouble").

[Blayne]

Its possible to 'show your work' through character narrative and character descriptions on what they are doing and whats going on to describe the technology in action and its details as needed without shoe horning an encyclopedia article in their throats I'ld think.

[Junghalli]

Yes, it is. The trick is to do it in such a way that it fits organically into the narrative; it makes sense that the character would be thinking or talking about it in the level of detail that he is in that situation.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm exaggerating a little (well, OK, a lot), but they do have good enough performance to open the entire Solar System out to Neptune without too much trouble (as long as you don't define "hauling thousands of tons of ill-tempered uranium broth" as "trouble").

The NSWR reminds me of this line from Armageddon.

You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?

Except with the knob turned to 10 due to the fact that all of the above are part of the same thing in a NSWR.

[Ford Prefect]

I'm exaggerating a little (well, OK, a lot), but they do have good enough performance to open the entire Solar System out to Neptune without too much trouble (as long as you don't define "hauling thousands of tons of ill-tempered uranium broth" as "trouble").

I don't think many science fiction writers really characterise 'huge explosive tank of atomic fuel' as being dangerous. Perhaps this reflects poorly on us as a whole. On the other hand, it is remarkably characterful.

Yes, it is. The trick is to do it in such a way that it fits organically into the narrative; it makes sense that the character would be thinking or talking about it in the level of detail that he is in that situation.

This initially seems quite easy, because all you need is a layperson floating around to say 'hey, that looks cool! What is it?' and the other character can explain. This seems really common in older pulp sci-fi that gets quoted all the time on Atomic Rockets: conversations between people about whatever cool space travel thing the author discovered in a text book. On the other hand, actually 'showing your work' is harder: as you say, it's important to make it fit organically, otherwise it's just another encyclopaedia entry. On the gripping hand I reckon you could make that kind of characterful, demonstrating that the speaking character is smugly superior about his or her rocket science expertise, or breathlessly obsessed with his or her job. It is however one step away from a narrative infodump regardless.

[RedImperator]

Its possible to 'show your work' through character narrative and character descriptions on what they are doing and whats going on to describe the technology in action and its details as needed without shoe horning an encyclopedia article in their throats I'ld think.

Yeah, but this is more difficult than it sounds. It's easy to let this kind of thing turn into "As you know, Bob..." conversations, where characters tell each other things they already know for the benefit of the reader. This is just as much an infodump as the author pausing the narrative to lecture the reader.

Different authors have different philosophies for this, so you'll have to take whatever approach you're most comfortable with. I'm of the school which believes that if it's not relevant to the plot, story, or theme, it should be cut (this is how you fit an entire interplanetary war into 110,000 words). Others do like to add extra technical details, because they think the concept is cool or because they're trying to build a world (note, though, that "worldbuilding" doesn't necessarily mean "technological details"; China Miéville, for example, is a brilliant worldbuilder who rarely explains how any of his steampunk technology works).

Final note, however: I don't believe that "I worked hard on this research, so I'm going to put it in the story" is ever a legitimate reason to insert technical details. It's hard to write good, accurate science fiction. It's also hard to play the piano. When you go to a piano concerto, you're not there to hear the performer play his scales. Same goes for novels: the readers don't care how hard you worked. You did your homework to make the story better, the same way a pianist plays his scales at home so the audience gets a good performance.

[Bakustra]

Its possible to 'show your work' through character narrative and character descriptions on what they are doing and whats going on to describe the technology in action and its details as needed without shoe horning an encyclopedia article in their throats I'ld think.

Yeah, but this is more difficult than it sounds. It's easy to let this kind of thing turn into "As you know, Bob..." conversations, where characters tell each other things they already know for the benefit of the reader. This is just as much an infodump as the author pausing the narrative to lecture the reader.

Different authors have different philosophies for this, so you'll have to take whatever approach you're most comfortable with. I'm of the school which believes that if it's not relevant to the plot, story, or theme, it should be cut (this is how you fit an entire interplanetary war into 110,000 words). Others do like to add extra technical details, because they think the concept is cool or because they're trying to build a world (note, though, that "worldbuilding" doesn't necessarily mean "technological details"; China Miéville, for example, is a brilliant worldbuilder who rarely explains how any of his steampunk technology works).

Final note, however: I don't believe that "I worked hard on this research, so I'm going to put it in the story" is ever a legitimate reason to insert technical details. It's hard to write good, accurate science fiction. It's also hard to play the piano. When you go to a piano concerto, you're not there to hear the performer play his scales. Same goes for novels: the readers don't care how hard you worked. You did your homework to make the story better, the same way a pianist plays his scales at home so the audience gets a good performance.

I'll add a few of my own thoughts, as a reader. My opinion is that any such research should be suggested rather than overt. Pulpy lectures quickly grow old. My idea? Take the list of concepts associated with what you're going to put into your story. In the case of VASIMR, take certain aspects and make slang and shorthand out of them. Think about what people using the system would contract all the two-dollar words and phrases into, and let your spaceship crew make use of those terms. This gives you a few hooks for subtle characterization as a bonus (this character is formal when talking to his superiors, but informal when working, the by-the-book guy has that reflected in his speech, etc.) and has the advantage of sounding authentic while being totally fictional, as long as you've invested some research time into what real sailors call the more technical parts of the ships of the ships that they are on. I, personally, feel that subtle is better when it comes to worldbuilding and setting. Making a setting detail that one reader in fifty will pick up on, if it is handled well, will likely pique those one in fifty readers' interests in you as an author, without alienating the other forty-nine with infodumping. Granted, these are just my musings as a reader of sci-fi.

[Ford Prefect]

It should be possible to work a lot of these details into the story simply as a result of telling your story. VASIMR is particularly good for this simply because of the dual function nature of the system. VASIMR, very basically, has a fuel efficient mode and a non-fuel efficient high acceleration mode, and unexpected usage of the latter could result in unfortunate fuel shortages which can be delivered loosely in the form of 'in order to combat space piracy we had to engage the high gee mode of our space rocket, expending too much argon in the process so we cannot reach the required delta-v to make our delivery on time' and so on. If the plot allows for it, characters can talk about technical issues or whatever - the above sentence could take place in a briefing where someone may even actually present his space rocketry calculus to the crew to hammer home how screwed they are.

However, Red is basically right on the money: technical detail should only impose upon the narrative when necessary, otherwise they simply inform the background which only the author really needs to know.

[Simon_Jester]

But you can solve that. Its a wiki, go and edit it.

I am but one man, I can't fix everything. That was only intended as a representative example, not as a specific complaint.

Although the Trope Namer I don't think means what originated the concept to its oldest recorded use but to what is the earliest use that propagated the Trope into public pop cultural consciousness. In which case it probably IS starship tropers that did it for most people.

Thing is, the people who read Starship Troopers back in the dat would also be the sort who'd have read the Clarke story. It's entirely possible that Heinlein actually got the idea from Clarke directly, given the fifteen year time gap. The wiki is doing Clarke a disservice by crediting the idea to Heinlein... and it's not even easy to figure out that the page claims it's Heinlein's, either, because it's one example mixed in with several dozen and has no particular pride of place.

So in addition to Bakustra's interesting suggestions, I would add:
5. Among the few examples that belong on the main trope page, include the earliest example(s) of the trope, and possibly any major works that had a significant impact on the way the trope was implemented.

On the other hand, if he is going to use VASIMIR, then wanting to learn about it and how it functions is not a bad thing. The great majority of readers won't know much about it, and knowing about something is still useful in writing. I recently asked about the mechanics of fusion, in part because I write fanfiction. I doubt I'll ever actually go so far as to explicitly demonstrate that I know slightly more than the average bear, but knowing a little more about the mechanics makes it feel less like a plot device for making things go fast and more like a functional part of the universe. The reader may never know the difference, but I will, and that makes it more satisfying - even if the writer is often blind, they are often also their harshest critic.

Agreed.

Going into more personal details, that's a problem with several authors too. Larry Niven introduced so many elements into Known Space (teleportation via machine and psychic power, psychic powers in general, alternate origin of humanity that was never fully explored, three different supermaterials, stasis fields, genetic luck, etc.) that he completely shut down everything except Ringworld sequels for years.

In a weird sense, I think Niven wound up writing a "singularity" into his setting: not so much because of the use of AI as because his future society came up with ways around so much of what we think of as the essential problems of existence that it became difficult to empathize with the sort of character who would live in that society. We can't imagine what a civilization with psychics and easy teleportation and stasis fields and genetic luck would look like, except that it passes through a sort of sociological event horizon and never comes back.

Note: Niven wrote in one of his anthologies that he originally wrote "genetic luck" as a sort of parody of the then-popular theme of psychic powers, by giving one of his characters the psychic ability to beat all abilities: Author Control. Unfortunately, the joke wasn't good enough for the rest of us to get it...

Final note, however: I don't believe that "I worked hard on this research, so I'm going to put it in the story" is ever a legitimate reason to insert technical details. It's hard to write good, accurate science fiction. It's also hard to play the piano. When you go to a piano concerto, you're not there to hear the performer play his scales. Same goes for novels: the readers don't care how hard you worked. You did your homework to make the story better, the same way a pianist plays his scales at home so the audience gets a good performance.

Groan, yes. I think this is what happened to David Weber; he used to be adequate and then he started showing all his homework, with no sensitivity to significant figures or reader fatigue. Bloat ensued.

It probably doesn't help that he frequents his own publishing company's discussion boards; that means he hears all the nitpicky arguments about what's going on under the hood and mistakes that for what the average reader really wants to hear...

[Bakustra]

Going into more personal details, that's a problem with several authors too. Larry Niven introduced so many elements into Known Space (teleportation via machine and psychic power, psychic powers in general, alternate origin of humanity that was never fully explored, three different supermaterials, stasis fields, genetic luck, etc.) that he completely shut down everything except Ringworld sequels for years.

In a weird sense, I think Niven wound up writing a "singularity" into his setting: not so much because of the use of AI as because his future society came up with ways around so much of what we think of as the essential problems of existence that it became difficult to empathize with the sort of character who would live in that society. We can't imagine what a civilization with psychics and easy teleportation and stasis fields and genetic luck would look like, except that it passes through a sort of sociological event horizon and never comes back.

Note: Niven wrote in one of his anthologies that he originally wrote "genetic luck" as a sort of parody of the then-popular theme of psychic powers, by giving one of his characters the psychic ability to beat all abilities: Author Control. Unfortunately, the joke wasn't good enough for the rest of us to get it...

Was this in Scatterbrain II or any later one's he's written? Anyways, I think that if it was a joke initially, he should have revealed it by dismissing her abilities in Ringworld Engineers or Ringworld's Children (yuk). I personally think that he had three reasons for essentially abandoning Known Space after Ringworld Engineers: 1. He was growing dissatisfied with the leftovers from his 60's and 70's stuff. This includes the teleporting psychics from World of Ptavvs, the more esoteric psychics from the same book, sapient dolphins, and so on. 2. He felt the universe was getting too crowded. Quick- when do pierin ever get more than a name-dropping? Kdatlyno get one story, and the same with the Grogs and Trinocs. Granted, the Kzinti only got two stories before Ringworld, but still. Similarly, everything listed above interfered with his logic-puzzle stories by forcing him to consider them 3. He was growing tired of writing in the same universe for virtually everything. Bear in mind that his plans immediately post-Ringworld were to close Known Space out with a bang. Instead, he wrote Ringworld Engineers, and then proceeded to go off the deep end in terms of quality. He wrote Ringworld Throne, and Ringworld's Children, and now has moved on to writing books exploring the secret origin of Sigmund Ausfaller, Agent for ARM. I'm too scared to pick those up, beyond looking at the back cover and quickly determining that it was about how evil the puppeteers are. He also wrote a sequel to Inferno with Jerry Pournelle, but it is not called Purgatorio and thus I have no interest in picking it up.

[Simon_Jester]

The new books are not so bad, in my opinion, not least because they don't incorporate all the random junk Niven wrote into the setting as part of one or another of his logic-puzzle stories. And they manage to unify some of it credibly: what is up with the Outsiders, for instance?

A lot of the credit is probably due to the people Niven is collaborating with; I suspect that they're doing a lot of the heavy lifting (besides, Niven is something like 80 years old now, isn't he?)

The sequel to Inferno is also adequate, though not great. It's mostly a further exploration of the "modern Inferno" setting.

Of course, be warned, I have low standards, so what I find adequate may be crap to you.

[Bakustra]

The new books are not so bad, in my opinion, not least because they don't incorporate all the random junk Niven wrote into the setting as part of one or another of his logic-puzzle stories. And they manage to unify some of it credibly: what is up with the Outsiders, for instance?

A lot of the credit is probably due to the people Niven is collaborating with; I suspect that they're doing a lot of the heavy lifting (besides, Niven is something like 80 years old now, isn't he?)

The sequel to Inferno is also adequate, though not great. It's mostly a further exploration of the "modern Inferno" setting.

Of course, be warned, I have low standards, so what I find adequate may be crap to you.

I'm burned out on Niven's novel-length stuff thanks to Ringworld Throne and Ringworld's Children. I think the Outsiders were thrown in to have a weird alien that couldn't possibly work. Either that, or to tie in with his earlier short story Wait it Out. In fact, I think that superfluid-aliens may be one of Niven's pet ideas. His other pet ideas, like his libertarian distrust of any and all government, are also annoying, as are his totally stereotypical aliens.

Let me ask a question. (Feel free to spoilerize if you want.) For what nefarious plot did the puppeteers kidnap baby Ausfaller and all the other humans?

I feel that his collaborators are probably doing some of the heavy lifting, but the most recent, Destroyer of Worlds, lifts its main plot right from Protector, and reveals that Truesdale and the Home Protectors failed. The problem that I have with Niven's more recent work is that it tends to shit all over his older work, and not just the goofy stuff, but rather, the good stuff. The hyperspace monsters in Ringworld's Children, boosterspice as a tree-of-life derivative in Ringworld's Children, the whole fuckery with the Quantum II Hyperdrive in Ringworld's Children. The goofy stuff would be the "ARM drugs its staff into paranoid schizophrenia, except those that are already paranoid schizophrenics" from Procrustes, one of his more recent works.

As for Escape from Hell, as soon as I saw it in a bookstore and read "Carpenter meets Sylvia Plath and begins a revolution in Hell" I resolved not to buy it. It may be competently executed, but what I wanted to see is how the twosome view Purgatory and Heaven. I mean, I liked Inferno until I thought about it, but I'll save that rant for another time.

As for the low standards, well I have low standards too, so I'm trying to raise them a little.