In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the science fiction writing team of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle dominated the best-seller lists. They started in 1974 with The Mote in God’s Eye, a first-contact novel that got a major boost from Robert Heinlein himself. They followed that in 1977 with a world-shattering disaster novel, Lucifer’s Hammer. In 1985, they wrote Footfall, an alien invasion novel. In 1987 they decided to write their definitive take on colonizing another world, and combine that story with elements of a horror tale. Niven and Pournelle put a lot of effort into conceptualizing the ship and equipment the colonists would use, choosing to play within the limits of current science, with no faster-than-light travel, antigravity, or any other tricks (the biggest advance they predicted was the use of nuclear fusion power). They wanted to create monsters that had abilities not seen on Earth, but that were scientifically plausible. And in crafting their story, they drew on the venerable legend of the mighty warrior Beowulf. The result was The Legacy of Heorot, a gripping tale of survival.
Because of health issues, Pournelle developed a terrible writer’s block in his later years, and while he could still conceptualize, create characters, and map out plots, they needed someone to help with the heavy lifting of writing a novel. Niven suggested they collaborate with author Steven Barnes, who he had previously partnered with on several works. Where Pournelle and Niven were older, conservative, and liked to play with ideas, Barnes was a young, liberal, and visceral writer whose style was suited to the horror elements they wanted to bring to the story. The best collaborations come from authors whose differences complement each other without clashing, and all parties agreed they worked very well together as a team.
I found two hardback copies of the book in my basement for this review. The first was my own copy, a Simon and Schuster edition from the Science Fiction Book Club. It had a rather impressionistic cover, with a menacing eye in the center, which was quite a departure from the painted covers popular at the time. This may have been seen as a marketing mistake, as the sequel had one of those beautiful wrap-around covers by Michael Whelan, a much more conventional approach. The second copy I found was a hardback British edition from Gollancz. When I opened it, I saw it was inscribed “To Bob, Welcome to Avalon, Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, 1989,” and realized it was my late father’s copy, probably bought at one of the many conventions he attended later in life. So that second copy is the one I read, as doing so made me feel a connection with my dad.
About the Authors
Larry Niven (born 1938) is a prolific and prominent American science fiction author. I have reviewed his work in this column before, looking at the seminal novel Ringworld, the books A Mote in God’s Eye and The Gripping Hand, which he wrote in collaboration with Jerry Pournelle, his short story collection, Neutron Star, and his novels The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring. Those columns contain more biographical information about Niven.
Jerry Pournelle (1933-2017) was an author who wrote science fiction as well as non-fiction work on science and technology. Works by Pournelle include The Mercenary, A Mote in God’s Eye and The Gripping Hand (with Larry Niven), A Spaceship for the King, and Janissaries. You can also find additional biographical information on Pournelle in those earlier columns.
Steven Barnes (born 1952) is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and mysteries, who has also written for other media, including screenplays and comic books. He has written over thirty books, some of them in collaboration with his wife Tananarive Due, with Blair Underwood, with Larry Niven, and with Jerry Pournelle. Barnes is accomplished in a number of martial arts, with black belts in karate and judo. His work has been recognized with an Emmy, a Hugo nomination, an NAACP Image Award, and an Endeavor Award. His first Star Wars novel, The Cestus Deception, reached The New York Times Best Seller list, and his latest book is another Star Wars novel, Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss.
Plausible Monsters
Monsters have long been a part of science fiction, as outlined in this article from the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. There are the big ones, including kaiju like Godzilla, who we discussed in my previous column. And then there are the smaller ones, who are often no less dangerous—still capable of turning humans, used to being apex predators on our own planet, into prey. When written convincingly, monsters bring an element of genuine horror into the tale, and making the hair stand up on the back of your neck while you read. I don’t have the space in this column to discuss even a fraction of all the thrilling science fiction monsters who have left an indelible impression over the years, so I will only highlight four, listing them in publication order.
The first is from Weird Tales: C.L. Moore’s “Shambleau,” a 1933 story where adventurer Northwest Smith meets an irresistible Medusa-like creature that feeds on the life-force of her mates. The second is John W. Campbell, Jr’s 1938 classic “Who Goes There?” in which explorers in the Antarctic discover a survivor on an alien ship—a shapeshifter that wreaks havoc among them. Then there is the atmospheric “Black Destroyer,” a 1939 tale by A.E. van Vogt, where an intelligent and malevolent catlike creature falls upon human explorers on a faraway world. And lastly, Robert Heinlein’s 1955 juvenile Tunnel in the Sky introduced us to a planet where normally peaceful creatures called “stobor” became a ravening horde during a particular season.
Monsters have always played a role in science fiction movies, as well. There’s the energy monster from the 1956 classic film Forbidden Planet. Campbell’s classic shapeshifter from “Who Goes There?” appeared in The Thing from Another World in 1951, and in John Carpenter’s version, The Thing, in 1982. And in 1979, Ridley Scott created an instant classic with Alien, where a ship’s crew stumbled upon a hideous creature whose life cycle involved gestation of its young inside other animals.
Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes were familiar with all these tales, and even name-dropped some of them in The Legacy of Heorot. But the three authors wanted to make their own monster scientifically plausible as well as terrifying. They turned to biologist Jack Cohen for inspiration, who told them about the strange life cycle of a jungle frog on Earth. He also helped them develop the idea of a biological supercharger, which could boost the blood oxygen of a creature, allowing it to move at incredible speeds, albeit at the cost of boosting body heat to dangerous levels.
At the same time, Niven, Pournelle and Barnes also turned to legend, not only for their title, but also to shape the plot in the first portion of the book. It follows the tale of Beowulf as related in the epic poem, written in Old English, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century of the common era. The hero Beowulf comes to the aid of King Hrothgar, whose court gathers in the royal mead-hall called Heorot; Hrothgar and his kingdom have been suffering attacks by the monster Grendel for over a decade. Beowulf defeats first Grendel, and then Grendel’s mother when she comes seeking revenge. Beowulf returns home to become a king in his own land. Many stories have taken inspiration from this classic tale, and the authors felt there was room for one more retelling of the classic story in a fresh setting, transporting the action to a distant world.
The Legacy of Heorot
The book opens on the fourth planet of Tau Ceti, dubbed Avalon by the new human colonists. Cadmann Weyland, the director of security for the new human colony, climbs a mountain with Sylvia, one of the expedition biologists. He is smitten with her, but she is pregnant by her husband, Terry, who despises Cadmann. Accompanying them is Ernst, another scientist, who is afflicted by “ice on the brain,” an unexpected side effect of the hibernation process used by the colonists on their hundred-year journey to the new world. Their expedition is not sponsored by any Earth government, but by the National Geographic Society (that the society would ever have the resources to do so strains credulity, but it does remove Earth politics and nationalism from the story).
The colony has been established on an island that appears free from dangerous fauna, rather than on the mainland which is inhabited by all sorts of creatures, right up to equivalent of Earth’s dinosaurs. On the island, the colonists have encountered only pterodactyl-like flying creatures, insects, small animals, and a plump aquatic creature they call samlon. The expedition is led by Zach Moscowitz, a personable man who keeps things running smoothly. He clashes with Cadmann, who wants the expedition to remain huddled behind minefields and electric fences, despite the lack of any obvious threats. While Cadmann is attracted to Sylvia, he in turn is pursued by Mary Ann Eisenhower, who suffers from a milder case of hibernation damage, though he doesn’t reciprocate her affection. Cadmann’s best friend is Carlos, a man who presents himself as working-class, though we later learn is the outcast son of a wealthy Argentine family. I didn’t find any of the characters terribly compelling (with Cadmann being especially unlikeable), and often the interpersonal relationships reminded me of a soap opera. And the gender roles, which felt old-fashioned back when I first read the book, have not aged well.
One game I often play with Niven/Pournelle books is guessing which author created which character. There is no guessing required with Cadmann, as he is the closest I’ve ever seen to a stand-in for Pournelle himself, the grumpy former military man who warns of doom while those around him ignore his pronouncements. But because Pournelle and his co-writers are holding the reins, we soon find that Cadmann’s concerns are warranted—he was right all along.
The first signs of trouble are a missing dog and then chickens. Colonists are not bothered, and mock Cadmann by making fake monster footprints near the wrecked coop. But then a calf is killed, and the autopsy reveals the culprit was a massive predator. Cadmann and Ernst go into the mountains and stake out a calf to set a trap for whatever is killing the livestock, and soon encounter an incredibly strong, fast, and vicious reptilian creature. The confrontation ends with Ernst dead, as the wounded monster disappears into a nearby body of water. Cadmann returns to the colony with a chunk of the beast; he is wounded and deep in shock, and they find one of his bullets in Ernst’s body. They tell Cadmann he needs plasma and sedate him, strapping him to a bed in the infirmary to prevent him from hurting himself and others. The wounded monster tracks Cadmann down by scent, and enters the settlement. In one of the most chilling scenes in the book, Cadmann awakens to find the monster standing over him. But before the monster has a chance to kill him, armed colonists arrive. They kill the monster, but not before it takes many human lives.
The colonists try to apologize to Cadmann, but he leaves with Mary Ann, and begins to build a home on the side of a nearby mountain. They learn that the monster had the ability to supercharge its blood with an organic oxidizer, allowing it to move at supernatural speeds, although it had to seek water to cool down its temperature soon after that burst of speed. Cadmann and the colony begin to recover, but another monster, the mother of the first, attacks two couples who are out boating. One of the survivors of this attack is Carlos, who has lost his fiancée. Cadmann agrees to help track the monster down. They kill it, and Cadmann radios back that Grendel is dead, explicitly evoking the story of Beowulf, and the colonists begin calling the monsters grendels. Now that they know more about the grendels, the colonists use their orbital sensors to track the creatures down, and develop new weapons to destroy them. Before long, the colonists are sure they have exterminated all the grendels on the island.
Then Sylvia and the other biologists make a horrifying discovery. The river samlon, whose numbers are growing, are juvenile grendels (in a kind of tadpole stage of development); the adults of the species normally feed on them, keeping their population down. But now that all the adults are dead, the island will soon be overrun with hundreds, if not thousands, of ravenous infant grendels. The colonists make plans to hold off the grendels at their settlement long enough to store and protect essential supplies and equipment, ferry pregnant women and children to their orbiting spaceship, and move everyone else to Cadmann’s mountainside home. That spaceship can no longer return them to Earth, so humanity on Avalon prepares for a last stand, with their chances of survival very much in doubt. This part of the story is hard to put down, as the tale gallops toward a rousing conclusion.
The Sequels
The Legacy of Heorot was a popular book, and a successful collaboration, as the three authors enjoyed working together. Moreover, the planet of Avalon, its ecology, and the human settlement, provided an attractive backdrop for further adventures. So it is no surprise the book was followed by three sequels. The first was Beowulf’s Children, published in 1995, which examined the effect of a massive generational and intellectual gap between the starborn children and the much older earthborn colonists, many of whom suffered from hibernation sickness. Having stabilized their island home, the humans move onto the main continent of the planet, finding more deadly threats, but also opportunities; things become more complicated when one of the starborn leaders begins to show signs of mental instability.
While Niven’s 1997 solo novel Destiny’s Road used the colonization scheme from the Heorot series as its premise, that book is set on another planet and not otherwise related to the other books. The next installment in the Heorot series was a novella, written in 1992, which only appeared in e-book and audio formats, The Secret of Black Ship Island. It takes place between The Legend of Heorot and Beowulf’s Children, and follows the adventures of a group of starborn children on a scouting field trip, who discover another race of advanced creatures, but keep their existence secret from the older colonists, for fear they will be seen as a threat and exterminated. The story is often overlooked in bibliographies, but is well worth seeking out. The authors got back together for one more visit to Avalon in 2020 for the novel Starborn and Godsons. Having made significant progress in colonizing Avalon, but in need of an infusion of new technology, the settlers are visited by another interstellar ship, crewed by members of a creepy religious cult that call themselves the Godsons. The Godsons think they will assimilate the colony into their way of life, but find that conquering the victors of the grendel wars to be a more difficult task than anticipated. This book was the last one worked on by Pournelle, who died as they were putting the finishing touches on the tale.
Final Thoughts
The Legacy of Heorot, while I didn’t find the characters compelling, succeeds in portraying a colonization effort that feels very real and believable, and the scientific plausibility of the monsters makes them all the more terrifying. The story and action feel much more visceral than previous works by Niven and Pournelle, no doubt the result of Barnes’ input. If you’re interested in adventure stories that draw you in and keep you turning pages, this is the kind of book you are looking for.
And now its time to hear from you. If you’ve read The Legacy of Heorot, what did you think of it? What other stories have you enjoyed that mix science fiction and horror? And if you have a favorite monster from the realm of classic science fiction, let me know…
