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Apr 30, 2008

Mark rated it:

More catastrophe survivalist misogyny from Niven and Pournelle. Maybe it's because I just recently read Lucifer's Hammer, or maybe I'm getting older, but I'm finding my earlier affection for Niven's work fading.
I'm sure there's a literary term for what the author's have done in Footfall and L.H., but I'm going to have to describe it- All of the characters we meet (and there are a lot) make the right decisions and are clearly superior to the common people who we don't ever really get to k More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Ken rated it:

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Apr 05, 2011

Patrick rated it:

Footfall is an intelligent attempt to postulate a non-human society, provide them with a non-human psychology, and create a scientifically accurate and rational case of interstellar invasion. Hollywood is populated by those who do not understand the professional military. Niven and Pournelle do. Hollywood doesn't understand how the US strategic nuclear forces could be employed in combat. Hollywood gushes about the impossibly lucky idiot who saves the day. N&P understand that such luck is more ap More...

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Nov 19, 2010

Felix rated it:

Man – what an exciting book! From the moment it begins we’re launched into a world imperiled by a newly discovered alien spacecraft decelerating towards the Earth. Have they come in peace? Nope. The story of conquest and destruction amid orbital bombardment, airborne invasion and nuclear war is told through several dozen American, Soviet and alien characters who struggle to survive in the new order. For once humanity is enslaved by a, yes, inferior race, depicted as elephant-like herd animals (c More...

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Mar 30, 2011

Marvin rated it:

I read this awhile back and remembered it as a fun if not very substantial read. It reads like a novelization of an epic disaster movie like Independence Day. The aliens look like elephants which is kind of goofy. Niven and Pournelle will never be mistaken for great literary writers, They hail from the pulp fiction side of sci-fi and their Libertarian views tend to be heavy-handed and often weight down their books. But ti was fun so I'll give it a cautious three stars.

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Mar 02, 2010

Zeke rated it:

Written in the mid-80's, this book originally aimed to be a "near-future" story of alien invasion. However, in the 20+ years since its publication, the "near-future" aspect of the book sorely dates it. I can forgive the ongoing Cold War between the US and the Soviets. I mean, who really saw the fall of the USSR coming? but it's the other things that I find jarring at worst and extremely humurous at best.
the Russians have a huge space station? Okay. Americans and So More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Mont'ster rated it:

Footfall is a good "the aliens have landed - now what?" story. The ultimate outcome is not too hard to guess but the twists and turns that the story takes make for a fun ride. Another interesting thing is the invaders resemblance to a species native to Earth and the author uses this well for occassional comic relief. He is able to keep the book from becoming too dark without getting silly about it.

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Nov 11, 2011

Stutley rated it:

Similar in scope and story to Lucifer's Hammer this book contains a wide range of fully fleshed characters and is presented not only from the human point of view but that of the aliens as well. The aliens are some of the most original extraterrestrials I have ever come across. They are presented with a cultural outlook very different from that of the Earth peoples they are attempting to dominate. They are also not presented as single-mindedly evil. The weapons and technology employed by both sid More...

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Jun 26, 2008

Michael rated it:

this book is great for reading in short (very short) installments. I think I averaged about a page or two a day. Luckily, there are clear stopping points every page or two.

Truly a book convenient to my schedule.

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Aug 08, 2011

Slee rated it:

Two of my favorite literary themes combine in Footfall: survivalism and first contact.
I enjoy books about first contact because each one envisions a different reason for contact, and the myriad ways in which humanity, as a group entity, is likely to meet that cultural challenge. In Footfall, humanity falls into two different and distinct categories in the face of an alien race bent on conquest.
Imagined with realistic characters and an almost ridiculous yet remarkable believable alie More...

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Aug 07, 2011

Dan rated it:

This was perhaps the most tedious science fiction book I've ever read... or listened to (I had the audio book). The book had way too many "main" characters, most of whom had no bearing on the outcome of the book. Some seemed completely pointless. The alien names were unnecessarily complex and having a section of the book describing their language and its construction seemed self indulgent (of the authors) and tedious.

The book suffered from a lack of coherent story line, uni More...

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Jan 19, 2011

Todd rated it:

This was a fun book to read. I actually had a little bit of a hard time getting into it at first. I appreciate that the author has to introduce us to all of the characters but I felt like a lot of the first part of the book was given over to this. I was ready for the action way before it started in earnest. Once is got started though it was really good. I loved the story and I always wonder how people come up with such great stories. I guess that is why I'm not a writer but I am a reader. I More...

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Jul 23, 2010

Gendou rated it:

Getting used to the alien language is difficult but sort of fun.
The aliens morphology is silly but their instincts are interesting.
The books is an answer to the question:

"How can a race travel between stars without being peaceful?"

Sagan might argue any such race must have survived cultural adolescence.
They managed not to destroy themselves before reaching the space age.
This can be done through cooperation and peace.
But it could a More...

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Mar 01, 2010

Nnwest rated it:

Several (male) people, who loved Footfall when they read it 20+ years ago, heartily recommended it, so we read it for our book club.

In today's light, it's pretty offensive to my inner feminist. It doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test. I wouldn't go as far as calling it misogynistic as other reviewers have, but it's clear the authors can not or do not care to write believable or interesting female characters. The women in this book are only there to sleep with and be rescued by the More...

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Sep 07, 2010

D-day rated it:

'Footfall' is a realistic and plausible alien invasion story set in the mid 1990's (as foreseen from the early 80's)

The novel starts out very similarly to 'Lucifer's Hammer' another Niven/Pournelle novel- a menacing object is moving towards the earth (a comet in 'Lucifer's Hammer', an alien spaceship in 'Footfall') and we meet a large cast of characters before the object reaches the earth.
The war was realistically portrayed, the humans fighting with contemporary weapons (no w More...

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May 24, 2010

Optimism rated it:

Another story of first contact from Niven and Pournelle.

Here's the problem: It's decidedly similar to Lucifer's Hammer. Asteroid impacts, married people who cheat the second they get the chance, and a fat biker who's out of long-term work plays his guitar for drinks.

I wish I were joking about that. The FBWOOLTWAPHGFD is not an archetype, guys. Okay? Okay.

The good: as with The Mote in God's Eye, the aliens are decidedly alien. Niven/Pournelle do a fantastic jo More...

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Aug 17, 2010

Manny rated it:

Elephant-like aliens attack Earth. Plucky Earthlings fight back. It's actually not at all bad if you like that kind of thing.

This book was described somewhere as "a rich tapestry". I recently read 99 Ways To Tell A Story, which has a witty page telling the story using the conventions of the Bayeux Tapestry, and I suddenly saw Footfall retold in the same way.

I think it would work quite well. To start off with, in a tapestry you expect all the characters to be two More...

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Dec 09, 2008

Heather rated it:

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Jun 06, 2008

John rated it:

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Apr 10, 2008

Fred D rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Lots of action, especially towards the end, when the humans go on the offensive. Plausible aliens, which at first seem so invincible, but the humans find weaknesses, and exploit them. The book really gets into the alens' psychology, which was very interesting, and through that you learn of their weaknesses. One of the main ones was that the Snouts didn't invent most of their technology themselves. They inhereited it from an earlier civilized race on their planet. More...

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Sep 10, 2007

Randyn rated it:

very cool shoot 'em up alien invasion of Earth. Not overly literary, but sometimes that's what you want. The aliens are these massive elephantine creatures with a herd mentality. When the alien ship first approached the Earth, the humans sent messages of welcome and peace, but were met with no answer. From the alien standpoint, given their unique psychology, there was nothing to discuss yet, since they didn't yet have any sense of each others relative strengths. From their standpoint, combat is More...

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May 07, 2011

Clint rated it:

Such a strange alien species created from the minds of Niven and Pournelle - and given the bizarre artwork on the cover of the original release(an elephant-like alien with twin trunks gripping a huge gun, hiding behind a large boulder) - I simply didn't expect the story to be such a great one. Using the differences in a individualistic and a herd mindset, the authors pain a picture of two species that are simply destined to misunderstand each other.

It's an alien invasion story of th More...

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Mar 24, 2010

Darth rated it:

After Oath of Fealty, I wasnt expecting much from this one.
I am glad to say I was pleasantly surprised.
It was longer than most of Niven's Stuff I have tried before, but it was a pretty good read.

The alien culture was pretty well developed, and the scenarios were fairly far-fetched but still within range of a suspended disbelief believability.

I dont think I would say this broke any new ground in the genre, but it was entertaining, and usually had me turning pag More...

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Aug 24, 2011

Bradley rated it:

A truly weird alien invasion story. It took me several long days to finish. It was fairly compelling material. I did get the sense that these two writers had a lot of fun writing this story. The characters were all well developed and the plotline was great. This book just seemed to lack a certain umpf that makes me want to keep it. Others may like it more than me. Decent solid read that you don't need to be a hard sci-fi lover to appreciate.

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Aug 19, 2011

Matthew rated it:

This was a fun read. It kept my interest throughout and had several characters that I enjoyed following. I enjoyed the added tension of the Soviet relationship (the book was published in 1985), although it didn't always strike me as terribly realistic. For that matter the entire book calls for some suspension of disbelief, and I had some trouble following the scientific premises around the final battle, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

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Jan 12, 2009

Peter rated it:

A large and well-written novel about an alien invasion and planetary catastrophe. Not top-notch Niven, and his tendency to use confusing polysyllabic alien names gets to be a bit much (as it often does in his work), but it's an exciting and interesting book with sympathetic characters and a well-handled plot.

It does end rather abruptly, though. I liked it better after the third or fourth re-reading.

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Apr 28, 2009

Allen rated it:

Excellent alien invasion story, with a cast-of-hundreds (I assume that's Pournelle's influence; Niven has never juggled a large number of characters well). Excellent exploration of the alien's reasons for invasion, as well as their psychology and thought processes. Contrast with Turtledove's Worldwar, to see how someone who is less than a master can fail to handle similar subject matter.

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Oct 20, 2010

Mary JL rated it:

This is an excellent "invasion from outer space" book. The kind of good, old fashioned slam-bang adventure that was very prevalent in SF at one time.

One quirk of these elephantine invaders is: they will fight but if they surrender, they belong to the winning side permanently. So they are confused when humans surrender--and then fight back. They consider those humans to be dangerously "rogue", and kill them instead of conquering them.

Also, one of More...

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Mar 30, 2010

Eriborn rated it:

Not bad. Weak at many points, non-existing female characterization being one of them (whatever a woman thinks or does is in relation to a man), but not bad overall. Some other reviewer compared it to a more mature angle on Independence Day, and I think I agree. The addition of the alien characters and their points of view makes it better than the black & white Independence Day. If you're interested in alien invasion novels with 20+ characters, go for it.

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Jan 31, 2011

Banner rated it:

This is a fun read (actually I listened to the audio version). Nobody does aliens better than Larry Niven. While the plot was somewhat predictable, there were enough surprises to keep you interested. The suspense keeps going right up to the end. Maybe a little dated in the 80's but that only added to the charm of the book. Overall an enjoyable read.

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