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The Fourth Profession
An interstellar trading ship arrived in the moon's orbit two years ago, and the few aliens who have descended to Earth have stayed in their landing craft or at the United Nations building in New York City. When one of the aliens unexpectedly shows up in a Los Angeles tavern, bartender Ed Frazer awakes the next morning with the strangest hangover of his life. Ed barely remembers taking the pills offered by the alien; each pill flooding his brain with the knowledge of an alien profession ... spaceship captain ... teleporter .... translator ... but Ed can't remember how many pills he took, or if the confusing overload of information in his head shadows the terrible secret of their mission. Hugo Award Nominee
Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 1971
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124 people want to read
About the author
Larry Niven
688 books3,316 followersLaurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 25, 2020
Real Rating: 3.5* of five
Ugh, Larry Niven's not my jam at the best of times and this story's pretty close to the best of times that he gets up to. I don't like his racism or sexism...women are only there in relation to men, "dark women" are cleaning ladies who need to be told their jobs, the lone woman with a speaking part having a new profession as a housewife *retch*...so permaybehaps the woke among us should go elsewhere in search of our wish fulfillment.
What wish, you wonder, could such a creepy old man fulfill?
Knowledge. Pure learning delivered by RNA manipulation. Go on, get it out, yuk it up, I got time. After all that is precisely how I responded when I first saw the trope on the page. RNA pills that, when consumed, deliver specialist knowledge to the consumer whole and entire. Want to know how to kill an armed, intelligent worm? There's a pill for that–only it's usable, actionable, solely for other intelligent worms. I mean, you'll know how to do it, and your memory will include the physical sensations, the muscle memory, of how to accomplish it; but your bipedal ape-body doesn't have those muscles.
So there are limits to the gifts of knowledge. Mm hmm, yeup, I'm still gonna mug the guy with the pills and start shovelin' 'em down and don't front, you are too. Which is why I stayed the course, kept the scroll button hot, and rode Niven's rockette through to the contrived-but-ambiguously-amusing ending.
Honestly...not one I'd say is super-dooper-ground-breaking-wowzers-good. Like all Niven, it sets off squicks for me. It's got enough old-school appeal that I won't *discourage* you from following the link above....
Ugh, Larry Niven's not my jam at the best of times and this story's pretty close to the best of times that he gets up to. I don't like his racism or sexism...women are only there in relation to men, "dark women" are cleaning ladies who need to be told their jobs, the lone woman with a speaking part having a new profession as a housewife *retch*...so permaybehaps the woke among us should go elsewhere in search of our wish fulfillment.
What wish, you wonder, could such a creepy old man fulfill?
Knowledge. Pure learning delivered by RNA manipulation. Go on, get it out, yuk it up, I got time. After all that is precisely how I responded when I first saw the trope on the page. RNA pills that, when consumed, deliver specialist knowledge to the consumer whole and entire. Want to know how to kill an armed, intelligent worm? There's a pill for that–only it's usable, actionable, solely for other intelligent worms. I mean, you'll know how to do it, and your memory will include the physical sensations, the muscle memory, of how to accomplish it; but your bipedal ape-body doesn't have those muscles.
So there are limits to the gifts of knowledge. Mm hmm, yeup, I'm still gonna mug the guy with the pills and start shovelin' 'em down and don't front, you are too. Which is why I stayed the course, kept the scroll button hot, and rode Niven's rockette through to the contrived-but-ambiguously-amusing ending.
Honestly...not one I'd say is super-dooper-ground-breaking-wowzers-good. Like all Niven, it sets off squicks for me. It's got enough old-school appeal that I won't *discourage* you from following the link above....
July 18, 2011
worth you time to read.
November 8, 2020
Great story. Keeps you guessing with a superb denouement - and explains why you should never ask for an Irish Coffee during Happy Hour.
August 4, 2024
*** Spoiler alert ***
Story is set on earth, in the present, featuring an alien (1 species) and RNA pills to acquire new knowledge, see also "Rammer story by Niven. A bartender (not Rick Schumann from the Draco Tavern) takes knowledge pills supplied by an alien known as a Monk, and is grilled by the U.S. secret service for information. He develops unusual mental powers, including some significant persuasive abilities, from taking a "prophet pill".
Definitely not one of my favourite Niven stories.
My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals to B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
Story is set on earth, in the present, featuring an alien (1 species) and RNA pills to acquire new knowledge, see also "Rammer story by Niven. A bartender (not Rick Schumann from the Draco Tavern) takes knowledge pills supplied by an alien known as a Monk, and is grilled by the U.S. secret service for information. He develops unusual mental powers, including some significant persuasive abilities, from taking a "prophet pill".
Definitely not one of my favourite Niven stories.
My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals to B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
August 24, 2015
This was a nicely formulated story, pretty compelling from the outset. Niven did well to take a mundane character's point of view on otherworldly events, taking the reader on a fairly smooth ride into hyperbole.
However, hyperbole is where the story ends, off at the extreme end of nonsense, with no help from Niven in coming back down to earth, so to speak. It ends up feeling very much like the first act, with the real climax still to come.
Niven also indulged in his habit of writing shallow female characters who are little more than props, and who either suffer indignity and abuse at the hands of men, or are constantly in need of rescue. In this story he packed both into the only female character.
However, hyperbole is where the story ends, off at the extreme end of nonsense, with no help from Niven in coming back down to earth, so to speak. It ends up feeling very much like the first act, with the real climax still to come.
Niven also indulged in his habit of writing shallow female characters who are little more than props, and who either suffer indignity and abuse at the hands of men, or are constantly in need of rescue. In this story he packed both into the only female character.
May 5, 2013
One of my favorite SF stories if all time!
May 1, 2017
It's a short but sweet story. A bartender encounters an alien trader and gains a series of professions from the trader in the form of pills in exchange for a tasting of liquors. This is a significant thing, because the aliens have never shared these pills with humans. And it turns out that there are good reasons... the aliens are still judging whether the humans are worthy of trading, and if the answer is no, humanity's existence might hang in the balance.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews