Who would be better to predict what might result from first contact and who better to advise the President on how to respond to our first contact than speculative writers who had written novels of alien first contact.

One feature of this novel that I thought was really amusing was that when the American government began making preparations for first contact with the aliens, they created an advisory panel of hard science fiction writers. In fact, the tension is maintained right up through the last page and I have to commend the authors for coming up with an ending that is both unpredictable and satisfying at the same time. The battle scenes are done very well and the tension is maintained at a high level throughout.

You get a smattering of adventures, disasters, comedy, heroism, treachery, action, and even love stories.

The large scope of Footfall provides the authors with ample opportunity to inject all kinds of stories into this novel. The aliens are quite well developed and the authors did a good job of keeping their motives and thinking “alien” rather than making them seem similar to humans. The first contact sequence, itself, was one of the strengths of this novel along with the innovative portrayal of the alien civilization. Then, when first contact is made, the real action begins and the reader is in for a serious roller coaster ride. The beginning of the novel is slowed a little by the large quantity of characters being introduced but Niven and Pornelle generally do a great job of keeping the reader engaged by utilizing a wide variety of interesting characters with many interconnecting links. Once more they proved that collaboration can be quite fruitful and this is another case where I can easily picture the authors having as much fun writing the novel as I had reading it.įootfall is written on a large canvas with a large cast of characters and an epic scale than includes major action on three continents as well as in the nearer reaches of the solar system. The same two authors that created my favorite disaster novel, Lucifer’s Hammer, collaborated again on this epic alien invasion novel. The best aspect is that the story remains unpredictable throughout, right up to the last page. Footfall contains tremendously innovative imagination about an alien civilization and how first contact with this civilization could play out. However, you don’t need to worry about this being some kind of lame copy-cat effort.

Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is a highly entertaining alien invasion novel in the grand tradition of the H.