Integral Trees, The

Author:

Niven, Larry

Publication date:

1983-10

Publication type:

Novel

Published:

serial, Analog, October 1983, November 1983, December 1983, January 1984

Opus No.:

140

Setting:

The State: The Smoke Ring

ISBN:

0-3453-2065-4

Awards:

Locus winner, Hugo nominee, Nebula nominee

Summary:

This story is set in an incredibly exotic environment, the gaseous envelope of a binary star system in which one of the pair is a neutron star. The bizarre life forms which populate the Smoke Ring, as it is termed, are a tour de force of imagination for Niven.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the story is the way that the suvivors of a lost colony ship and their descendants evolved a new physiology to help them exist in the low gravity environment of the Smoke Ring and their symbiosis with the Integral Trees themselves.

Notes:

first Smoke Ring novel. See the sequel, Smoke Ring, The

Reprints:

cloth, March 1984, Del Rey (Ballantine);
paper. February 1985;
paper, Futura Publications, 1985;
as De Integraalbomen, paper, from Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1985;
Audio: Blackstone Audio Books, read by Pat Bottino, May 1996;
Integral Trees, The (Omnibus)