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"Niven has come up with an idea about as far out as one can get. . . . This is certainly classic science fictionthe idea is truly the hero." Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine When leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline was prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided (and secretly spied upon) by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. But what they weren't prepared for was the smoke ringan immense gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free-fall. When Discipline encountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis. Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.

INTRODUCING THE NEWEST WONDER OF THE UNIVERSE

In any list of ten great science-fiction writers, four names are always at or near the top: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein--and Larry Niven. famed for his breadth of vision and the awesome extrapolation of his hard-science novels.

Critics long thought Niven would find it difficult to surpass his Hugo-winning novel Ringworld--the story of an artificial world, a ribbon of unreasonably strong material 1 million miles wide and 600 million miles long...

They were right.

Until now, that is.

In The Integral Trees Niven presents a fully fleshed culture of evolved humans who live without real gravity in the gas torus that rotates about a neutron star.

This is the novel his fans have been awaiting!

INTRODUCING THE NEWEST WONDER OF THE UNIVERSE In any list of ten great science-fiction writers, four names are always at or near the top: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein--and Larry Niven. famed for his breadth of vision and the awesome extrapolation of his hard-science novels. Critics long thought Niven would find it difficult to surpass his Hugo-winning novel Ringworld--the story of an artificial world, a ribbon of unreasonably strong material 1 million miles wide and 600 million miles long... They were right. Until now, that is. In The Integral Trees Niven presents a fully fleshed culture of evolved humans who live without real gravity in the gas torus that rotates about a neutron star. This is the novel his fans have been awaiting!

When leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline was prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided (and secretly spied upon) by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. But what they weren’t prepared for was the smoke ring–an immense gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free-fall. When Discipline encountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis.
Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.