Cover art for the Benford and Niven novel “Bowl of Heaven”

I just finished reading the 2012 novel Bowl of Heaven authored by two science fiction heavy hitters: Gregory Benford and Larry Niven.

The basic idea is that a colony sleeper ship from Earth on its way to a new system encounters a megastructure in space. This is a sun that has been manipulated so its light thrust is directed allowing the entire solar system to be navigated across the galaxy.

At the back end of the system is essentially a bowl with the surface area of millions of Earths.

It’s more than curiosity that causes the command crew of the starship “SunSeeker” to investigate. Their ramscoop technology has become increasingly inefficient threatening the success of their voyage, so they enter the bowl system looking for answers.

They send a shuttle into the bowl and the landing team, lead by lovers Cliff and Beth, encounters a number of differing beings that seem intelligent. However, when Cliff’s party breaches the airlock, the aliens try to capture them. Beth’s team is scooped up immediately, but Cliff’s people escape.

As you’d expect from “hard science” writers Benford and Niven, details about the “shipstar” system and “bowl world” abound. Parallels to Niven’s “Ringworld” are inevitable.

However, also predictably, once we have “boots on the ground,” it becomes more difficult to characterize the “close encounters” as well as the unbelievable scale of the world these humans are trapped in.

The book allows us to peer into the perspectives of the inhabitants of Bowl World, which is ruled by a group called “the Astronomers” and other related species. However, this shipstar has visited other inhabited worlds and harvested intelligent beings, but to use as servants, or more accurately slaves, even prey and food “animals.”

Like Niven’s “Ringworld,” I had a hard time getting really excited about the life forms being described. Human authors can create a fantastic world, but unfortunately the population has to be “human” enough for the reader to relate to. That often makes them too human.

I saw soon enough that all the problems facing these two clever groups of humans plus the Captain and crew of the SunSeeker weren’t going to be resolved by the end of the book and it indeed did end on, if not a cliffhanger, then at least a note of “to be continued.”

The novel has two sequels which I’ll have to get to when time allows.

The book is an easy read which makes it a “page turner” of sorts, but I wasn’t bowled over. It’s like a big game of “what if” played between two really smart people who decided it would make a good story.

That said, I will read the sequels just to find out what happens next, but not right away.