Where I Shoulda Stopped Reading

The Goliath Stone by Larry Niven
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm giving this three stars because it was, I have to say, kind of fun to read, (though it is hard to believe), with fun science and a breezy style. I did finish reading it, and giving a 3 to such books is my general rule. But in most ways this was bad. The people giving it 1 or 2--they're not wrong.

It has a great premise: Some men researching nanobots (nanites?) have sent a bunch of them up to intercept an asteroid that has some chance of hitting earth in the future, and now decades after they lost contact, an even bigger asteroid is headed to earth, apparently driven by those lost creatures. That's fun. And it starts okay. One of the guys responsible for that mission gets tracked down where he's hiding in Europe and gets whisked to safety just ahead of law enforcement. Now it's time to figure out what's going on and solve the problem.

After that, it's all about some weird wish-fulfillment from the authors, remaking the world using nanites and hubris in a way that would shock Thanos.

You expect some cat-and-mouse between the researchers and government agents, and there's a little of that about 90% through the book, but really not much, and there's almost zero tension. In fact, almost nothing actually happens. Most of the middle is made up of the main characters sitting around, piecing together all the crazy stuff that nanites have done behind the scenes for them and the world over the last 25 years or so, things they're just figuring out. They're basically googling for half the book, saying, "Oh, here's another thing." It's a lot of silly conversations with pointless inside jokes, references, and allusions, especially to Heinlein and other SF writers, interspersed with endless double-entendres that they all laugh at way too hard. The characters constantly fawn over each other in ways that make no sense to the reader.

Also, the love for all things libertarian is jarring and annoying.

And there are frequent references to the global warming scam (as this is set somewhat in our future) in such a way that it's clear that the authors, despite using pretty impressive hard science, here in the real world really don't believe in *that* bit of science, and in the process they destroyed what suspension of disbelief I had left. (I should have DNFed. Truly.)

But the worst are the hideous and weird revelations that come out about what has already done, secretly, unilaterally. Using nanites spread by viruses, Connors, the scientist behind most of the things happening in the book, has made decisions for the whole world in such a glib, light way that any sensible person should be horrified. Apparently, millions of bad guys died (fevers and stuff) when the nanites secretly infecting everyone judged them as too violent to allow to continue. Decent people were healed or rejuvenated, and it was engineered so that babies could be conceived only in cases when the woman climaxed during procreation, cutting the birth rate way way down. Stuff like that--just imagine the weirdo political extremist that you knew in high school making life-and-death decisions for the rest of the world, changing humanity and society in ways that could never be undone.

Remaking the world like a grandiose Dr. Jekyll with a god complex and a juvenile sense of humor.

It gave me the creeps in the same way as a borrowed book I once read about preppers, a novel where they make America safe for guns and god and Christian Nationalism. This one tied that one for most horrible, skewed world view I've ever read.

Oh, yeah, wait--in the midst of this, the scientist behind it all is using his nanite-perfected physique to win all the events at the olympics. Why? Why?

Man, I swear, this book really seemed like it was gonna be cool.

Not recommended.

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