Description

---

SF masters Gregory Benford and Larry Niven spin a tale of alien encounters and strange technologies on an epic scale

In Bowl of Heaven, the first collaboration by science fiction authors Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowlshaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths…and it's on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when the explorers are separated—one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape—the mystery of the Bowl's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that will transform their understanding of their place in the universe.

About the Author

---

GREGORY BENFORD teaches at the University of California and lives in Irvine, California. Benford is a winner of the United Nations Medal for Literature, and the Nebula Award for his novel Timescape. In 1995 he received the Lord Prize for contributions to science. Benford conducts research in plasma turbulence theory and experimentation, and in astrophysics. He has published well over a hundred papers in fields of physics from condensed matter, particle physics, plasmas and mathematical physics, and several in biological conservation.

Larry Niven is the award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces and fantasy including the Magic Goes Away series. His Beowulf's Children, co-authored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times bestseller. He has received the Nebula Award, five Hugos, four Locus Awards, two Ditmars, the Prometheus, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award, among other honors. He lives in Chatsworth, California.

Praise For…

---

Praise for Larry Niven:

 
“Niven lifts the reader far from the conventional world—and does it with a dash.”

—Los Angeles Times

 

“The premier hard-SF writer of the day.”

—The Baltimore Sun

 

 

Praise for Gregory Benford:

 

“Benford is one of our best.”

—Greg Bear, bestselling and award-winning author of Eon

 

“What sets Benford apart from most of the high-tech literary herd is his gift for characterization and language, his refusal to let gadgets overwhelm the people in his stories.... Benford never lets his characters become the animated cardboard cutouts that afflict too many hard science fiction stories.”

—San Francisco Chronicle