Synopsis The classic 1984 novel by the Hugo-award winning author of RINGWORLD features a world that consists of a gas torus floating around a neutron star, the thickest part of which was settled by the descendants of a group of space travelers from hundreds of years ago. As there is no strong gravitational force in the torus, plant life is scarce, and native animals all have some flying ability; even the descendants of the human spacers have developed longer bodies and prehensile toes. The trees from which the novel gets its name--floating trunks, miles in length, culminating in two tufts of foliage on either end--are the only land masses large enough to support the human colonists. When the denizens of Dalton-Quinn Tree, who for generations have seen no humans but those in their own family, are forced to look for a new home as their tree dies, they run into all manner of tribes whose newly developed cultures are different from their own.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1989-09-01 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Height: | 7.3 in | | Width: | 4.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 4.8 oz |
Publisher's Note In this novel, Niven presents a fully-fleshed culture of evolved humans who live without gravity in the gas cloud surrounding a neutron star. In this Smoke Ring, free-floating life forms flourish, and all of them, from fish to fowl, can fly...
| See an error? Submit a change request |