This note contains spoilers for the book.

 

By Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner. This is the first of their set of books (I read the second one previously). We visit the Puppeteer homeworld, and its farm planets, in flight. Including the one partly occupied by humans; I really don't believe the Puppeteers would do that.

Again, I like this quite a lot. It feels like the authentic vintage Niven, which actual Niven hasn't for some time (though I've skipped some; maybe some of them do).

And this has the benefit of not being all filtered through Ausfaller. His viewpoint in Juggler of Worlds is fascinating, but not entirely pleasant.

This one spends a lot of time with the Puppeteers, and with their human Colonists. We also get a bit more information on Puppeteer reproduction; not only are the females non-sapient, they die in giving birth. Which leaves me wondering where they come from, because the math doesn't seem to work out!