Bowl of Heaven

Benford, Gregory, and Larry Niven. Bowl of Heaven. New York City: Tor, 2012. Bowl of Heaven and Shipstar (omnibus). New York City: Tor, 2020. See Internet Speculative Fiction Database for other printings and German translation Himmelsjäger.[1]

Bowl of Heaven reviewed Bill Dynes, SFRA Review #301 (Summer 2012): pp. 56-58, our source here.[2]

"To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven" (Chuang Tzu, Book XXIII, ¶7), headnote to chapter 3 of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven (1971), and referenced in her title and those of THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (film 1979/80) from PBS and THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (2002) from A&E TV Network. So for regular SF readers the title might suggest something in-group (and possibly somewhat wise-ass) in store. Dynes notes that the title object is "a hemispherical construct whose diameter is larger than Mercury’s orbit, propelled by a plasma jet bursting from the red dwarf star about which it rotates. One character describes the artifact as 'a wok with a neon jet shooting out the back' (71), and laughingly begins referring to it as 'Cupworld'" (p. 66). And Dynes suggests a more directly relevant allusion, "As the tongue-in-cheek 'Cupworld' suggests, the nature of the construct inevitably invites comparisons with Larry Niven’s Hugo and Nebula winner Ringworld (1970)."

RDE, finishing, 17Jun21