Bowl of Heaven

Bowl of Heaven and Shipstar collects two novels from science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape) that weave a thrilling interstellar odyssey in the not-too-distant future.

"If you like hard SF with mind-stretching ideas—both physical and psychological—then you definitely want to read this book." —Analog on the New York Times bestseller Bowl of Heaven

A human expedition to colonize another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure cupping a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths. And which, tantalizingly, is on a direct path heading toward the same system.

Investigating the Bowl, or Shipstar, the human explorers are separated—one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape—while the mystery of the Shipstar's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that transform their understanding of their place in the universe.