Rating: 
Summary: An irresponsible adventure novel ...
Review: What Barnes, Niven and Pournelle have wrought with "Legacy" is nothing short of a betrayal of all that Science Fiction holds important. Here we have a group of colonists who travel ten light years to Tau Ceti Four only to discover that they have built their first city amidst a carefully balanced ecology. When a part of this ecology attacks the camp, what do our heroes do? They take their much vaunted science and decide, rather than move to another part of the planet or attempt to coexist, to wipe the animals out! Then, when they discover that they have tipped the balance of the fragile ecology, they simply kill off thousands more! And Niven, Barnes and Pournelle seem oblivious to what they are writing about here! Why are Cadmann and co. heroes? Because after messing up a virgin planet's ecology, they then commit mass genocide and kill thousands of alien lifeforms? Hooray for science used to kill and three cheers for mankind! If this subject were being handled by a better class of writer, we might have had a thoughtful meditation on how man will repeatedly destroy any environment that threatens him, whether he can avoid it or not. By having the colonists shout out ridiculous phrases about man coming to conquer and TC4 being their planet, the authors show that they have no idea of what they are espousing. Our heroes are heroes because of their ability to kill the "evil" grendels. Even Beowulf itself, from which the authors borrowed part of the title and the story, gives Grendel a moment of sympathy! They should be ashamed of trumpeting out heroes who travel halfway across the galaxy to commit genocide without addressing it directly. From the tone of the novel, they seem to be celebrating it. Christopher Colombus is not dead, he's just vacationing on Tau Ceti Four. A shallow, irresponsible adventure novel. What this has to do with SF I will never know.
Rating: 
Summary: Ranks up there with the best of alltime SF stories!!!
Review: I keep reading this great book, again and again. It has an old plot, but timeless. Well thought out characters, plot, and the tension is riveting. It is a keeper.
Rating:
Summary: Literary action movie
Review: This book was really entertaining but definitely not the best place to start for the works of Niven/Pournelle (I'm not sure what Barnes contributed) they seem to be slumming a little bit on the ideas here, the Grendels are the only really new idea and the secret to their life cycle isn't all that impressive and easily dealt with, unlike say the Moties. The beginning scenes with them are great as the authors pour on the suspense and horror but by the end they're just this faceless horde that keeps coming, scary not because they're frightening but because theirs so friggin' many of them. In my opinion it reduces the book to little more than an action movie romp, with the big men strapped on guns and blasting away. Though the strategy stuff is interesting but considering that the Grendels are nearly mindless except for animal cunning, it's not like they're going up against suprageniuses. That and the characters, while drawn enough so you can care about them a little, aren't all that deep, the motivations for coming onto the planet aren't delved into all that deeply. Most of them stick to one type of personality and stick to it without change, heck if I want to read cardboard characters, I'll go get an Ayn Rand novel (ooh, that's one is asking for it, maybe Amazon will delete it to avoid contraversy). But they are sympathetic at least even if everyone seems to think about sex, with or without making babies. Am I being harsh on this book . . . well considering how much better the team has done before, it's probably warranted but at the same time this isn't bad, it's just not as idea driven as the other novel, you sort of check your brains at the door, sit back, relax and have a little fun. It's not even that long. So go try the others first and come to this to see what Niven and Pournelle are like on auto-pilot and you'll see what I mean.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a Grendel, the speed of this book is very uneven.
Review: I'm a Niven/Pournelle fan but this one isn't as good as, say, "The Mote in God's Eye." There is lots of action, but some of it is hard to follow, and the spaces between the action sequences are a bit heavy-handed with the suspense-creating devices (you can almost hear the cellos from Jaws going duuuuuh DUH!! duuuuuh DUH!!) as well as being thin on characterization. You will find a fascinating alien world and people in peril, but you won't find a moving human story. There also seems to be too much sex in this book--but whether this is a plus or a minus I'll let you decide.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely memorable, serious impact,
Review: I first read this on a loan from a friend 10 years ago. I have never forgotten it and even looked for a copy for years. Finally, someone gave me the author(s) and title and now I'm getting one. True sci-fi fans should not miss this!
Rating:
Summary: I wasn't expecting it to be this good...
Review: When I first saw this book in someones personal library I thought "This is probably just going to be one of those Sci-Fi books that will bore me". I was wrong! I loved this book and it's consistantly fast pace! Even when there is no action there seems to be this aura of uneasynes. I am definatly going to tell my friends about this!
Rating:
Summary: Action packed Sci Fi Thriller
Review: Great Niven work. Somewhat like the movie Alien, then morphs into the sequel Aliens, with a little of High Noon in the background. Different from books written solo by Niven. More science and more adventure with fewer wild scenarios (while the setting here is certainly sci fi, it is not as unusual as other Niven works such as Integral Trees). A very enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: One of Niven's Best - A Classic!
Review: Fantastic Ecology in Action
Rating:
Summary: It's what I'd have wanted it to be!
Review: This was my second Niven book (The Mote In God's Eye being the first) and I was pleasantly suprised. The blurb is as all books - it grabs your interest, sparks the imagination and then, ultimately, when you read the book it doesn't deliver. Fortunately there are MANY books that are in fact books and not just word cobbled together. 'The Legacy of Heorot' is certainly one of them. It was gripping, interesting and most of all entertaining. It would make a great film (if it could manage to be not just a blast-em-up)
Rating:
Summary: The Grendels scared me half-to-death ...
Review: From the first description of the Grendal, I was hooked to the end. Giant, smooth-skinned, toothed, barb-tailed, murderously fast, and smarter than apes with a peculilar reproductive cycle that surprises the colonists, and could also end the lives of all. Couple this with good characterization, sexual tension and depth gets you a very good read that you can't put down. It's true. A fast reading delight of a story.
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