Footfall by Larry Niven
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was perhaps the most tedious science fiction book I’ve ever read… or listened to (I had the audio book). The book had way too many “main” characters, most of whom had no bearing on the outcome of the book. Some seemed completely pointless. The alien names were unnecessarily complex and having a section of the book describing their language and its construction seemed self indulgent (of the authors) and tedious.
The book suffered from a lack of coherent story line, uninteresting characters, pointless dialogue, and unbelievable events. The premise was interesting (alien invasion), but the execution was poor.
I give it two stars only because the narrator of the audio book (MacLeod Andrews) was simply spectacular. His narration was the reason I was able to suffer through the book to the (disappointing) ending.