In this first collaboration by science fiction masters Larry
Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford
(Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once
again as a human expedition to another star system is
jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense
artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure
half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to
many millions of Earths…and it’s on a direct path heading
for the same system as the human ship.
A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when
the explorers are separated—one group captured by the
gigantic structure’s alien inhabitants, the other pursued
across its strange and dangerous landscape—the mystery of
the Bowl’s origins and purpose propel the human voyagers
toward discoveries that will transform their understanding
of their place in the universe.