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| Author | Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn |
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| Illustrator | Stephen Hickman |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Dystopian science fiction |
| Publisher | Baen |
| Publication date | 1991 |
| Media type | Print and eBook |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7434-3582-6 |
Fallen Angels (1991) (ISBN 0-7434-3582-6) is a Prometheus Award-winning novel by science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices. An ebook of this text was among the first released by the Baen Free Library. The novel takes aim at several targets of ridicule: Senator William Proxmire, environmentalists, and mystics, such as one character who believes that one cannot freeze to death in the snow because ice is a crystal and "crystals are healing." It also mocks the usage of environmentalist ideas in science education, which greatly helps the main characters (for example, one government "expert" cited in a news article believes that the astronauts must be superhumanly strong, based on a photograph of a weightless astronaut easily handling heavy construction equipment). Several real people are tuckerized into the book in a more positive light, including many fans that made donations to charity for that express purpose and a character called "RMS" (presumably Richard M. Stallman) that leads a network of hackers called the Legion of Doom, connected by a series of pre-Internet BBS systems.
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Setting
The story features a future in which the environmentalist movement has gained control of the earth's governments, imposing draconian luddite laws which, in an ironic effort to end global warming, bring about an even greater environmental catastrophe in the form of an ice age. A radical Green Party government of "Naderites" controls the United States government, and falsely blames the ice age on a society surviving in orbit. Science fiction fandom forms the core of a pro-technology underground in the United States, working in tandem with the Legion of Doom. Operating in a gray area, their colleagues and friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism work with the tacit support of the green-movement, in spite of considerable overlap between fandom and the SCA. Other technologists were accused by the government of pursuing "materialist science" were removed from their jobs and forced underground, where they were generally unable to continue their work. As glaciers rapidly advance south, Canada and the northern United States are all but destroyed. Near the edge of the glaciers, the Twin Cities, barbaric feudal systems arise when the northern governments and markets collapse, leaving violence and disease in their wake. In orbit, Mir and one other space station survive in tandem with a Lunar colony, but with no support from Earth. Among fans and the general populace alike, the people of the space-based society are called Angels. The city of Winnipeg is the last major outpost of Canadian civilization, warmed and inhabitable due to immense amounts of solar power beamed from the space stations.
Plot summary
Astronauts from the orbital society flew a modified ramjet called a scoop ship, redesigned to harvest nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere. Believing these ships to be responsible for the ice age, the government of the United States shot down the ramjet. The pilot and copilot, an Earth-born American named Alex MacLeod and a space-born Russo-American named Gordon, are forced to crash land in Canada atop the glaciers. Through communications maintained between closeted fans, Winnipeg, and the space stations, a group of fans rides north through the Dakotas to rescue them before they can be apprehended by their government. Upon reaching the Dakotas, they must travel largely on foot, as their van is unable to traverse the glaciers. Racing against time, they pull the Angels out of the downed space craft before the United States Air Force (USAF) manages to locate it, as the fans' link to the space station provides them with superior navigational abilities; following the fall of scientific society, the USAF no longer enjoys access to satellite reconnaissance. Their escape, however, is much more complicated. After meeting a friendly tribe of nomadic Inuit peoples, they continue south but face a very real risk of death from the cold. The microwave power transmission beam reserved for Winnipeg is diverted to warm the travelers as they continue south and attempt to recover their van. Thoroughly adapted to weightlessness and thus unable to walk, the Angels are dragged behind them on sleds. Slowly, and continuing throughout the book, one of their rescuers teaches the Angels various asanas from Yoga to help them adjust to Earth's gravity. Upon finally reaching their van, the fans flee to a small science fiction con of some 50 fans at a mansion owned by one of their own. Slowly gathering support from other fans and, through them, the SCA and Legion of Doom, they travel through barbaric areas and temporarily shelter with former astronauts shielded by the St. Louis SCA as they gradually make their way to the south west, in search of a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft that can lift send the space station not only the Angels and a handful of their rescuers, but also myriad supplies collected by a national network of fans.
