The Legacy of Heorot is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, first published in 1987.

[1] Reproduction and fertility expert Dr Jack Cohen acted as a consultant on the book, designing the novel life cycle of the alien antagonists, the grendels.

The colonists, selected for their outstanding physical and mental acuity, make a terrible discovery: the suspended animation has damaged their intellect and reasoning skills.

When unsettling events begin to happen – missing animals, fences torn down – the colonists' impaired minds prevent them from properly analyzing the situation.

An autopsy reveals that grendels (as the creatures are now known, in reference to Beowulf) are crocodilian in appearance and behavior, with powerful jaws and claws, and a sense of smell better than a dog's.

With this knowledge and their technology and tactics, the colonists are able to wipe out the grendel population of the island within several months, making Weyland a hero to the people who previously turned on him.

Their life cycle is similar to that of terrestrial frogs – the herbivorous samlon are in fact the juvenile form of the carnivorous grendels.

The battle against the grendels has left the colony with a surplus of women, and a new social organization based on polygamous marriage is taking shape.

The colonists hope the story of their battle will inspire Earth's population to restart its nascent colonization program.

Kirkus Reviews panned the novel as "exciting for about half, thereafter increasingly gory and tedious", with "absurdly pretentious quotes and allusions" and "too much brawn, not enough brain.

"[3] However, the Los Angeles Times wrote that the novel "undertakes that presumptuous exercise [reworking the Beowulf legend in science fiction] not only without disappointment but with substantial success.

"[4] Dave Langford reviewed The Legacy of Heorot for White Dwarf #91, and stated that "Despite the resulting thrill of tens of thousands of superpowered flesh-hungry newts interminably assaulting Mr Macho's survivalist stronghold, I was tormented by the nagging thought that this would have read better at one-third the length.