N-Space

Short Stories #1

by Larry Niven, William Rotsler (Illustrator), Tom Clancy (Introduction)

On an L.A. talk show Arthur C. Clarke was once asked to name his favorite writer. His answer was "Larry Niven". Countless others agree. The Baltimore Sun and Kirkus Reviews have both dubbed Niven "the premier writer of hard SF", and Gregory Benford has hailed him as "the paradigm of SF personality of the last several decade".

Now Larry Niven presents us with his undisputed masterwork. N-Space contains, very simply, the best SF of his career, marvelous fiction, a wealth of anecdotes and gossip, plus Niven's own special brand of wit and excitement. This retrospective collection features such classic tales of science fiction as "Inconstant Moon" and "The Hole Man", previously uncollected works including the novellas "Brenda" and "The Kiteman", and essays, anecdotes, and observations.
Contents:
*Introduction: The Maker of Worlds (1990) • essay by Tom Clancy
*On Niven (1992) • essay by Frederik Pohl, Steven Barnes, David Brin, John Hertz, Wendy All, Gregory Benford
*Dramatis Personae (1990) • essay by Larry Niven
*Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (1990) • essay by Larry Niven
*From World of Ptavvs (excerpt) (1990) / shortfiction by Larry Niven
*Bordered in Black (1966) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Convergent Series (1967) / shortstory by Larry Niven (variant of The Long Night)
*All the Myriad Ways [Time Travel - Parallel Universe] (1968) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*From A Gift From Earth (Excerpt) (1990) / shortfiction by Larry Niven
*The Meddler (1968) / novelette by Larry Niven
*Passerby [State] (1969) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Down in Flames (1969) • essay by Larry Niven
*From Ringworld (Excerpt) (1990) / shortfiction by Larry Niven
*The Fourth Profession (1971) / novelette by Larry Niven
*"Shall We Indulge in Rishathra?" (1978) / shortfiction by Larry Niven; • interior artwork by William Rotsler
*Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex (1969) • essay by Larry Niven
*Inconstant Moon (1971) / novelette by Larry Niven
*What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers? (1971) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Cloak of Anarchy [Known Space] (1972) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*From Protector (excerpt) (1990) / shortfiction by Larry Niven
*The Hole Man (1974) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Night on Mispec Moor [State] (1974) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Flare Time (1978) / novella by Larry Niven
*The Locusts (1979) / novelette by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes
*From The Mote in God's Eye (excerpt) (1990) / shortfiction by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
*Building the Mote in God's Eye [A Step Farther Out] (1976) • essay by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
*Brenda (1988) / novella by Larry Niven
*The Return of William Proxmire (1989) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*The Tale of the Jinni and the Sisters (1988) / shortstory by Larry Niven
*Madness Has Its Place [Man-Kzin Wars] (1990) / novelette by Larry Niven
*Niven's Laws (1990 version) (1990) • essay by Larry Niven
*The Kiteman [Integral Trees] (1990) / novelette by Larry Niven
*The Alien in Our Minds (1987) • essay by Larry Niven
*Space (1990) • essay by Larry Niven
*Bibliography of Larry Niven (1990) • essay by uncredited
.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Collections, Short Story Collection

704 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1990

About the author

Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.

Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.

Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.

He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.

Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.

Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.

He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larry Niven is known to millions as the premier modern author of rigorous, scientifically consistent “hard” SF, the champion of “SF without a net.”
Here is a brilliant selection of his best stories long with his dazzling thoughts on our possible futures



The stories are;
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind
From WORLD OF PTAVVS
Bordered in Black
Convergent Series
All the Myriad Ways
From A GIFT FROM EARTH
For a Foggy Night
The Meddler
Passerby
Down in Flames
From RINGWORLD
The Fourth Profession
“Shall We Indulge in Rishathra?” (with cartoons by William Rotsler)
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
Inconstant Moon
What Can You Say about Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?
Cloak of Anarchy
From PROTECTOR
The Hole Man
Night on Mispec Moor
Flare Time
The Locusts (with Steven Barnes)
From THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE
(with Jerry Pournelle)
Building The Mote in God’s Eye (with Jerry Pournelle)
Brenda
The Return of William Proxmire
The Tale of the Jinni and the Sisters
Madness Has Its Place
Niven’s Laws
The Kiteman
The Alien in Our Minds
Space



More than just stories
Here also are Niven’s own essays on SF, writing, and the way of the world, like “Building the Mote in God’s Eye” and “Down in Flames,” previously unpublished in book form. And throughout the book run Niven’s own remarks, comments, and afterthoughts to each piece presented—a wealth of anecdotes and observations from nearly three decades in the wonderful world of science fiction.




On a Los Angeles talk show, Arthur C. Clarke was once asked to name his favorite writer. His immediate answer: “Larry Niven.”


Enjoy!

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very nice collection that serves as something of an overview of the first quarter-century of Niven's career. I'm not particularly fond of the practice of including pieces excerpted from novels in collections, but there are plenty of complete short fiction pieces collected here in addition to them, as well as good side pieces. It's a good introduction to Niven's work.

[D · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Not very interesting, from my point of view. I love Niven's 'Known Space' books and stories. However, after that I lost interest, especially when he accepted collaborating with J. Pournelle and others. The 'background' information on how stories came to be etc. is of marginal interest at best.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Larry Niven’s writing, according to this book, comes with accolades that would make the most publicity-hungry celebrity blush. First published in 1990, the first thirty or so pages are filled with glowing prose about the author and his work; from writers, both SF and non-SF: editor and writer Frederik Pohl, collaborator Steven Barnes, (though interestingly, no Jerry Pournelle), fellow SF writer David Brin and mainstream blockbuster Tom Clancy, amongst others. (How many other writers would kill to get a quote like “A writer of supreme talent” from Clancy in order to boost sales?)

This is clearly a book which is designed to illustrate a writer not short of admirers, being a fairly large short-story ‘best-of’ collection which highlights and emphasises Larry’s first 25 + years of writing. The title is even a comment on Niven’s own created universe in this time – Niven-Space.

To examine Larry’s curriculum vitae then, here is his first short story published – Inconstant Moon, 1971 – as well as Award Winners and nominees, up to 1990. (For the work post-1990, see the collections Playgrounds of the Mind (1991) and Scatterbrain, originally published in 2003.)

I have read most of what is here before. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s Niven was one of the relatively few SF writers that was fairly easy to get here in the UK. From the perspective of a teenager, his stories were usually enjoyable and full of neat scientific ideas. It was with Niven that I first came across the idea of organ banks: stocks of human body parts made to be distributed off the peg, so to speak, from convicted criminals. There were worlds to explore, and images to cherish. (Though rather implausible now, setting fire to Pluto’s methane atmosphere by a rocket’s exhaust was a fantastic image that I remembered for a long while.) There were also bizarre aliens: the weird Puppeteers from the Ringworld books (and Neutron Star), and the warlike Pak from the book Protector, for example. Alien, yet interesting.

In time though, such stories have been replaced in my memory by others. The passage of more than two decades (Edit: now three!) has meant that Niven’s stories in the main have been regarded as entertaining, though not necessarily memorable. His more recent output, often in collaboration, has been rather underwhelming by comparison.

So why look at N-Space? It is, in essence, a varied sample of the early work, the stuff that Larry became known for. This is not just his fiction, however. The book does collect a ragbag of oddities as well as stories. There are political rants, weird cartoons, lists of things that shouldn’t happen in Known Space (which will mystify any readers new to Niven here) and an extensive bibliography, for example (useful for reference, but rather intimidating to read.)

There are also extracts from some of Larry’s longer novels, which I concede are necessary and useful but, for me, are usually annoying or, at best, a reminder that I should go and re-read the full-blown version. (I know – I realise that that may be the point.) I always have found extracts frustrating as I often want to read the rest (and don’t always have it close to hand.) Taking extracts out of context is always a bit of a no-no anyway for me, as you lose the book’s narrative pace and structure. Nevertheless, it would perhaps be wrong to ignore some of Niven’s finer extended work, so there are parts from some of his novels – A Gift from Earth (1968), The Mote in God’s Eye (Hugo & Nebula Award nominee, 1975), Ringworld  (Hugo & Nebula Award Winner, 1970/71), Neutron Star (1968) and Protector (1973), amongst others.

But if we concentrate on the stories, then what we do get here are stories that are - well, old. In some of the earlier stories it shows – clunky exposition and dodgy dialogue can appear, and Niven knows it, but accepts that his writing has erm, evolved. (‘Think of it as Evolution in Action’ is one of Niven & Pournelle’s catchphrases.) As you get to some of the stories though, I felt that unlike many of today’s (in comparison) protracted mood pieces, some of the better ones are taut, relatively straightforward (though skills proficient), plot-centred short stories. As a reader who has felt disappointed by Larry’s output since about 2000, this has been a plus. Personal favourites here are Bordered in Black, Inconstant Moon and The Hole Man (winner of the Hugo Award for Best Story in 1975) and humorous essay, Man of Steel Woman of Kleenex.

For more contemporary readers (and, dare I say it, perhaps younger readers than myself) there may be a degree of disappointment that these stories do not show the pyrotechnic flair of newer writers. The characterisation may not be as multifaceted as say, in an Alastair Reynolds story, nor as cutting edge as a Charles Stross; the big opera events of an Iain M Banks are much more muted here. Yet for me, and for those readers able to forgive some of the earlier errors, there is still a pleasant sense of satisfaction on reading (or perhaps rereading) these stories: big science, interesting twists in the tale, different concepts.

What N-Space also does here is one of the things I enjoy most in these types of books, which is to include a narrative of comments and afterwords from Larry about the writing of the stories and what they mean to him. It soon becomes apparent that most of these stories happen in Niven’s carefully thought out universe. Whereas such a structure may limit some author’s work, Niven clearly revels in it. At times, this can read rather as a blatant attempt at self-publicity, but here it comes across as a conversation between reader and writer.

In summary, if you’ve ever wondered what Larry Niven’s fiction is like and wanted to try some, or if you are looking for a Niven sampler, this is not a bad start*. If you like what you read, then Mote, Ringworld and, for a more contemporary feel, Lucifer’s Hammer and Oath of Fealty are what you need to progress to.


*Later edit: The Subterranean Press volume, The Best of Larry Niven (2010) is a bigger book (658 pages), published after this review was written, and concentrates on the fiction. It is also a great read.

[K. Axel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alright, another huge anthology by Larry Niven, so there is bound to be some "old friends" from other collections and anthologies. This will be another review-in-progress, so expect short reviews as I read the shortstories and excerpts (yeah, this anthology has short bits from a few of his novels).

This anthology gives the reader more than just shortstories, it also gives us stories about Larry Niven, as well as stories about how he got to write the... stories. I personally love this sort of thing, if I like the writer, that is. And... I like the writings of Larry Niven well enough.

From World of Ptavvs (5 pages) is a very short excerpt of his very first novel. In the end-troduction, he writes how someone really didn't like this novel, and for some reason, I kinda agree (based solely on this excerpt of course). There is an interesting idea there, but most of the text is a heavy description of a phenomenon on a distant planet. (1.5 stars)

Bordered in Black (20 pages) is what I'd call a sci-fi horror story, yet, it wasn't as horrific as I would have liked. There is, however, a nice little revelation by the end! (That I had seen coming, but still nice) I am not sure, though, that I would ever send a spaceship into unknown space with only two crewmembers... seems too risky. It had potential for more horror, which would have made it a 4 star story. (3 stars)

Convergent Series (6 pages) is fantasy, not science fiction. It is the story of a young man bend on understanding magic. One day he tests out an old "spell" in a basement and (accidentally, because he didn't really think it would work) summons a demon. Now, Niven won't give you all the answers right away, so stick with the story to the end and you'll understand... clever. Recommended. (3.5 stars)

All the Myriad Ways (11 pages) might be "just another parallel univers" story, as Niven calls it, but I really like it. It involves a series of strange myrders and suicides, as well as the Crosstime technology, that allows one to pass into a parallel univers where something is changed (there are essentially trillions of these). This idea could easily have been expanded into a short novel. Recommended. (3.5 stars)

From A Gift From Earth (9 pages) is another excerpt from a novel. I am not really sure about this one, it seems to be a story about how to use the earth for building houses. The story introduces an interesting concept called "architectural coral", but other than that, this excerpt is a mess and doesn't really sell the novel to me. (1.5 stars)

For a Foggy Night (8 pages) is the story of a man getting caught by the fog, and I mean that quite literally, because in this story, the fog represents alternate realities. Another shortstory that could have easily been expanded into a novel, also, this one reminded me of the mythago wood of Robert Holdstock... which is a good thing. (3.5 stars)

The Meddler (22 pages) is one of those stories that confused me from the beginning, and quite frankly... dropped me completely halfway. I did not finish it. (1 star)

Passerby (14 pages) is the story about a rammer (which, I assume, is some sort of alien) who encounters a rather strange creature in space. Like the Meddler, this one started out confusing, but luckily, picked me up (almost literally) by the end. The ending is well worth the read, as it becomes a very different kind of science fiction shortstory. (2.5 stars)

Down in Flames (13 pages) is not a shortstory at all, but an outline for a plot. I dont know the setting that well, and therefore found myself skipping most of this. If you like metafiction, you might enjoy this, as you get a small look behind the curtain of the writing process. (1 star)

[Ell Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a special place in my heart. Nearly a decade ago, someone pasted the entirety of The Hole Man in a comment on Slashdot, and I printed it out, read it on the bus, and loved everything about it. Looking for more, I originally picked up a copy of N-Space in some used book store in Seattle - probably Ophelia's - and was instantly fascinated. This was the book that really got me back into sci-fi, gave me a taste of what was possible, and fully introduced me to the inimitable Larry Niven and his Known Space. I've since read several more tales in Known Space and have several more on my shelf, and have launched out into many other worlds as well.

I've lost count of how many copies of this book I've bought - I snag a copy whenever I see one for cheap, because I love giving it to people to read, because this collection is a great place to jump in - the stories range from bite-size to excerpts from full novels. I'm sure I'll buy many more in the future.

[Darth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love me some short stories - in general because if you get a stinker you arent tied up in it that long - in specific I am rounding out the missing Niven shorts. I was able to skip over the novel chunks in this one, and thankfully because this book is over 650 pages. Not that its too long, just very thick, and awkward to keep ahold of near the front and back - not so bad in the middle.

The shorts are excellent and instead of a quick paragraph at the front of the book, there is an intro by the author to each story, many several pages long, giving insight to what he was thinking when he was writing it.

Of course they werent all gems, the last one especially got a little tedious hearing the same ideas over and over. It was non-fiction and telling about how the SF writers got together to pester Reagan about the space program. It was interesting, but repetitive.

Overall all though, you cant go wrong with Niven, and this is no exception.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in a prize draw, promptly forgot about it then was surprised when it turned up (after international shipping) five weeks later. It's a joy - a mixture of hard sci-fi, one-shots and short stories based around a variety of subjects. The hard sci-fi (by which I mean it's not just set in the future or space or has glowing buttons and laser guns, but is actually set in scientifically reasonable worlds and situations distinctly and fundamentally different from our own) is presented without mercy - throwing you in at the deep end to discern how the hell each world works, and I love it.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't read this if you're looking for a nice neat list of short stories. Or even a vaguely coherent collection. This is more of a "Best Of" gathering that includes short stories, snippets of larger works, fun essays (but only if you like HARD science fiction), works in progress, and other random assortments. I'll take a pass on anything Niven's written in collaboration with another author (those always leave me cold), but everything else can be read over and over.

[Sharkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning, I wasn't sure what I would think of this book.
Turns out, I'd end up bloody loving it!
I don't know if it's Nivens sense of humour, or his talent at writing science fiction, but I loved every minute that I spent reading this book.
It's a great insight into the world of sci-fi and Niven, and it's great.

[Kevin Kern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing collection of excerpts from existing novels, short-stories, and original drafts. Niven is one of the best science fiction authors out there, among the likes of Heinlein and Vonnegut. Definitely recommend this as an intro for those who are unfamiliar with Niven.

[Mrelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading if only for "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex". :)
Some amusing cartoons render this book unsuitable for children.

[Liz Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me want to read a whole lot of Larry Niven, that's for sure. I got started in Known Space because of this book.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book compelled me to automatically buy any Larry Niven books I saw after reading this.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

N-Space is an anthology, and not just of short stories, as many such books usually are. In addition to a variety of short stories, there are excerpts from novels, outlines, anecdotes, and what I will call organized brainstorming. As such, there is some good and some bad here, but I am happy to say that it is mostly good.

The few misses in the anthology tend to be in a few of the short stories. I found a few of them to be a bit boring or hard to follow. Others were great. Niven has some good ideas here and I enjoyed reading them. The other misses for me were probably the excepts from Niven's longer works. It was not necessarily that these were bad, but I am not a fan of reading excerpts like that out of context, especially if I had not read the larger work previously. Perhaps that is just me though.

The rest of the selections are much more unusual for this type of anthology - the outlines and organized brainstorming. I really liked the section "Niven's Laws". Here Nivens lays out a bunch of logic/rules/behaviors that I imagine that he uses as a basis for determining how characters in his writing will behave and how certain types of events would unfold. It is actually quite an interesting idea. There is a section entitled "Space" that is basically a practical proposal to the government for how to fund an develop the space program by incentivizing the private sector. Pretty interesting stuff.

Each entry in N-Space is also preceded by some anecdote related to the story, many written by Niven himself. I found these to provide some wonderful insight into Niven's character and his life, and were sometimes more interesting than the story following it.

Overall, N-Space is a nice collection of shorter works by Niven. It is worthwhile reading for anyone who has read Ringworld or another one of his novels and is interested in exploring more of his works or gaining some perspective on the author himself.

[Matti Tornio · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather uneven collection of Larry Niven's short stories. There are certainly some strong stories here such as The Fourth Profession and Inconstant Moon. Unfortunately a lot of the other material is much weaker or even plain unfinished. Overall I found this collection rather mediocre and very clearly aimed at existing Niven fans.

[Jenny Santiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book introduced me to the brilliance of Larry Niven. Wonderful collection of short stories and excerpts from larger works. LOVED it.

[Ryan Loh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hard scifi. Interesting space opera/tale that spans a couple thousand years. Robots, alien species, casual romantic relationships. Actual rating 3.5

[Lee Belbin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t get into any of the stories. They left me cold. They couldn’t stir my imagination. I can’t say I like SF short stories as they seem fragmentary.

[Johnathan Barazzuol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have picked up and read sections out of this collection for years. It's a often reference classic!

[Larry Wentzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I had read this, because it was on my bookshelf, but here I am reading it "again" and finding out I never read it at all.

Which is a great discovery to make, because Larry Niven factored heavily into my early sci-fi reading. His breezy style, light on description and quick on the science, was great for my insatiable need for all the science I could get. Niven is fantastic at world-building: take an idea, play with its physical characteristics, figure out how people could live in it or society would react to it, and then set things running and see what stories spin out. To boot, this book gives a lot of insight into some of the novels I did read, and hints at what I missed in those I have not yet read.

A number of stories I've never read before and enjoyed: Flare Time (a human experience recorder visits an unusual planet for her audience; the story has a punchline I did not see coming), The Tale of the Jinni and the Sisters (a new Arabian Nights tale involving Scheherezade, VERY well written), The Kiteman (a new story for the Integral Trees series) and Night on Mispec Moor (a sword and sorcery in outer space short story).

Some stories I didn't enjoy as much because one aspect of the science is now dated - people in the future are still using tapes as a storage media? - or the story aches and groans under some of the ideas that were hot at the time - case in point, the idea that mankind was no longer evolving (sorry X-Men), and that we would revert to the most stable genetic baseline that preceded us making tools and getting bigger brains - but the ideas have since cooled.

One thing to bear in mind: most of Niven's protagonists are intellectually rapacious and intrinsically opportunist. When given some new thing, they not only quickly grasp how to use it, but also how to exploit for the good of mankind. In short stories, you need a bit of a Socratic protagonist to lead the audience to the conclusions you want to make.

I am grateful that one novel never came to pass - the one where the whole Slaver idea turns out to have been a massive hoax. I hate hoaxes, I hate it when authors resort to them. All the better it never came about.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most books I buy used and donate. I donated this one and regretted it, then found it again in a smaller paperback. What a relief!

This book has an eye-opening discussion of Niven's methods, including the fact that before writing a certain story, he wrote a couple pages of differential questions.

That's the difference between amateurs and masters, between the shallow and the deep. Niven makes sure his assumptions have a physical basis and are consistent with the story. There is also a glimpse into how he creates worlds, which is another difference. Some authors write a story. The visionaries create a universe or a whole schema. There is a hint of The Hobbit leading into the Lord Of The Rings, and the knowledge that this is more than a tale, it's a platform. Niven has created several platforms, all the more remarkable.

The pathos of Inconstant Moon and the fact that I've read it more than once. I first understood Niven in 1976 in a read of The Star Trek Concordance. It was evident then. And here's a guy who lays out space policies and talks about non-taxation of data in a book copyright 1990! He's so good that physics students have studied Ringworld.

Inventor Chic Thompson talks about how innovation is often the putting together of two ideas which don't appear to have commonalities. Niven is it. Math plus sociology? Physics plus romance? Humor plus science? Statistical mechanics meets Casablanca?

This is it.

It brings to mind Pressfield's discussions, and Picasso saying that you have to fill the studio. I'm glad that Larry Niven did.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am hit and miss with Larry Niven's books (though I have only read a few). Mote in God's Eye is one of my favorite realistic sci-fi action books. I also liked Ringworld but did not like Footfall or Lucifers Hammer. This book, unfortunately, is down in the Footfall/Lucifers Hammer class. Most of the short stories were not very good- I rarely found the characters particularly interesting or believable- and I did not empathize with any of them. With that being said, Mr. Niven does have some interesting ideas. My favorite story was probably Inconstant Moon. I also found Madness Has Its Place an interesting story, but this story, like so many, is extremely short and contracted with so many interesting ideas thrown in that it was hard to follow or feel engaged. Several other stories are excerpts from his novels and were unsatisfying because they are just cut out from the bigger stories and without much context. If you absolutely love Larry Niven, you should pick up this book for the wide-ranging stories and the autobiographical asides. Otherwise, you probably should pass by.

[Wampuscat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of Niven tales and lore allows you not only to experience some classic Niven, but also gives great 'behind-the-scenes' info and history on how these stories began and were developed. It reads like a history lesson and biography with neat stories mixed in between. You do get another unique Smoke Ring story in 'The Kiteman', and a great CoDominion (see Pournelle) short story in 'Brenda'. I personally found the book helped me to understand Niven himself better. If you want in depth Niven info, read this book. If you want a couple good stories, skip around and grab the ones you like. If you are not already a Niven fan, go pick a better one for a first start, then come back to it. I enjoyed the book and call it a Good Read.

[Robu-sensei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another collection of short fiction and excerpts from novels. Most notable for the story "Brenda," which adds some fascinating development to the universe of The Mote in God's Eye, and essential background for The Gripping Hand.

The worst part of this compilation, by far, is the final essay on economic development of space travel, which I call "Libertarians in Spaaaaaace!". It's tragic that such fertile minds as those of Niven and his colleagues would be completely taken in by the corporate propaganda pushing the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") in the 1980s. Of course, history has vindicated the harassed and vilified scientists who observed that SDI simply wasn't feasible.

[August · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phew! Besides being painfully long, N-Space was quite wonderful. I don't normally go for hard science fiction. It's too dry and thick and pretentious, in my experience. But Larry Niven is a genius. He knows how to slip the science right under my nose in the guise of likable, interesting characters and fascinating landscapes. I enjoyed nearly every story in here, although some felt a little repetitious (I mean, he is writing in the same universe almost every time. Known Space is an impressive feat all by itself); for that, not the quality of each individual story (which was incredibly high), it gets four stars.

[Alex Sarll]

Slightly surprised this merits a record, what with essentially being the outline for an unwritten novel, but given it originates in a sixties conversation between Niven and Norman Spinrad that already makes it more interesting than many actual novels (including, sad to say, a fair amount of Niven's later work). Essentially it would have been Known Space: Apocalypse, though like so many world-ending epics since, it does leave that little chink through which the setting can carry on surprisingly close to regardless.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some truly great stories in here, such as "The Fourth Profession", "Inconstant Moon", and "What Can You Say About Chocolate-Covered Manhole Covers"...but along with that it has short stories that were never actually finished...and you can't tell which ones are finished and which ones aren't until you get to the end and there either is an ending or their isn't.

[Elana]

Awesomeness! I'm very excited now to read everything else Niven has ever written. "The Fourth Profession" and "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" really stood out to me as being the best short stories. I loved getting to know Grand Masters of SF through Niven's eyes, while Niven's talent shone through as well.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Larry Niven's collection of book excerpts, short stories and essays on science and fiction is a continuation of his earlier collection, N-Space. Niven is known for his Big Ideas and for dialogue and characters that don't stand in their way. Few are better at inventing convincingly-alien alien species. But individuals come across as "a credit to their species" rather than as complex personalities.