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Ice Vegas
- GenresScience FictionFiction
272 pages, Hardcover
Published July 14, 2026
About the author
Larry Niven
695 books3,375 followersLaurence 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 15, 2026
Ice Vegas by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes was an interesting book. At first I was little confused at what was happening but then all of a sudden, everything clicked.
Through a series of flashbacks, we find we have a retired assassin hired to take out a powerful businessman who is looking to colonize the moon. An ex-president that thinks he has too much power, there are plans to maybe take down a frozen wonderland in Greenland called Ice Vegas, along with the nuclear power plant that supplies its electricity as well as to half of Europe. Can the assassin stop the plot? It’s possible, with the help of Forry, an octopus that is used for races.
What is all this, you ask? Well, it’s a really entertaining and kind of sweet scifi book, when the assassin and Forry become friends. Think Remarkably Bright Creatures. Throw in a security man about to retire and you get this crazy runaway story. Totally entertaining and definitely different.
Through a series of flashbacks, we find we have a retired assassin hired to take out a powerful businessman who is looking to colonize the moon. An ex-president that thinks he has too much power, there are plans to maybe take down a frozen wonderland in Greenland called Ice Vegas, along with the nuclear power plant that supplies its electricity as well as to half of Europe. Can the assassin stop the plot? It’s possible, with the help of Forry, an octopus that is used for races.
What is all this, you ask? Well, it’s a really entertaining and kind of sweet scifi book, when the assassin and Forry become friends. Think Remarkably Bright Creatures. Throw in a security man about to retire and you get this crazy runaway story. Totally entertaining and definitely different.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for an advance copy of this work of speculative fiction about the Earth one hundred years from now, an Earth that seems to have the same problems in many ways, but an Earth full of wonder, excitement, and hope.
I have been reading science fiction for almost as long as I have been reading. As such my childhood was spent going through boxes at flea markets, tag sales, and library book sales looking for titles to sate my curiosity and my need for books. Larry Niven has long been a name I have followed, from the awe of Ringworld to the humor of how Superman and Lois Lane might have children. Niven has always created a future that one had never thought of, full of awe, wonder, and human characters. Steven Barnes is also I writer I have long enjoyed, from his first novels, to his tie-in work, and his many collaborations with Larry Niven and other writers. As they said about Reese's Peanut Butter cups they are two tastes that taste great together. This book is no exception. Ice Vegas by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes is a story of the future, about unlimited energy, space elevators, undersea factories, cities under the ice, greed and a bit of murder.
One hundred or so years from now, a former president of the United States is visited by an old woman. An old woman who is far more than she looks. Spider is the last of a group known as Purple, made and created to be the ultimate killers. Spider can present as a preteen boy, an old woman, a professional office worker or even a magician's assistant. With a lot of bodies in her wake. Spider is tasked to assassinate a powerful tech man, one with lots of money, and nothing in the way of scruples. As the ex-President talks, Spider remember past missions that have involved this person, taking deep under water, into low orbit, and even under the ice of Greenland. To a place called Ice Vegas, a city where energy is free, the people are left alone, and anything can be bet on. A place that might be Spider's downfall.
A story that seems very much like a fix-up novel set in the early days of the cyberpunk movement. The writing features various points of view, first person, second person, even narration from an octopus. The novel starts in the present moves to the past, and back again. Some might be a bit confused, but the book really does come into its own. The places are fascinating, under the sea, on a space elevator anchored in Namibia and going to high orbit. Even the idea of Ice Vegas is interesting, and can explain why a certain president want to own Greenland for his very own. Spider is a good character, one who grows, and becomes better, though Spider does some nasty things to get there. The action is good, the plot makes sense. And the science is fun.
A book that was a bit of a flashback in some ways, a cybernetic cyberpunk feel, with modern feelings on oligarchs, privacy and even an octopus added to the story. A lot of fun, and a world I would like to read more about, from two authors I have long enjoyed.
I have been reading science fiction for almost as long as I have been reading. As such my childhood was spent going through boxes at flea markets, tag sales, and library book sales looking for titles to sate my curiosity and my need for books. Larry Niven has long been a name I have followed, from the awe of Ringworld to the humor of how Superman and Lois Lane might have children. Niven has always created a future that one had never thought of, full of awe, wonder, and human characters. Steven Barnes is also I writer I have long enjoyed, from his first novels, to his tie-in work, and his many collaborations with Larry Niven and other writers. As they said about Reese's Peanut Butter cups they are two tastes that taste great together. This book is no exception. Ice Vegas by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes is a story of the future, about unlimited energy, space elevators, undersea factories, cities under the ice, greed and a bit of murder.
One hundred or so years from now, a former president of the United States is visited by an old woman. An old woman who is far more than she looks. Spider is the last of a group known as Purple, made and created to be the ultimate killers. Spider can present as a preteen boy, an old woman, a professional office worker or even a magician's assistant. With a lot of bodies in her wake. Spider is tasked to assassinate a powerful tech man, one with lots of money, and nothing in the way of scruples. As the ex-President talks, Spider remember past missions that have involved this person, taking deep under water, into low orbit, and even under the ice of Greenland. To a place called Ice Vegas, a city where energy is free, the people are left alone, and anything can be bet on. A place that might be Spider's downfall.
A story that seems very much like a fix-up novel set in the early days of the cyberpunk movement. The writing features various points of view, first person, second person, even narration from an octopus. The novel starts in the present moves to the past, and back again. Some might be a bit confused, but the book really does come into its own. The places are fascinating, under the sea, on a space elevator anchored in Namibia and going to high orbit. Even the idea of Ice Vegas is interesting, and can explain why a certain president want to own Greenland for his very own. Spider is a good character, one who grows, and becomes better, though Spider does some nasty things to get there. The action is good, the plot makes sense. And the science is fun.
A book that was a bit of a flashback in some ways, a cybernetic cyberpunk feel, with modern feelings on oligarchs, privacy and even an octopus added to the story. A lot of fun, and a world I would like to read more about, from two authors I have long enjoyed.
June 22, 2026
Review: ICE VEGAS. NetGalley ARC.
ICE VEGAS is the newest offering from creative and prolific Science Fiction Minds Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. Set in the second quarter of the 22nd Century, it in some ways [especially in the Zero Hotel in Orbit, and the Ice Vegas conclave in Greenland] is quite reminiscent of these co-authors' Dream Park Series collaboration, of which the first installment, Dream Park, released January 1, 1981.
Yet I think ICE VEGAS is much more complex and convoluted, and of course it manages to riff on Climate change which hadn't been so apparent back at the end of 1980, and encapsulates the current cultural oligarchy, also not necessarily foreseen at the time of the Publication of Dream Park. There is also a strong element of genetic manipulation and of "Science" creating a sort of mutable Non-Binary type of human, almost a shapeshifter in abilities, as an extreme covert program and foundation of assassins.
Release July 14 2026
ICE VEGAS is the newest offering from creative and prolific Science Fiction Minds Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. Set in the second quarter of the 22nd Century, it in some ways [especially in the Zero Hotel in Orbit, and the Ice Vegas conclave in Greenland] is quite reminiscent of these co-authors' Dream Park Series collaboration, of which the first installment, Dream Park, released January 1, 1981.
Yet I think ICE VEGAS is much more complex and convoluted, and of course it manages to riff on Climate change which hadn't been so apparent back at the end of 1980, and encapsulates the current cultural oligarchy, also not necessarily foreseen at the time of the Publication of Dream Park. There is also a strong element of genetic manipulation and of "Science" creating a sort of mutable Non-Binary type of human, almost a shapeshifter in abilities, as an extreme covert program and foundation of assassins.
Release July 14 2026
August 10, 2026
Spider, an assassin from the Purple Group, has a variety of disguises, mostly presenting as female. Sent on another killing mission, this time to Greenland around Christmas. Despite the extravagant displays, she finds herself trapped. Meets Forry, an enhanced octopus who has been captured from Jamaica and now finds himself enrolled in a competition with other creatures. There is a human predecessor who is supposed to win, of course. Forry helps Spider with a hotel room invasion in exchange for her freedom. BALDR, the fusion plant, supplies power to Europe and Africa. Wencelaus Waldemer ll is trying to set aside plans for fission plants and use tides and wind as power sources. Damage to BALDR will further his aims, the massive ice dam is vulnerable to sabotage. Ice Vegas is in the path of destruction. Delta, another Purple, is assigned to find Spider. Carter Reeves, security for the plant, involves Spider in a plan for redemption and a chance to save Forry.
July 8, 2026
The summary for Ice Vegas intrigued me with our planet having a futuristic undersea world of entertainment and debauchery. But that was only part of the story, a very underdeveloped part of the story which was really the final scene in several lives. Instead, this novel by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes was a fractured biography of a successful assassin and what scenes went into making her so successful at killing. This killer named Spider is given several assignments by important people and we have to piece together what is going on in each situation. However the points of view changed so many times and the scenes were written so differently that it took reading several of them to realize that it was about the same person each time. I don’t know if the authors meant it to seem that way or if the writing was just not clear enough. Thankfully a few fun additions to the novel happened about halfway in that upgraded the story so much. There was such a change to the ongoing story at that time, it totally melded together. Perhaps the two authors wrote different parts of it, but the last half saved the book for me. I would have given Ice Vegas two stars, but I went up on my rating after that good second half. This selection would be good for science fiction lovers who like a VERY slow burn. The idea was quite original, but was not carried out as well as it could have been. Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and Netgalley for a chance to read this novel in return for my honest opinion.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC.
So the beginning of the book starts with what we all, at least the characters, in the book to be is a harmless old woman - she walks with a cane with a unsteady gate -and she is going to visit the former president of USA who has alzheimers.
What takes place, is all the missions the old woman did for the president - when she was younger. We go from under the sea, to outer space, to Ice Vegas - lots of death and mayhem - jellyfish, assassinations etc. :)
I like how the story ended -
One thing to note is this old woman, has resurrected - or remade herself so much that she doesn't remember her true self - and in the story she realizes how she was used.
Spy, cloak and dagger kind of stuff here.
So the beginning of the book starts with what we all, at least the characters, in the book to be is a harmless old woman - she walks with a cane with a unsteady gate -and she is going to visit the former president of USA who has alzheimers.
What takes place, is all the missions the old woman did for the president - when she was younger. We go from under the sea, to outer space, to Ice Vegas - lots of death and mayhem - jellyfish, assassinations etc. :)
I like how the story ended -
One thing to note is this old woman, has resurrected - or remade herself so much that she doesn't remember her true self - and in the story she realizes how she was used.
Spy, cloak and dagger kind of stuff here.
August 24, 2026
Something tells me Barnes did most of the writing on this one, but it is good to know Niven still has a hand in the game. Spider, who can present as any age or gender, is an augmented assassin who seems to be an update of Robert Heinlein’s Friday. The novel is a circus with a few more rings than it really needs. We have Ice Vegas, a domed resort city in Greenland. It is in the middle of a revolution. A sapient octopus is forced to act as an aquatic racer. We have two assassins, a security guard, an industrialist in the space industry, and an ex-president on his deathbed. For good measure, we also have a mom, a boy, and his dog in need of rescue. Do all these elements fit into a rational whole—well, no. But who cares? As long as they rescue the boy and his dog.
July 31, 2026
Larry Niven and Steven Barnes tell an exciting tale set in Ice Vegas(hard fromBlackstone Publishing) , a gambling center buried in the Greenland ice a century from now. Assassin Spider is in hiding after her last job, and is hired to stop staff who have become saboteurs and plan a devastating attack on the city. The client has no idea who they are. Not only that but another assassin from the same purple group where Spider was trained is after her. Her only ally is a mentally enhanced octopus and an ex-cop also hunting her. Very exciting and lots of fun. I wouldn’t mind seeing more Spider adventures.
August 6, 2026
** I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
If you're looking for a solid futuristic sci-fi book, this is not it. There's a bit of both but...
However, if you're looking for a solid spy/thriller book with a touch of sci-fi, this book will be just what you want. I probably would have rated this book at least a 4 if I weren't disappointed at the lack of science-fiction. I did really really love Forry & Spider's relationship though!!
If you're looking for a solid futuristic sci-fi book, this is not it. There's a bit of both but...
However, if you're looking for a solid spy/thriller book with a touch of sci-fi, this book will be just what you want. I probably would have rated this book at least a 4 if I weren't disappointed at the lack of science-fiction. I did really really love Forry & Spider's relationship though!!
August 9, 2026
Tale of a Spider woven by master storytellers. Ice Vegas is a intriguing trip to a future massive power station on earth, that is next to the hedonistic playground of the the haves, with an underground world of the have-nots. This system undermines the desires of organizations within and beyond these glass domes, but will they realize the danger in time. Well paced with a couple twists for good measure, I would highly recommend the latest by the team of Niven and Barnes.
July 16, 2026
Steven Barnes & Larry Niven are powerhouse science fiction writers and when they join together you are sure to get a good story! Spider is a fascinating character and I would have liked to have heard more about her background, she is the true star of the story with Carver being more of a secondary character. All in all an enjoyable read that I would recommend!
August 4, 2026
DMF at 40%. Based on the synopsis, I was expecting a different book, more about an underground entertainment Mecca than a spy novel. But this was mostly an internal monologue by a spy/assassin, pondering how she got where she is. Disappointing.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.
July 20, 2026
30% in, not much sci fi, all spy internal monologue. Seems to be confusing itself with the wrong genre. And if I want to read a spy novel, I want action, not a spy reminiscing the past. DNF. Suspect Niven was barely involved in this endeavor.
August 28, 2026
Not a lengthy epic sci/fi saga, but still a solid combination spy/assassin thriller with futuristic, dystopic overtones. I found the characters compelling, including the family of the investigator Carver and especially Forry, a unique presence you can't help but like. A satisfying read!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I did not finish this book. I think the wrting was fine but the story seemed jumpy and there were parts that did not make sense.
Read
August 4, 2026A bit choppy
July 30, 2026
Niven and Barnes have done this before, and they borrow shamelessly. Genetically enhanced assassin? Check. Dystopian domed environment? Check. Intelligence augmented animals? Check. Controlled game/race? Check. It’s primarily a matter of construction. Is the plotting as clever as Dream Park or weaker like Saturn’s Race?
The answer is somewhere in-between. The framing is clever with some interesting characters. I did struggle envisioning the race, and the villains remained a bit murky. However, I enjoyed the audiobook.
The answer is somewhere in-between. The framing is clever with some interesting characters. I did struggle envisioning the race, and the villains remained a bit murky. However, I enjoyed the audiobook.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews