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Man-Kzin Wars #2
The Man-Kzin Wars II
KZINTI
Bred to hunting, they had never encountered a species they couldn't treat as prey - until they met the canny pseudo-pacifists from Planet Earth. They nearly overwhelmed humanity on first contact, but fast as you can say "Ghengis Khan" or "Alexander the Great" the seemingly harmless monkey boys were all over the pussycats like ugly on an ape, with space fleets and strategic thinking that left the Warrior Race quite dazzled.
But that was then and this is now.
The pain of lost battles has faded and the Kzinti are back, spoiling for a fight, Larry Niven's Known Space is again aflame with war.
Cover illustration: Keith Scaife
Bred to hunting, they had never encountered a species they couldn't treat as prey - until they met the canny pseudo-pacifists from Planet Earth. They nearly overwhelmed humanity on first contact, but fast as you can say "Ghengis Khan" or "Alexander the Great" the seemingly harmless monkey boys were all over the pussycats like ugly on an ape, with space fleets and strategic thinking that left the Warrior Race quite dazzled.
But that was then and this is now.
The pain of lost battles has faded and the Kzinti are back, spoiling for a fight, Larry Niven's Known Space is again aflame with war.
Cover illustration: Keith Scaife
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
4 people are currently reading
751 people want to read
About the author
Larry Niven
692 books3,339 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 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 24, 2026
This is the second volume of a long-running anthology series that presents stories based on Larry Niven's Kzinti, a race of war-prone felines, and set, of course, in Niven's universe of Known Space. Think Klingons except with panthers or lions. This second volume contains two novellas, Briar Patch by Dean Ing and The Children's Hour, a collaboration by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling. Briar Patch is reprinted from an issue of the Baen paperback-magazine anthology series New Destinies and is a continuation of the story from the first volume featuring Locklear. The Children's Hour, which they expanded to novel length a couple of years later, is also a good military-style adventure, and they're both well worth a look for Niven's fans. Once again, the Stephen Hickman cover presents the Kzinti as looking much more like Tony the Tiger than I'd pictured them, but this time wearing very shiny high-tech body armor. A fun series!
February 26, 2013
This is the first sequel to Larry Niven’s (well, as funder of the series) Man-Kzin Wars, set in a time many millennia in the future in which a race of large bellicose catlike creatures (The Kzin) wages war on mankind, and generally loses. Well, there are many things that can happen in a war, and as seen in the first volume (see my review), interspecies – uh – communication and other forms of intercourse can have wide reaching, complicated effects.
This volume consists of two novellas. The first, “Briar Patch,” by Dean Ing, is sort of a continuation of the story from the first volume, “Cathouse,” in which the plucky, intrepid Earthian, Locklear, leaves the Kzin area of the planet Zoo, “Kzersatz,” for a human/humanoid area, “Newduvai,” and there awakens a number of Neanderthal folks, along with animals, in stasis for some 40,000 years. He had done the same thing at Kzersatz. So we have further interactions between Kzin and humans/humanoids, with both aggressive and cooperative results.
The second, “The Children’s Hour, by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Sterling, refers to the planet Wunderland, once conquered by the Kzin, with humans that had been unable to escape the planet sort of enslaved; quite a few generations have passed since the conquering, so there is a sort of uneasy peace between masters and slaves/servants, including some humans in fairly influential positions. There is a new Kzin commander, Chuut-Riit, with bellicose plans towards Earth, and so two equally plucky Earthians, Josiah Matheson and Ingrid Raines, are dispatched to infiltrate Wunderland and assassinate Chuut-Ritt. Interestingly, there are some descriptions of Chuut-Riit’s home life, with his brood of youth of various age ranges, and their relationships amongst each other. There are also a couple of very interesting characters here, notably Claude Monferrat-Palme, Director of Internal Affairs, and Harold Yarthkin, owner of a pub which is a meeting place for all sorts of riff-raff and clandestine chicanery. The relationship between Harold and Claude certainly appears to bring to mind Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines; plus the pub (well, it’s also reminiscent to the bar on Tatooine from “Star Wars”), plus the relationships among these characters and our plucky heroes is most certainly a homage to “Casablanca.” Unfortunately, that said, I found the reading of this selection to be plodding and difficult, which took away from the otherwise enjoyable plotline.
No matter, I have five more at hand, with the rest on order. Oh yeah, time for The Ringworld Throne afore tackling the next Man-Kzin volume.
This volume consists of two novellas. The first, “Briar Patch,” by Dean Ing, is sort of a continuation of the story from the first volume, “Cathouse,” in which the plucky, intrepid Earthian, Locklear, leaves the Kzin area of the planet Zoo, “Kzersatz,” for a human/humanoid area, “Newduvai,” and there awakens a number of Neanderthal folks, along with animals, in stasis for some 40,000 years. He had done the same thing at Kzersatz. So we have further interactions between Kzin and humans/humanoids, with both aggressive and cooperative results.
The second, “The Children’s Hour, by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Sterling, refers to the planet Wunderland, once conquered by the Kzin, with humans that had been unable to escape the planet sort of enslaved; quite a few generations have passed since the conquering, so there is a sort of uneasy peace between masters and slaves/servants, including some humans in fairly influential positions. There is a new Kzin commander, Chuut-Riit, with bellicose plans towards Earth, and so two equally plucky Earthians, Josiah Matheson and Ingrid Raines, are dispatched to infiltrate Wunderland and assassinate Chuut-Ritt. Interestingly, there are some descriptions of Chuut-Riit’s home life, with his brood of youth of various age ranges, and their relationships amongst each other. There are also a couple of very interesting characters here, notably Claude Monferrat-Palme, Director of Internal Affairs, and Harold Yarthkin, owner of a pub which is a meeting place for all sorts of riff-raff and clandestine chicanery. The relationship between Harold and Claude certainly appears to bring to mind Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines; plus the pub (well, it’s also reminiscent to the bar on Tatooine from “Star Wars”), plus the relationships among these characters and our plucky heroes is most certainly a homage to “Casablanca.” Unfortunately, that said, I found the reading of this selection to be plodding and difficult, which took away from the otherwise enjoyable plotline.
No matter, I have five more at hand, with the rest on order. Oh yeah, time for The Ringworld Throne afore tackling the next Man-Kzin volume.
May 3, 2022
Mostly, “The Children’s Hour” demands your interest.
It’s actually a science-fiction retelling of the treasure of Sierra Madre and a couple of other Humphrey Bogart movies.
That’s mostly all I can say about it right now, but if you start reading that story you will recognize several film references. Maybe a little bit of the Maltese falcon as well. I don’t remember if this was written completely by SM Stirling, or if it was a collaboration with either Jerry Parnell or Larry Nevin himself.
But he is in fact playing in N-Space, where “madness has its place”… I don’t remember if that story is also included in this compilation.
The children’s hour was later expanded into a full book and it was one of the best reads I have ever had it kept me completely engrossed from start to finish. As any venture into Kzinti Territory would do to me…
It’s actually a science-fiction retelling of the treasure of Sierra Madre and a couple of other Humphrey Bogart movies.
That’s mostly all I can say about it right now, but if you start reading that story you will recognize several film references. Maybe a little bit of the Maltese falcon as well. I don’t remember if this was written completely by SM Stirling, or if it was a collaboration with either Jerry Parnell or Larry Nevin himself.
But he is in fact playing in N-Space, where “madness has its place”… I don’t remember if that story is also included in this compilation.
The children’s hour was later expanded into a full book and it was one of the best reads I have ever had it kept me completely engrossed from start to finish. As any venture into Kzinti Territory would do to me…
February 2, 2024
This book contain just two novellas. Ing's "Briar Patch" is a continuation of his story in the first volume, with Neandertals released from stasis to keep Locklear company. The story starts out as mostly survivalism logistics, but it picks up when human mutineers capture Locklear and drop him in the Kzin enclosure.
Pournelle & Stirling's "The Children's Hour" takes place earlier in history, before humans had FTL travel. A couple of agents from Earth infiltrate an occupied world around Alpha Centauri and cooperate with criminals and shady dealers to retrieve intelligence and assassinate a Kzin mastermind. One of those agents has romantic ties there, and not-so-subtle references to "Casablanca" abound. The roles of all the different characters got confusing occasionally, but it, too, was an entertaining story.
Pournelle & Stirling's "The Children's Hour" takes place earlier in history, before humans had FTL travel. A couple of agents from Earth infiltrate an occupied world around Alpha Centauri and cooperate with criminals and shady dealers to retrieve intelligence and assassinate a Kzin mastermind. One of those agents has romantic ties there, and not-so-subtle references to "Casablanca" abound. The roles of all the different characters got confusing occasionally, but it, too, was an entertaining story.
August 30, 2019
More from the Man- Kzin Wars universe.
Despite the many faults of the first story Briar Patch by Dean Ing, which was a not so great sequel to his Cathouse story, which I liked in the first book, the second story in this The Children’s Hour by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling was pretty enjoyable.
These books are fast easy fun reads with Man and Kzins trying to outwit each other and battling against each other in a never ending war.
3 stars. Not mind blowing or anything but definitely good enough to hold my attention. I like these.
I’ll read more if these, cause they are entertaining and why the hell not.
Despite the many faults of the first story Briar Patch by Dean Ing, which was a not so great sequel to his Cathouse story, which I liked in the first book, the second story in this The Children’s Hour by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling was pretty enjoyable.
These books are fast easy fun reads with Man and Kzins trying to outwit each other and battling against each other in a never ending war.
3 stars. Not mind blowing or anything but definitely good enough to hold my attention. I like these.
I’ll read more if these, cause they are entertaining and why the hell not.
April 2, 2026
I hated the first story in this book. The characters were all deplorable and I didn't care what happened to any of them. I'm sure it didn't help that it's been 20 years since I read the first book and there was zero attempt at recap when this story started. There had to have been a way to tell this story without making the main character a total dick.
Fortunately the second story was much better. I'm not sure why the authors insisted on writing some of dialog with bad accents when the content was more important then the delivery. A large amount of hyphenated names didn't help in keeping track of the characters either but overall it was a decent story.
Fortunately the second story was much better. I'm not sure why the authors insisted on writing some of dialog with bad accents when the content was more important then the delivery. A large amount of hyphenated names didn't help in keeping track of the characters either but overall it was a decent story.
April 24, 2019
3
It is hard to rate anthologies - different writing styles, different characters, different plots. However, rating the book as a whole it is not one I would read again. The first story involved crash landed human and kzin in a high-tech zoo. Interesting premise, but the plot was boring and blatant sexism oozed from the pages. The second story involving human infiltration of a Kzin-held world and new technology was a more enjoyable read.
It is hard to rate anthologies - different writing styles, different characters, different plots. However, rating the book as a whole it is not one I would read again. The first story involved crash landed human and kzin in a high-tech zoo. Interesting premise, but the plot was boring and blatant sexism oozed from the pages. The second story involving human infiltration of a Kzin-held world and new technology was a more enjoyable read.
August 20, 2025
You can tell it's 'hard' science fiction because it keeps telling you what the gravity is to two decimal places!
It's a bit less of an ordeal than the first volume, but this is still no good. I'm not going on to volume 3.
It's a bit less of an ordeal than the first volume, but this is still no good. I'm not going on to volume 3.
January 27, 2018
great second book... two stories...
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June 8, 2021I read a lot of Larry Niven during my youthful years and I remember the books fondly.
January 31, 2023
Solid reading if you like sci fi.
July 7, 2024
Perfectly entertaining and mindless military sci-fi from 2 decades ago. Some days thinking is simply too much. Books like this exist for those days.
February 2, 2017
There is something playful about this series. Not many grand concepts (although certainly enough to get you thinking) but plenty of clever action. The Kzin are just alien enough to make them interesting without being impossible to relate. I always feel with known space novels that the humans are realistic. Society moves on with its culture derogatory terms and all, non of that star trek everyone being obsessed with 20th century culture thing going on. People are as varied as they are today whether it be cowardly, nasty, dogmatic or amoral. Humanities defining trait seems to be adaptability which doesn't seem to far from the truth (the luck thing comes later...)
August 18, 2020
A couple novellas that follow-up on the events from the first book. I found them disappointing and difficult to enjoy.
The first one continues the exploits of Locklear on the zoo planet. Who once was a sympathetic, clever protag in the first book is turned into a selfish, manipulating, sexual predator/rapist. Yeah, really. Finding a bunch of frozen neanderthals, he thaws them out based on hotness. His first choice is a recalcitrant pre-teen to rejects his advances, so he opts instead for an "ugly" one (his description) because she has big boobs. Serious ew material here.
The second deals with life on a human colony that has been conquered by the Kzin. It depicts a world where the humans are being bred to adjust to life as livestock. Kind of a cannibal "Man in the High Castle".
The first one continues the exploits of Locklear on the zoo planet. Who once was a sympathetic, clever protag in the first book is turned into a selfish, manipulating, sexual predator/rapist. Yeah, really. Finding a bunch of frozen neanderthals, he thaws them out based on hotness. His first choice is a recalcitrant pre-teen to rejects his advances, so he opts instead for an "ugly" one (his description) because she has big boobs. Serious ew material here.
The second deals with life on a human colony that has been conquered by the Kzin. It depicts a world where the humans are being bred to adjust to life as livestock. Kind of a cannibal "Man in the High Castle".
August 24, 2011
A long running anthology series with stories set during the Man-Kzin Wars in Larry Niven’s Known Space universe. Niven started this thing up because while the Wars were very significant in the history of Known Space, he himself was not adept at writing about conflict. Niven has written some of the stories but most are by other authors. The writing ranges from average to excellent. Recommended if you are a fan of Known Space.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1026
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1026
July 8, 2014
This book really starts off the Man Kzin wars anthologies - since really only the introduction is by Larry Niven the rest are done by other authors as part of the shared universe. the stories really start to examine the relationship of the more ferocious technically advanced Kzini and the humans who they just don't seem to be able to put down. The story Children's Hour was so well received that it was later published as its own book as part of the extended anthology series.
January 23, 2009
Re-Read previously: Aug 2002
Niven shares out his Man-Kzin (humanoid, sentient felinids) Wars world with other writers with fairly good results. I wish I'd dug Vol I out first to refresh my memory of the overall universe.
The Casablanca references in "A Children's Hour" seemed a bit superfluous to the actual story.
Niven shares out his Man-Kzin (humanoid, sentient felinids) Wars world with other writers with fairly good results. I wish I'd dug Vol I out first to refresh my memory of the overall universe.
The Casablanca references in "A Children's Hour" seemed a bit superfluous to the actual story.
August 9, 2013
Second 3 story collection of short novellas by Larry Niven and friends about the Man-Kzin wars set over the course of the 4 wars. The first story of this book, "The Houses of Kzin" picks up where the story "CatHouse" left off in the previous book. Really good! If you enjoyed the first volume, you'll love this one.
May 10, 2015
Excellent SiFi stories set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. Dean Ing continues the adventures of Locklear in "Briar Patch", Jerry Pournelle & S. M. Stirling write and extremely interesting espionage story in "The Children's Hour". Overall a great read with excellent SiFi background and concepts. Very recommended.
August 9, 2016
It was hard to get through this one.
The first story in the book was okay. It picked up where the final story of the last book ended and carried on.
The second story just didn't pull me in though. I ended up putting the book down for awhile, then when I came back I slowly worked my way through it.
Oh well.
The first story in the book was okay. It picked up where the final story of the last book ended and carried on.
The second story just didn't pull me in though. I ended up putting the book down for awhile, then when I came back I slowly worked my way through it.
Oh well.
February 6, 2014
Known space grows and expands with the help of all the big names in sci-fi. The collaboration found here is impressive and fresh while remaining faithful to, and consistent with the original story. It just keeps getting better.
November 4, 2011
A true sequel
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews