Asteroid/comet impact stories have been done, but seldom as well as this. You can’t go wrong with this one. A fabulous read.
Fallen Angels – Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes
Slightly bizarre novel about a world where the greens have won and technology is, if not exactly outlawed, at least frowned upon. The lack of industry has brought on a new ice age. As a couple of astronauts (they stayed up there after the revolution) are stranded on Earth, undercover SciFi Fans come to the rescue. A lot of fun.
The Legacy of Heorot – Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Steven Barnes
A peaceful offworld colony is attacked by beasts. Very exciting stuff. The second book is not quite as good, but still a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed these.
Note: Beowulf’s Children was published in the UK as “The Dragons of Heorot”.
Saturn’s Race – Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
As in so many of Niven’s later works, there is a great backstory, but the novel falls short of the mark. A large offshore colony is dabbling in genetic engineering. There is a great feeling of hope that mankind will have a bright future. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen. Not very good, but it has some cool ideas and settings.
The Descent of Anansi – Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
Near future technothriller. Pretty nifty orbital combat scenes, but apart from that nothing makes this one stand out.
Achilles’ Choice – Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
In this novel, Olympic athletes are allowed to “enhance” their bodies, to the point that they will not survive more than a few years after the competition. Unless they win, that is, in which case they join the ruling council and are “linked” to a neural interface that fixes the issue. Mildly entertaining.
The Dream Park Series – Larry Niven & Steven Barnes
Consisting of:
- Dream Park
- The Barsoom Project
- California Vodoo Game (sometimes published as “The California Vodoo Game”)
The novels are set in a theme park named “Dream Park”. Dream Park uses holograms and other methods to create completely lifelike environments for adventures. For example, one can become a group of medieval knights on a quest, and be totally immersed in the experience. The novels are very enjoyable, with some nice twists to the tale. It is also interesting to see how role playing as a sport evolves from the first to the last book.
Scatterbrain – Larry Niven
Well, he certainly is a scatterbrain, as he readily admits in the introduction. Although I feel that Niven’s writing has been in a steady decline for the past couple of decades, his short fiction and especially his articles are always great fun. Like N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind this is a mix of new and old short fiction, book excerpts and articles. Enjoyable reading for the Niven fan.
N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind – Larry Niven
If you’ve never read Larry Niven, these two collections are a great place to start. They are both a mix of essays, short fiction, and excerpts from novels. If you’ve already read practically all of Niven’s work, there is not a lot of new material, but the convention essays still make the books worth the read.
Destiny’s Road – Larry Niven
On a distant colony planet, a boy grows up wondering why the original colony ship departed many generations ago, at the same time scorching a road into the distance with its fusion drive. No knows where the road leads. The planet has a shortage of potassium and an upper class distributes what turns out to be potassium in exchange for their ruling status.
The ideas underlying the story are very clever. Unfortunately the story itself is confusing and hopelessly. I could barely finish the book. Given the neat premise, I wish Niven would have written an outline and contracted some other author to write the actual book.
Note: This is set in the same universe as The Legacy of Heorot and Beowulf’s Children, but there is no connection between the stories beyond that.
Juggler of Worlds – Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner
In this standalone sequel to Fleet of Worlds, ARM agent and professional paranoiac Sigmund Ausfaller is obsessed with the enigmatic Puppeteer race. The book follows his career from recruitment to ultimate savior. It is a long and complex tale that touches on many points and characters covered in Niven‘s Known Space stories from decades past.
Fleet of Worlds is a pretty decent book. More importantly, it really took me back to the Niven’s classic Known Space novels and short stories. Juggler of Worlds unfortunately does not live up to its prequel. The plot is razor thin. The objective seems mostly to fill in the gaps between various Beowulf Schaeffer stories. Cute for the Niven fan, but it falls wells short of what I expected.
Love the cover though.
Fleet of Worlds – Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner
A new novel in the Known Space universe, “Fleet of Worlds” fills in some gaps in the story of the Puppeteers and the migration of their worlds (the “Fleet of Worlds”). It tells the previously unknown story of a society of humans living with the Puppeteers without knowledge of their heritage. The Puppeteers have some deep, dark secrets revealed. There are some excellent descriptions of Puppeteer society. We are also introduced to a younger Nessus, the Puppeteer featured in Ringworld.
It is a good story, and long awaited for any fan of Known Space. Unlike the third and fourth Ringworld novels, it really manages to capture the tone of the main Known Space novels. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the environment. Note, though, that you you will have a hard time following without at least having read Crashlander or Neutron Star (Crashlander reprints all the stories from Neutron Star).
Ringworld’s Children – Larry Niven
In the fourth Ringworld novel, Louis Wu is, as usual, conscripted to do a powerful being’s bidding. In this case it is the Protector Tunesmith.
Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers are some of the best hard SF books ever written. On the other hand, The Ringworld Throne was an enormous disappointment, and given that I expected to dislike this offering. I was pleasantly surprised. The characters are well defined as usual with Niven, and the story, while not too complex, runs along nicely.
The days of truly epic tales from Niven seem to be over. Nowadays, he writes little idea pieces like this one, or collaborates with other authors. If you enjoyed the first two Ringworld novels, you will like this one. However, I think it would be impossible to read without having first read the other ones, and probably some of the other Known Space stories.
The Ringworld Throne – Larry Niven
Louis Wu must deal with a couple of crises on the Ringworld.
This direct sequel Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers has none of the good qualities of the two first books. It is confusing, unfocused and adds nothing Known Space. Avoid it.
Rainbow Mars – Larry Niven
In this novel-length sequel to The Flight of the Horse, time traveler Svetz continues his adventures. Unfortunately the story is both confusing and unengaging.
The Flight of the Horse – Larry Niven
In this, hilarious short story collection, time traveller from the future Svetz has to go back in time and collect fauna from our time in order to populate the ruler’s zoo. Unfortunately, the time machine has the unexpected side effect of making him chase after mythical creatures. The horse is actually a unicorn and so on. The past is a fantasy version of the real past. Poor Svetz has to contend with quite a few mishaps with dragons and the like. A lot of fun, much of it with Svetz as the punchline.
The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring – Larry Niven
Set in the same universe as A World out of Time but only very tenously connected to that novel, these series of two should be read as a set. The novels are set in which is not really a world. A “smoke rIng” of atmosphere and biomass orbits around a neutron star, forming a huge but habitable donut-shaped space. In other words, no gravity. Humans have colonised this “smoke ring” in various ways. Enjoyable, but more for the wickedly cool setting than for the stories.
Note: These are now also published in an omnibus edition.
A World out of Time – Larry Niven
This novel is an expansion of the short story Rammer from the collection A Hole in Space. Jaybee Corbell wakes up after having being cryogenically frozen after death Now he must repay his debt to society (being cured of his cancer and woken up cost a lot of money) by piloting an exploratory ramship to seed planets around the galaxy, a mission that will take centuries. He rebels and takes his ship on a long tour of the galaxy at relativistic speeds, ending up back on earth millions of years later. Reminded me a little of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, except for the lack of a means for return.
While the short story that formed the basis is fantastic, this novel length expansion, while solid, falls a bit short of the mark.
Man-Kzin Wars volumes I-XI – Created by Larry Niven
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.
Flatlander – Larry Niven
All the Gil “The Arm” Hamilton stories collected in one volume with a previously unpublished story. These are good SciFi murder mysteries set in the Known Space universe. It just goes to show that Niven has a devious mind. As he says himself, SciFi murder stories are tricky since the reader must know all the “rules” of the environment in order to have a shot at solving the mystery himself.
Note: Most of the stories were previously published in “The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton”.
Protector – Larry Niven
One of the best Known Space books, in which the origin of man is “revealed”. A great yarn.
The World of Ptaavs – Larry Niven
Chronologically the first of Niven‘s Known Space books, and also his first published novel. An alien who has been frozen in stasis for eons is awoken. He comes from a former master race (quite literally) and poses a grave danger to humanity.
Solid adventure SciFi with some very clever concepts.
Note: Various editions have the title with or without initial “The”.
The Bohr Maker; Deception Well; Vast – Linda Nagata
These three very loosely connected novels span thousand of years. Nagata writes competently about a future in which humanity is first technologically lifting itself off earth, and finally scattered about a hostile universe. I enjoyed them even though Nagata does two things which annoy me. The first is that the novels are in parts rather boring. Nothing much happens. The other thing is that she can be very depressing. Vast especially makes me feel just a bit too small in a vast (heh) universe.
They Also Serve (Society of Humanity III) – Mike Moscoe
The third and final book in the Society of Humanity series sees Ray Longknife leading a exploratory expedition, and getting lost. The expedition finds the descendants of a ship’s crew thought lost three hundred years ago. But all is not as it seems. The planet is literally alive with remnants of an ancient civilization. And it’s not happy.
Unlike the somewhat flawed predecessor volumes, this is a very respectable story. The “planet as supercomputer” elements are interesting, as well as the evolution of the individual characters components of that computer. The contrast between the arriving expedition and the locals is also well done, with a good grasp of factional politics. All in all, a great conclusion to the series.
Note: Mike Moscoe is more well known under the pen name Mike Shepherd. The Society of Humanity series is set in the same universe as the Kris Longknife books, but several decades earlier.
The Price of Peace (Society of Humanity II) – Mike Moscoe
After the war, Izzy Umboto (a minor character from the first book) is given independent command and a mandate to keep the peace on the rim. She and her crew uncover a slavery plot.
Compared to the first book, this one is far more focused. There is a clear feeling of moving forward instead of flying about all over the place.
Note: Mike Moscoe is more well known under the pen name Mike Shepherd. The Society of Humanity series is set in the same universe as the Kris Longknife books, but several decades earlier.