Search Worlds Without End

Stories from science fiction's master storyteller, including "Rammer", "A Hole in Space", "The Fourth Profession" and the Louis Wu story "There Is a Tide", as well as a discussion of non-planetary structures for human habitation (including the Ringworld) called "Bigger Than Worlds."

Table of Contents:

• Rammer - (1971) - novelette
• The Alibi Machine - (1973) - shortstory
• The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club - (1974) - shortstory
• A Kind of Murder - (1974) - shortstory
• All the Bridges Rusting - (1973) - shortstory
• There Is a Tide - (1968) - novelette
• Bigger Than Worlds - (1974) - essay
• $16,940.00 - non-genre - (1974) - shortstory
• The Hole Man - (1974) - shortstory
• The Fourth Profession - (1971) - novelette

The gods of Olympus offered a fateful choice to the warrior, Achilles--a short, glorious life, or a long, dull one.

Achilles chose glory.

This is the story of the Eleventh Olympiad in the late 21st century--a contest not only for glory but for survival--and of the woman who dared to compete for the highest stakes of all.

The future of humanity.

Table of Contents:

• All the Myriad Ways - (1968)
• Passerby - (1969)
• For a Foggy Night - (1968)
• Wait It Out - (1968)
• The Jigsaw Man - (1967)
• Not Long Before the End - (1969)
• Unfinished Story No. 1 - (1970)
• Unfinished Story No. 2 - (1971)
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex - (1969) - essay by Larry Niven
• Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation - (1969) - essay by Larry Niven
• The Theory and Practice of Time Travel - (1971) - essay by Larry Niven
• Inconstant Moon - (1971)
• What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers? - (1971)
• Becalmed in Hell - (1965)

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, October 1968. The story can aslo be found in the anthologies Worlds of Maybe (1970) edited by Robert Silverberg, Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction (1980), edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander, and The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century (2001), edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg. It is included in the collecions All the Myriad Ways (1971), N-Space (1990) and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

The first interstellar starship, John Glenn, fled a Solar System populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn's crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir, in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology.

But by some miscalculation they have landed in another solar system, and extremely low on the antimatter needed to continue to Ymir, they must shape the nearby planet Harlequin's moon, Selene, into a new, temporary home. Their only hope of ever reaching Ymir is to rebuild their store of antimatter through decades of terraforming the moon.

Gabriel, the head terraformer, must lead this nearly impossible task, with all the wrong materials. His primary tools are the uneducated and nearly illiterate children of the original colonists, born and bred to build Harlequin's moon into a virtual antimatter factory. With no concept of the future and with life defined as duty, one girl, Rachel Vanowen, begins to ask herself the question: what will become of the children of Selene once the terraforming is complete.

This impressive collection of twenty-one stories by Larry Niven -- science fiction, fantasy, contemporary fiction, and mixed genres (detective-noir-meets-aliens) -- highlights the range of the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author's work. From science fiction which edges toward horror ("Bordered in Black"), sf conundrums ("Singularities Make Me Nervous") to three Draco Tavern stories and many with clever twists, CONVERGENT SERIES is a feast for lovers of the short story.

Contains:

• Bordered in Black
• One Face
• Banquo's Ghost
• The Meddler
• Dry Run
• Convergent Series
• The Deadlier Weapon
• The Nonesuch
• Singularities Make Me Nervous
• The Schumann Computer
• Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!
• Grammar Lesson
• The Subject is Closed
• Cruel and Unusual
• Transfer of Power
• Cautionary Tales
• Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation
• Plaything
• Mistake
• Night on Mispec Moor
• Wrong Way Street

Wide and smooth, the Road was seared into planet Destiny's rocky surface by the fusion drive of the powered landing craft, Cavorite. The Cavorite deserted the original interstellar colonists, stranding them without hope of contacting Earth.

Now, descendants of those pioneers have many questions about the Road, but no settler who has gone down it has ever returned. For Jemmy Bloocher, a young farm boy, the questions burn too hot--and he sets out to uncover the many mysteries of Destiny's Road.

As the world reels under the sudden onslaught of the new ice age, the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement controls the U.S. government. Abandoned by Earth, the space colonies must replenish their air supply by scoopships diving into the atmosphere -- but Alex and Gordon's ship was hit by a missile, sending them tumbling out of the sky to be hunted by authorities who want them dead or alive. . . . But wait! There is one pro-tech group left on Earth: science fiction fandom! How they get our guys from the permafrost to orbit in twenty incredibly difficult stages -- and why they bother -- is the story of two very "Fallen Angels."

They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star.

The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods.

Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender--or death for all humans.

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in the collection All the Myriad Ways (1971). The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• Best Science Fiction for 1972 edited by Frederik Pohl
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Best of All Possible Worlds (1980), edited by Spider Robinson
• The World Treasury of Science Fiction (1989), edited by David G. Hartwell
• Armageddons (1999) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (2001), edited by Orson Scott Card
• L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 31 (2015), edited by David Farland

It is included in the collections Inconstant Moon (1973), N-Space (1990) and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Stan and Leslie watch as the moon becomes impossibly bright; then the sky lights up and seems on fire. Has the sun gone nova and these are their last few hours alive? As Los Angeles drowns in storms and people move from shock to terror, Stan and Leslie face their own mortality, as Stan seeks to understand what has happened.

Written with intelligence and humor, Larry Niven's Hugo Award-winning short story became an "Outer Limits" episode. "Inconstant Moon" invites you to ask yourself, "How would you spend your last night on Earth?"

Table of Contents:

• Inconstant Moon - (1971)
• Wait It Out - (1968)
• Bordered in Black - (1966)
• Not Long Before the End - (1969)
• How the Heroes Die - (1966)
• At the Bottom of a Hole - (1966)
• Passerby - [State] - (1969)
• The Deadlier Weapon - non-genre - (1968)
• Convergent Series - (1967)
• One Face - (1965)
• Becalmed in Hell - (1965)
• Death by Ecstasy - (1969)

Here is an extraordinary mix of fantasy and science fiction from one of the masters of science fiction, Larry Niven.

The stories in this collection include some collaborations with authors such as Jerry Pournelle (Spirals) and Steven Barnes (The Locusts), as well as stories written by Niven himself.

Larry Niven's credits include the award-winning Ringworld series, his "Known Space" novels and the Man-Kzin anthologies. His collaborations with Jerry Pournelle include such titles as Lucifer's Hammer, Inferno and The Mote in God's Eye.

Table of Contents:

• The Lion in His Attic
• Spirals - with Jerry Pournelle
• A Teardrop Falls
• Talisman - with Dian Girard
• Flare Time
• The Locusts - with Steven Barnes
• Yet Another Modest Proposal: The Roentgen Standard (essay)
• Folk Tale
• The Green Marauder
• War Movie
• The Real Thing
• Limits

Monumental devastation will sweep across the globe if the newly-discovered Hamner-Brown comet collides with the one major obstacle in its path: Earth.

For millionaire Tim Hamner, the comet is a ticket to immortality. For filmmaker Harvey Randall, it's a shot to redeem a flagging career. And for astronauts John Baker and Rick Delanty, it's a second chance for glory in outer space.

But for a world gripped by comet fever, fascination quickly turns to fear. And only those who survive the impact will know the even greater terror, when rich and poor, politicians and killers, turn to each other or against each other--and the remnants of humanity grow savage to battle for what little remains...

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.

In the near future, Los Angeles is an all but uninhabitable war zone, racked by crime, violence, pollution and poverty. But above the blighted city, a Utopia has arisen: Todos Santos, a thousand-foot high single-structured city, designed to use state-of-the-art technology to create a completely human-friendly environment, offering its dwellers everything they could want in exchange for their oath of allegiance and their constant surveillance.

But there are those who want to see the utopia destroyed, whose answer to tomorrow's best and brightest hope is mindless violence.

And they have just entered Todos Santos. . . .

Playgrounds of the Mind captures the startling range and variety of Larry Niven's spectacular career, from bestselling novels such as Lucifer's Hammer and The Ringworld Engineers, from his classic short stories of science fiction and fantasy, from his thought-provoking essays and non-fiction, from his innovative and seldom-seen work in comics (on such projects as The Green Lantern Bible), to an advance look at Larry Niven's upcoming projects.

Table of Contents:

• A Teardrop Falls - (1983) - short story by Larry Niven
• Inferno (excerpt) - (1976) - short fiction by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• Rammer - (1971) - novelette by Larry Niven
• Becalmed in Hell - (1965) - short story by Larry Niven
• Wait It Out - (1968) - short story by Larry Niven
• A Relic of the Empire - (1966) - novelette by Larry Niven
• Lucifer's Hammer (excerpt) - (1977) - novella by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The Soft Weapon - (1967) - novelette by Larry Niven
• The Borderland of Sol - (1975) - novelette by Larry Niven
• The Ringworld Engineers (excerpt) - (1979) - short fiction by Larry Niven
• What Good Is a Glass Dagger? - (1972) - novelette by Larry Niven
• The Magic Goes Away (excerpt) - (1978) - short fiction by Larry Niven
• The Defenseless Dead - (1973) - novelette by Larry Niven
• The Patchwork Girl (excerpt) - (1980) - short story by Larry Niven
• Leviathan! - (1970) - short story by Larry Niven
• Oath of Fealty (excerpt) - (1981) - short fiction by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• Unfinished Story - (1970) - short story by Larry Niven
• Cautionary Tales - (1978) - short story by Larry Niven
• The Dreadful White Page - (1988) - short story by Larry Niven
• Retrospective - (1980) - short story by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
• The Green Marauder - (1980) - short story by Larry Niven
• Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing - (1978) - short story by Larry Niven
• War Movie - (1981) - short story by Larry Niven
• Limits - (1981) - short story by Larry Niven
• Bigger Than Worlds - (1974) - essay by Larry Niven
• One Night at the Draco Tavern - (1984) - short story by Larry Niven
• Criticism - (1989) - essay by Larry Niven
• The Legacy of Heorot (excerpt) - (1987) - short fiction by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes
• The Portrait of Daryanree the King - (1989) - short story by Larry Niven
• The Wishing Game - (1989) - short story by Larry Niven
• The Lion in His Attic - [Magic Goes Away] - (1982) - short story by Larry Niven
• Footfall (excerpt) - (1992) - short fiction by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• Wanted Fan - (1991) - poem by Larry Niven
• Letter (to Ralph Vicinanza Ltd.) - (1991) - essay by Larry Niven

Five-time Hugo Award winner Larry Niven weaves together time travel and fantasy to create an utterly unique novel on the origin of the Martian "canals." Thought-provoking, vivid, viciously smart, and wildly funny, Rainbow Mars is sci-fi at its best.

Hanville Svetz was born into a future to match the sorriest predictions of Greenpeace. Most of Earth's original life forms are extinct. It is Svetz's job to go back in time and retrieve them, or at least it was until his Institute for Temporal Research was transferred. Now, with a new boss obsessed with stars and planets, Svetz must figure out why the Martian canals have gone dry and what that means for Earth's future.

Because Mars was inhabited. When Svetz learns how the sapient Martian species were wiped out, he realizes that Earth could soon fall victim to a similar fate. Together with his dog, Wrona, a visitor from the distant past, and Miya, an astronaut with her own complex history, Svetz must struggle to unravel a puzzle that will tax not just his rational mind, but the very limits of his imagination.

Table of Contents:

• Rainbow Mars - novel
• The Flight of the Horse - (1969) - short story
• Leviathan! - (1970) - short story
• Bird in the Hand - (1970) - novelette
• There's a Wolf in My Time Machine - (1971) - short story
• Death in a Cage - (1973) - short story
• Afterword: Svetz and the Beanstalk - essay

The future is a strange and dangerous place. Chaz Kato can testify to that. He is a citizen of Xanudu, a city-sized artificial island populated by some of the wealthiest men and women on future Earth. A place filled with hidden wonders and dark secrets of technology gone awry. Lenore Myles is a student when she travels to Xanadu and becomes involved with Chaz Kato. She is shocked when she uses Kato's access codes to uncover the grizzly truth behind Xandu's glittering facade.

Not knowing who to trust, Lenore finds herself on the run. Saturn, a mysterious entity, moves aggressively to break the security breach. With interests of the world's wealthiest people at stake, and powerful technology at it's fingertips, Saturn, puts Lenore racing for her life, against a truly formidable foe.

Another dazzling collection of fact, fiction, and wit from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning master of hard science fiction!

Larry Niven is the New York Times bestselling author of such classic science fiction novels as Ringworld and Destiny's Road. His previous collection, N-Space, was lauded by the Houston Post as "outstanding... hours of entertainment," while Publishers Weekly called it "a must for science fiction fans." A follow-up volume, Playgrounds of the Mind, was similarly praised by Kirkus Reviews: "An abundance of Niven's curious yet disciplined inventiveness and his fun-filled knack for turning seemingly absurd notions into credible, absorbing fiction. Grand entertainment."

Now, ten years later, Scatterbrain collects an equally engaging assortment of Niven's latest work, all in one captivating volume. Here are choice excerpts from several of his most recent novels, including his upcoming Ringworld's Child and Rainbow Mars, as well as numerous short stories, nonfiction articles, interviews, editorials, collaborations, and correspondence. True to its title, Scatterbrain roams all over a wide variety of fascinating topics, featuring Niven's singular insights into everything from space stations to convention etiquette.

So give yourself a treat, and feel free to pick the brain-or Scatterbrain-of one of modern science fiction's most fascinating thinkers.

Table of Contents:

• Autograph Etiquette - (2003) - essay
• Canon for the Man-Kzin Wars - (2003) - essay
• Collaboration - (1984) - essay
• Destiny's Road: Excerpted from Novel - (2003) - shortfiction
• Did the Moon Move for You Too? - (2003) - essay
• Discussion with Brenda Cooper Re: "Ice and Mirrors" - (2003) - essay
• Epilogue: What I Tell Librarians - (2003) - essay
• Handicap - (2003) - essay
• How to Save Civilization and Save a Little Money - (2003) - essay
• Hugo Award Anecdotes - (2003) - essay
• Ice and Mirrors: Collaboration with Brenda Cooper (excerpt) - (2003) - shortfiction with Brenda Cooper
• Intercon Trip Report - (2003) - essay
• Introduction to Pete Hamilton Story "Watching Trees Grow" - (2003) - essay
• Introduction: Where Do I Get My Crazy Ideas? - (2003) - essay
• Introductory Material for Man-Kzin Wars II - (2003) - essay
• Learning to Love the Space Station - (2003) - essay
• Loki - (2000) - shortstory
• Mars: Who Needs It? - (2003) - essay
• Procrustes - (1993) - novella
• Ringworld's Children (excerpt) - shortfiction
• Saturn's Race (Excerpt) - (2003) - shortfiction with Steven Barnes
• Saturn's Race: Collaboration with Steven Barnes - (2003) - essay
• Smut Talk: A Draco Tavern Story - [Draco Tavern] - (2003) - shortstory (variant of Smut Talk 2000)
• Tabletop Fusion - (1993) - essay
• Telepresence - (2003) - essay with Marvin Minsky
• The Burning City: Collaboration with Jerry Pournelle (Excerpt) - (2003) - shortfiction with Jerry Pournelle
• The Ringworld Throne: Excerpted from Novel - (2003) - shortfiction
• The Woman in Del Rey Crater - (1995) - novelette

Niven returns with the sequel to his most recent collection, Scatterbrain, which gathers an equally engaging assortment of Niven's latest work, all in one captivating volume. Here are choice excerpts from his most recent novels, including Ringworld's Child, as well as short stories, non-fiction, interviews, editorials, collaborations, and correspondence. Stars and Gods roams all over a wide variety of fascinating topics, from space stations to conventional etiquette.

Give yourself a treat, and feel free to pick the brain of one of modern science fiction's most fascinating thinkers.

With the publication of his first story, 'The Coldest Place', in 1964 Larry Niven launched one of the most important careers in the history of science fiction. Over the next decade his stunning hard science fiction won four short fiction Hugo Awards and both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his all-time classic novel, Ringworld.

But it was the short stories that amazed and astounded first. Stories like 'The Coldest Place', 'Becalmed in Hell', 'Neutron Star', and 'All the Myriad Ways' set the boundaries for 'Known Space', one of science fiction s grandest future histories, while Niven also explored the classic tavern story in his 'Draco's Tavern' sequence and even fantasy in his 'Magic Goes Away' stories.

Astoundingly, there has never been a single compendium the focused solely on Niven's best short fiction until now. The Best of Larry Niven collects no less than twenty seven stories written over a period of thirty-five years, bringing together some of the best-loved stories in science fiction for the first time, along with some overlooked classics. Whether this is your first time in Known Space or you're visiting old friends in Draco's Tavern, The Best of Larry Niven is unforgettable

Table of Contents:

• Becalmed in Hell
• Bordered in Black
• Neutron Star
• The Soft Weapon
• The Jigsaw Man
• The Deadlier Weapon
• All the Myriad Ways
• Not Long Before the End
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
• Inconstant Moon
• Rammer
• Cloak of Anarchy
• The Fourth Profession
• Flash Crowd
• The Defenceless Dead
• The Flight of the Horse
• The Hole Man
• Night On Mispec Moor
• Flatlander
• The Magic Goes Away
• Cautionary Tales
• Limits
• A Teardrop Falls
• The Return of William Proxmire
• The Borderland of Sol
• Smut Talk
• The Missing Mass

It's the American Revolution all over again. But this time it's a ragtag band of space colonists vs. the United States. And the fate of the world hangs by a thread - 200 miles above the Earth.

From the mind of #1 New York Times bestselling author Larry Niven, come twenty-six tales and vignettes from this interplanetary gathering place, collected for the first time in one volume.

When a tremendous spacecraft took orbit around the Earth's moon and began sending smaller landers down toward the North Pole, the newly arrived visitors quickly set up a permanent spaceport at Mount Forel in Siberia. Their presence attracted many, and a few people grew conspicuously rich from secrets they learned from talking to the aliens. One of these men, Rick Schumann established a tavern catering to all of various species of visiting aliens, a place he named the Draco Tavern.

This collection includes:

"The Subject Is Closed": A priest visits the tavern and goes one-on-one with a chirpsithra alien on the subject of God and life after death.

"Table Mannners: A Folk Tale": Rick Schumann is invited to hunt with five folk aliens, but he's not quite sure what their hunt entails, or if he will be the hunted.

"Wisdom of Demons": The age-old question of wisdom vs. knowledge is asked when Rick is confronted by a human who has been granted the wisdom of an individual gligstith(click)optok alien.

"Losing Mars" in this unpublished tale, a group of aliens who call Mars and its moon home, arrive at the Tavern only to find that humans have mostly forgotten about their neighboring planet.

Contains:

• The Subject is Closed
• Grammar Lesson
• Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!
• The Schumann Computer
• The Green Marauder
• The Real Thing
• War Movie
• Limits
• Table Manners
• One Night at the Draco Tavern
• The Heights
• The Wisdom of Demons
• Smut Talk
• SSoroghod's People
• The Missing Mass
• The Convergence of the Old Mind
• Chyrsalis
• The Death Addict
• Storm Front
• The Slow Ones
• Cruel and Unusual
• The One Who Stay Home
• Breeding Maze
• Playhouse
• Lost
• Losing Mars
• Playground Earth

We don't know where on Earth you'll wind up,' Ra Chen had told him. And the Director of the Institute for Temporal Research didn't know precisely when, either. All he knew was that Hanville Svetz would be travelling back in time almost 2,000 years. But when he comes back, Hanville Svetz won't be alone. If his mission is successful he will be accompanied by a creature long extinct - a spectacular birthday present for the Secretary-General. His only help is a picture from a child's picture book. A picture of a horse. And so begins the first incredible adventure in time of Hanville Svetz.

Table of Contents:

• The Flight of the Horse - (1969) - shortstory
• Leviathan! - (1970) - shortstory
• Bird in the Hand - (1970) - novelette
• There's a Wolf in My Time Machine - (1971) - shortstory
• Death in a Cage - shortstory
• Flash Crowd - novella
• What Good Is a Glass Dagger? - (1972) - novelette
• Afterword - essay

This funny and insightful science fiction classic introduces Shoogar, the greatest wizard ever known in his village. His spells can strike terror in the hearts of even his most powerful enemies. But the enemy he faces now is like none he has ever seen before. The stranger has come from nowhere and is ignorant of even the most basic principles of magic. But the stranger has an incredibly powerful magic of his own. There is no room in Shoogar's world for an intruder whose powers match his own, let alone one whose powers might exceed his. So before the blue sun can cross the face of the red sun once more, Shoogar will show this stranger just who is boss.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Quark/4 (1971), edited by Marilyn Hacker and Samuel R. Delany. The story can also be found in the anthologies The 1972 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (1972), edited by Terry Carr Project Solar Sail (1990), edited by Arthur C. Clarke and David Brin. The story is included in the collections A Hole in Space (1974), N-Space (1991), and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Doctor Toby Glyer has effected miracle cures with the use of nanotechnology. But Glyer's controversial nanites are more than just the latest technological advance, they are a new form of life, and they have more uses than just medical. Glyer's nanites also have the potential to make everyone on Earth rich from the wealth of asteroids.

Twenty-five years ago, the Briareus mission took nanomachinery out to divert an Earth-crossing asteroid and bring it back to be mined, only to drop out of contact as soon as it reached its target. The project was shut down and the technology was forcibly suppressed.

Now, a much, much larger asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, and the Briareus nanites may be responsible. While the government scrambles to find a solution, Glyer knows that their only hope of avoiding Armageddon lies in the nanites themselves. On the run, Glyer must track down his old partner, William Connors, and find a way to make contact with their wayward children.

As every parent learns, when you produce a new thinking being, the plans it makes are not necessarily your plans. But with a two-hundred-gigaton asteroid that rivals the rock that felled the dinosaurs hurtling toward Earth, Glyer and Connors don't have time to argue. Will Glyer's nanites be Earth's salvation or destruction?

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1974. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4 (1975), edited by Terry Carr, The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov, Black Holes and Other Marvels (1978), edited by Jerry Pournelle, The Best of Analog (1978), edited by Ben Bova and The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collections A Hole in Space (1974), N-Space (1990) and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, June 1979. The story can also be found in the anthology The 1980 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha. The story is included in the Niven collections Limits (1985) and N-Space (1990) and the Barnes collection Assassin and Other Stories (2010).

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology What Might Have Been? Volume 1: Alternate Empires (1989), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Gregory Benford. The story is included in the collection N-Space (1990).

The Seascape Tattoo: the latest spellbinding adventure in Larry Niven's acclaimed collaborations with Steven Barnes!

Aros of Azteca and Neoloth-Pteor are the deadliest of enemies: Swordsman and Sorcerer, locked in mortal combat, who have tried to kill each other more times than either can count. But when the princess Neoloth loves is kidnapped, there is only one plan that offers any hope of rescue... and that requires passing off the barbarian Aros as a lost princeling and infiltrating the deadliest cabal of necromancers the world has ever seen. They cannot trust each other. They will betray or kill each other the first chance they get. But they're all each other has.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, April 1965. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Ninth Galaxy Reader (1966), edited by Frederik Pohl and Voyagers in Time: Twelve Stories of Science Fiction (1967), edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collection Convergent Series (1979).

In this first collaboration by science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths...and it's on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when the explorers are separated--one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape--the mystery of the Bowl's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that will transform their understanding of their place in the universe.

Science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape) continue the thrilling adventure of a human expedition to another star system that is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure cupping a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths. And which, tantalizingly, is on a direct path heading toward the same system the human ship is to colonize.

Investigating the Bowl, or Shipstar, the human explorers are separated--one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape--while the mystery of the Shipstar's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that transform their understanding of their place in the universe.

Audacious astronauts encounter bizarre, sometimes deadly life forms, and strange, exotic, cosmic phenomena, including miniature black holes, dense fields of interstellar plasma, powerful gravity-emitters, and spectacularly massive space-based, alien-built labyrinths. Tasked with exploring this brave, new, highly dangerous world, they must also deal with their own personal triumphs and conflicts.

They were all playing games.... but one of them was playing for keeps.

Chet Henderson was playing at revenge, an to boost his flagging reputation as a Lore-master.

Richard Lopez was playing to prove this his earlier successes as a Gamemaster were no fluke.

Ollie and Gwen and Mary-em and Tony were playing because it made them feel alive.

Alex Griffin was playing to protect Dream Park's darkest secret.

In Dream Park, everyone plays. But if some win, some have to lose. And losing can be a matter of life or death.

Eviane's first visit to the-state-of-art amusement arena Dream Park ended in disaster: the special effects had seemed more real than life... until the holograms she was shooting with live ammunition turned out to be solid flesh and blood... and very, very dead.

Haunted by the past, rebounding from a lengthy spell in a mental hospital, she has returned to Dream Park to exorcise a nightmare that has become reality. But in Dream Park, nothing is what it seems. The Inuit mythology controlling the images is part of a "Fat Ripper Special" designed to implant new behavioral memes. The players are struggling against the game master, one another, and their own demons. And there is a killer who wants to ensure Eviane never regains her memory... no matter what it costs.

Dream Park, the ultimate in amusement parks, was about to embark on the greatest Game ever: the California Voodoo Game. Across the world bets were being placed; fortunes and reputations hung in the balance. Gaming careers would be made--or destroyed. And the most advanced software package ever invented was going to be tested.

But one of the players was a murderer--and worse. Only Alex Griffin, head of Dream Park Security, and Game Master Tony McWhirter guessed the extent of the treachery tainting the Game. Somehow, they had to catch the killer--but above all, the Game must go on....

The Year: 2085. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system. A stable lunar colony is agitating for independence. Lunar tourism is on the rise...

Against this background, professional "Close Protection" specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself. Having left Luna--and a treasured marriage--years ago due to a near-tragic accident, Scotty leaps at the opportunity.

Live Action Role Playing attracts a very special sort of individual: brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, and addicted to problem solving. By kidnapping a dozen gamers in the middle of the ultimate game, watched by more people than any other sporting event in history, they have thrown down an irresistible gauntlet: to "win" the first game that ever became "real." Pursued by armed and murderous terrorists, forced to solve gaming puzzles to stay a jump ahead, forced to juggle multiple psychological realities as they do...this is the game for which they've prepared their entire lives, and they are going to play it for all it's worth.

The oldest children of the settlers on Avalon are now in their late teens and want independence from their parents and guardians. They especially don't want parents around for an initiation ceremony, held on Black Ship Island, for the younger children just reaching their teens. But when previously unknown creatures make their deadly appearance, things go horribly wrong...

A novella set before the events that unfold in BEOWULF'S CHILDREN.

Bestselling science-fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of rising young author Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind's first outpost in the farthest reaches of space.

This powerhouse trio of science fiction greats united to further explore the island paradise of Camelot from their classic novel, Legacy of Herorot. A new generation is growing up on the island paradise of Camelot, ignorant of the Great Grendel Wars fought when their parents and grandparents first arrived on Earth. Setting out for the mainland, this group of young rebels feels ready to fight any grendels that get in their way. On Avalon, however, there are monsters which dwarf the ones their parents fought, and as the group will soon learn, monsters also dwell in the human heart.

Avalon was thriving. The cold sleep colonists from Earth had settled on a verdant, livable world. The fast and cunning predators humans named "grendels" were under control, and the mainland outposts well established. Avalon's new mainland hydroelectric power station was nearly complete, and when on-line would compensate for the nuclear power systems lost in the Grendel Wars. Humans would have power, and with power came the ability to make all the necessities for life. They would survive.

They would not survive as a spacefaring people.

What they were losing faster than they knew was the ability to get to space. But unbeknownst to the planet-bound humans, something was moving out there in the stars, decelerating at a rate impossible for a natural object. And its destination was Avalon. The most probable origin was Earth's Solar System.

After being thrown out the window of his luxury apartment, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the Nine Layers of Hell led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures. As he struggles to escape, he's taken through new, puzzling, and outlandish versions of sin--recast for the present day.

Allan Carpenter escaped from hell once but remained haunted by what he saw and endured.

He has now returned, on a mission to liberate those souls unfairly tortured and confined.

Partnering with the legendary poet and suicide, Sylvia Plath, Carpenter is a modern-day Christ who intends to harrow hell and free the damned.

But now that he's returned to this Dantesque Inferno, can he ever again leave?

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1965. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories 1965 (1966), edited by Damon Knight, World's Best Science Fiction: 1966, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, Twenty Years of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1970), edited by Edward L. Ferman and Robert P. Mills, A Science Fiction Argosy (1972), edited by Damon Knight, and Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections All the Myriad Ways (1971), Inconstant Moon (1973), Tales of Known Space (1975), Playgrounds of the Mind (1991), and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in If, October 1966. The story can also be found in the anthologies Where Do We Go from Here? (1971), and The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70), both edited by Isaac Asimov, The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverberg, and Worlds of If: A Retrospective Anthology (1986), Joseph D. Olander, Martin Harry Greenberg and Frederik Pohl. It is included in the collections Neutron Star (1968), Crashlander and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Hugo Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1975. The story can also be found in the anthologies Black Holes and Other Marvels (1978), edited by Jerry Pournelle, The Hugo Winners, Volume 4: (1976-79) (1985), edited by Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collections Tales of Known Space (1975), Playgrounds of the Mind (1991), and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Dangerous Visions (1967). The story can also be found in the anthology The Road to Science Fiction 3: From Heinlein to Here (1979), edited by James Gunn. It is included in the collections All the Myriad Ways (1971), Tales of Known Space (1975), and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

A reflective statue is found at the bottom of one of Earth's oceans, having lain there for 1.5 billion years. Since humans have recently developed a time slowing field and found that one such field cannot function within another, it is suspected that the "Sea Statue" is actually a space traveler within one of these time fields. Larry Greenberg, a telepath, agrees to participate in an experiment: a time-slowing field is generated around both Greenberg and the statue, shutting off the stasis field and revealing Kzanol. Kzanol is a living Thrint a member of a telepathic race that once ruled the galaxy through mind control.

One of Niven's most beloved characters, Beowulf Shaeffer, is forced to take a dangerous mission to explore a neutron star. The last group who went there never came back alive, but Shaeffer faces life imprisonment if he doesn't take the job. Will he determine the mysterious force that turned the prior crew to hamburger before he suffers a similar fate?

Hugo Award winner "Neutron Star" and seven other groundbreaking stories and novellas by the author of RINGWORLD. Well-known Niven characters -- including Beowulf Schaeffer, Sigmund Ausfaller, Nessus and other alien Puppeteers, the ferocious Kzinti -- appear in these pages. As Tom Clancy says, "The scope of Larry Niven's work is so vast that only a writer of supreme talent could disguise the fact as well as he can."

Contents:

• Neutron Star
• A Relic of the Empire
• At the Core
• The Soft Weapon
• Flatlander
• The Ethics of Madness
• The Handicapped
• Grendel

Plateau, a colony in the Tau Ceti system, was settled by humans some 300 years before the plot begins. The colony world itself is a Venusian type planet with a dense, hot, poisonous atmosphere. It would be otherwise uninhabitable, except for a tall monolithic mesa that rises 40 miles up into a breathable layer in the upper atmosphere. This gives the planet a habitable area about half the size of California. The Captain of the first colony vessel named the feature Mount Lookitthat (from his interjection at first sight of it), and the colony became known as Plateau.

After landing the slower-than-light ships, the Crew sign an agreement, called the Covenant of Planetfall, with their former passengers (who had just emerged from suspended animation and were in a weak bargaining position). This agreement gives the Crew (and their descendants in perpetuity) all control over the new colony. A system of medical care evolves, in which organ transplantation is the only method of treatment, even for cosmetic defects (such as baldness); a justice system evolves, with all crimes punishable by death, followed by involuntary donation of the decedent's transplantable organs (including skin, scalp, and teeth). Not surprisingly, only Colonists are ever arrested for crimes; and only Crew are eligible to receive transplants. Some Colonists become dissatisfied with the system and form a dissident group called the "Sons of Earth."

This collection brings together some of Niven's best hardcore science fiction material, and a sampling of stories strange, stories earthbound, and some just straight stories that belong in anybody's best.

Table of Contents:

• The Warriors (1966) - short story
• Safe at Any Speed (1967) - short story
• How the Heroes Die (1966) - novelette
• At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) - novelette
• Bordered in Black (1966) - short story
• Like Banquo's Ghost (1968) - short story
• One Face (1965) - novelette
• The Meddler (1968) - novelette
• Dry Run (1968) - short story
• Convergent Series (1967) - short story (variant of The Long Night)
• The Deadlier Weapon - non-genre (1968) - short story
• Death by Ecstasy - [Gil Hamilton] (1969) - novella

Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission: save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before...

Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days -- Brennan figured to meet that ship first...

He was never seen again -- at least not by those alive at the time.

Ranging from the 20th Century to the 31st, these interconnected stories trace Man's expansion and colonization throughout the galaxy...

Becalmed in hell
Howie's spaceship had a malfunction... but it might be only psychosomatic!

Wait it out
He was trapped on Pluto... and all his assets were frozen!

The borderland of Sol
Forward possessed the ultimate weapon... but no one would ever see it!

The jigsaw man
The organ banks want you... now!

Cloak of anarchy
They were free to be anything but violent... but that wasn't enough!

-- plus eight other great stories in Niven's spectacular cycle of the future... and, special for this volume, a complete Niven bibliography and a detailed chronology of all his Known Space stories!

Contents

• The Coldest Place
• Becalmed in Hell
• Wait It Out Eye of an Octopus
• How the Heroes Die
• The Jigsaw Man
• At the Bottom of a Hole Intent to Deceive (variant of The Deceivers)
• Cloak of Anarchy
• The Warriors
• The Borderland of Sol
• There Is a Tide
• Safe at Any Speed

Crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer has long been one of the most popular characters in Known Space. Now, for the first time ever, Larry Niven brings together all the Beowulf Shaeffer stories--including a brand-new one--in one long tale of exploration and adventure! PLUS--an all-new framing story that pulls together all of Beowulf Shaeffer's adventures and allows Shaeffer and his family to make a clean start at life once and for all!

Table of Contents:

• Ghost - novelette
• Neutron Star - (1966) - novelette
• At the Core - (1966) - novelette
• Flatlander - (1967) - novelette
• Grendel - (1968) - shortstory
• The Borderland of Sol - (1975) - novelette
• Procrustes - (1993) - novella

Fleet of Worlds marks Larry Niven's first full novel-length collaboration within his Known Space universe, the playground he created for his bestselling Ringworld series. Teaming up with fellow SF writer Edward M. Lerner, Fleet of Worlds takes a closer look at the Human-Puppeteer (Citizens) relations and the events leading up to Niven's first Ringworld novel.

Kirsten Quinn-Kovacs is among the best and brightest of her people. She gratefully serves the gentle race that rescued her ancestors from a dying starship, gave them a world, and nurtures them still. If only the Citizens knew where Kirsten's people came from....

A chain reaction of supernovae at the galaxy's core has unleashed a wave of lethal radiation that will sterilize the galaxy. The Citizens flee, taking their planets, the Fleet of Worlds, with them.

Someone must scout ahead, and Kirsten and her crew eagerly volunteer. Under the guiding eye of Nessus, their Citizen mentor, they explore for any possible dangers in the Fleet's path--and uncover long-hidden truths that will shake the foundations of worlds.

For too long, the Puppeteers have controlled the fate of worlds. Now Sigmund is pulling the strings...

Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is Earth's secret weapon, humanity's best defense against all conspiracies, real and potential - and imaginary - of foes both human and alien. Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others?

He may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly superior technologies. Nessus schemes in the shadows with Earth's traitors and adversaries, even after the race he represents abruptly vanishes from Known Space.

As a paranoid, Sigmund had always known things would end horribly for him. Only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all had eluded him. That fog has begun to lift...

But even Sigmund has never imagined how far his investigations will take him - or that his destiny is entwined with the fates of worlds.

Worlds closer to the galatic core than Known Space are --or were-- home to intelligent speciers. Some learned of the core explosion in time to flee. Destroyer of Worlds opens in 2670, ten years after Juggler of Worlds closes; with refugee species fleeing in an armada of ramscoops in the direction of the Fleet of Worlds. The onrushing aliens are recognized as a threat; they have left in their trail a host of desolated worlds: some raided for supplies, some attacked to eliminate competition, and some for pure xenophobia.

Only the Puppeteers might have the resources to confront this threat--but the Puppeteers are philosophical cowards... they don't confront anyone. They need sepoys to investigate the situation and take action for them. The source of the sepoys? Their newly independent former slave world, New Terra.

Fleeing the supernova chain reaction at the galactic core, the cowardly Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds have--just barely--survived. They've stumbled from one crisis to the next: The rebellion of their human slaves. The relentless questing of the species of Known Space. The spectacular rise of the starfish-like Gw'oth. The onslaught of the genocidal Pak.

Catastrophe looms again as past crises return--and converge. Who can possibly save the Fleet of Worlds from its greatest peril yet?

Louis Wu? Trapped in the Wunderland civil war, all he wants is to go home--but the only possible escape will plunge him into unknowable danger.

Ol't'ro? The Gw'oth ensemble mind fled across the stars to establish a colony world free from tyranny. But some problems cannot be left behind, and other problems--like the Fleet of Worlds itself--are racing straight at them.

Achilles? Despite past disgrace, the charismatic Puppeteer politician knows he is destined for greatness. He will do anything to seize power--and to take his revenge on everyone who ever stood in his way.

Nessus? The insane Puppeteer scout is out of ideas, out of resources, with only desperation left to guide him.

Their hopes and fears, dreams and ambitions are about to collide. And the winner takes... worlds.

For decades, the spacefaring species of Known Space have battled over the largest artifact -- and grandest prize -- in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. But without warning, the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets.

Something must justify the blood and treasure that have been spent. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the Puppeteers will be forced to surrender theirs. Everyone knows that the Puppeteers are cowards.

But the crises converging upon the trillion Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds go far beyond even the onrushing armadas:

Adventurer Louis Wu and the exiled Puppeteer known only as Hindmost, marooned together for more than a decade, escaped from the Ringworld before it disappeared. And throughout those years, as he studied Ringworld technology, Hindmost has plotted to reclaim his power...

Ol't'ro, the Gw'oth ensemble mind -- and the Fleet of Worlds' unsuspected puppet master for a century -- is deviously brilliant. And increasingly unbalanced ...

Proteus, the artificial intelligence on which, in desperation, the Puppeteers rely to manage their defenses, is outgrowing its programming -- and the supposed constraints on its initiative...

Sigmund Ausfaller, paranoid and disgraced hero of the lost human colony of New Terra, knows that something threatens his adopted home world -- and that it must be stopped...

Achilles, the megalomaniac Puppeteer -- twice banished, and twice rehabilitated -- sees the Fleet of Worlds' existential crisis as a new opportunity to reclaim supreme power. Whatever the risks...

One way or another, the fabled race of Puppeteers may have come to the end of their days.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Epoch (1975), edited by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood. It is included in the collections The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton (1976) and Flatlander (1995)

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in If, March 1967. The story is included in the collections Neutron Star (1968), Crashlander (1994), and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

Contains:

• Death by Ectasy
• The Defenceless Dead
• ARM

In a break from his usual ARM duties, Hamilton is an acting U.N. Delegate on the moon, attending a conference on Lunar Law. The Belt Delegate, Chris Penzler, is shot by a laser in an apparent murder attempt. The shot came from outside of the window of his personal quarters, which looks out onto the lunar surface. The only person known to be outside on the lunar surface at the time of the attempt is Naomi Mitchison, a tourist and old flame of Gil's.

Gil believes Naomi to be innocent of shooting Penzler, but suspects that she may be lying in order to hide an equally serious crime.

Gil "The Arm" Hamilton was one of the top operatives of ARM, the elite UN police force. His intuition was unfailingly accurate; his detective skills second to none; and his psychic powers -- esper sense and telekinesis -- were awesome.

Tough and deadly, Gil Hamilton could reach right into a person's brain for the truth... or for the kill!

Read all the stories of the legendary ARM operative, collected here in one volume for the very first time.

Table of Contents:

• Death by Ecstasy (1969) - novella
• The Defenseless Dead (1973) - novelette
• ARM (1975) - novella
• Patchwork Girl (1980) - novel
• The Woman in Del Rey Crater - novelette
• Afterword - essay

Pierson's puppeteers, strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens, have discovered an immense structure in a hitherto unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders of such a structure, the puppeteers set about assembling a team consisting of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, an alien not unlike an eight-foot-tall, red-furred cat, to explore it. The artefact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its centre - the Ringworld. But the expedition goes disastrously wrong when the ship crashlands and its motley crew faces a trek across thousands of miles of the Ringworld's surface.

The sequel to "Ringworld". Louis Wu, Speaker-to-Animals, and the Hindmost return to Ringworld. Their aim is to prevent cataclysm. In the process, they find themselves learning Ringworld's incredible secrets.

Come back to the Ringworld... the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered. A place of untold technological wonders, home to a myriad humanoid races, and world of some of the most beloved science fiction stories ever written!

The human, Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee... legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. Something is going on with the Protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld. Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda--if anyone dares approach them to learn.

Each race on the Ringworld has always had its own Protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a Protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld Throne?

Welcome to a world like no other.

The Ringworld: a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band 3 million times the surface area of Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of which are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe.

Explorer Louis Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threaten to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now, the future of Ringworld lies in the actions of its children: Tunesmith, the Ghould protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous in order to save Ringworld's population, and the stability of Ringworld itself.

Blending awe-inspiring science with non-stop action and fun, Ringworld's Children, the fourth installment of the multiple award-winning saga, is the perfect introduction for readers new to this New York Times bestselling series, and long-time fans of Larry Niven's Ringworld.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories Five (1970), edited by James Blish, and The Magic May Return (1981), edited by Larry Niven. It is included in the collections All the Myriad Ways (1971) and The Best of Larry Niven (2010).

The Warlock, whose actual name is both unknown and unpronounceable, is a powerful sorcerer in excess of 200 years of age. He observes that when he stays in one place too long, his powers dwindle and will return only when he leaves that place. Experimentation leads him to create an apparatus (now known as the Warlock's Wheel) consisting of a metal disc enchanted to spin perpetually. The enchantment eventually consumes all the mana in the vicinity, causing a localized failure in all magic. The Warlock realizes that magic is fueled by a non-renewable rescource, which would cause great concern among the magicians, as it was through their magic that nations enforced their wills both internally and abroad.

The widespread diminishing of magical power in The Magic Goes Away triggered a quest on the part of the most powerful of the magicians of the time to harness a new source of magic (the Moon), resulting in the events described in the book.

Once there was unlimited magic, but reckless magicians have used up the "mana", the power behind the magic. Larry Niven opens his world to the storytelling talents of Poul Anderson, Steven Barnes, Mildred Downey Broxon, and Dean Ing with stories that tap the hidden reserves of mana and uncover the forgotten places of power.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1981) - essay by uncredited
• Not Long Before the End - (1969) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• Earthshade - (1981) - novelette by Fred Saberhagen
• Manaspill - (1981) - novelette by Dean Ing
• "...but fear itself" - (1981) - novelette by Steven Barnes
• Strength - (1981) - novella by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon

Four stories describe a world of warlocks, wizards, werewolves, dervishes, unicorns, and the magical power of mana.

Table of Contents:

• The Lion in His Attic - (1982) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• Shadow of Wings - novelette by Bob Shaw
• Talisman - (1981) - novelette by Larry Niven and Dian Girard
• Mana from Heaven - (1983) - novelette by Roger Zelazny

You've been tempted by short stories about them, and mention of them as something in the distant past in novels like Ringworld. Now, here's the first a series of collected stories by various authors on the Man-Kzin Wars!

All of them.

This book opens with a short story by Larry Niven about the very first encounter of peaceful humans with the warlike kzinti - and how even peaceful people can create a weapon.

The second novella-length story is by master SF wordsmith Poul Anderson, who lends his unmistakeable style to a story about what happens when the kzinti get hyperdrive.

Dean Ings finishes the collection with another novella about what happens when a human gets hunted by armed kzinti in a wilderness - and it's not what you expect.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (The Man-Kzin Wars) - essay by Larry Niven
• 5 - The Warriors - [Known Space] - (1966) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• 27 - Iron - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Poul Anderson
• 179 - Cathouse - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1988) - novella by Dean Ing

Born and 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.

Contents:

• vii - Introduction (The Man-Kzin Wars II) - essay by Larry Niven
• 3 - Briar Patch - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Dean Ing
• 136 - The Children's Hour - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling

The Mind Slavers are back--and only the cat-like Kzinti can save mankind now. This volume includes all-new tales of Larry Niven's Known Space--including one by Niven himself. Another blockbuster in the ongoing chronicle of humanity's greatest war.

Contents:

• 3 - Madness Has Its Place - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1990) - novelette by Larry Niven
• 37 - The Asteroid Queen - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling
• 169 - Inconstant Star - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Poul Anderson

Contents:

• vii - Introduction: Man-Kzin Wars IV - essay by Larry Niven
• 1 - The Survivor - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1991) - novel by Donald Kingsbury
• 245 - The Man Who Would Be Kzin - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1991) - novella by Greg Bear and S. M. Stirling

After losing three significant battles to the humans, the Kzin begin to wonder if their combative diplomatic style is working and decide to reevaluate their strategy.

Contents:

• 7 - In the Hall of the Mountain King - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novel by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling
• 205 - Hey Diddle Diddle - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Thomas T. Thomas

After two unpleasant defeats at the hands of the humans from Earth, the Kzin have decided a change of strategy is in order. Not scream and leap, but the more subtle feint and pounce.

Contents:

• 3 - The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novel by Donald Kingsbury
• 257 - The Trojan Cat - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Mark O. Martin and Gregory Benford

Bruno is pilot of a starship which is actually a gigantic weapon that may end the war with the Kzin with one swift stroke. But now three shiploads of Kzin are closing in on him and his lady....

Contents:

• 1 - The Colonel's Tiger - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Hal Colebatch
• 79 - A Darker Geometry - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novel by Mark O. Martin and Gregory Benford
• 309 - Prisoner of War - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Paul Chafe

The Kzin had learned of the existence of human-occupied space, a find that promised new technologies for the race, and new wealth for the fierce Kzin Warriors in the form of land, slaves... and food. Kzin had sent ships to probe the Solar System, expecting no danger from mere weed-eating apes. But the Warrior Race had underestimated monkey ingenuity, and the ships were destroyed by "peaceful" technology that the humans had hurriedly changed into weaponry.The surviving Kzin have been caged and are being studied. "For you, the war is over", the monkey-boys have told the Kzin. Incomprehensible to the Kzin, for whom no war is ever over. The humans are sure that the huge warcats cannot escape their prison. But there is something the humans do not realize. One of the Kzin is a telepath....

Contents:

• 1 - Choosing Names - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1998) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• 17 - Telepath's Dance - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1998) - novella by Hal Colebatch
• 129 - Galley Slave - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1996) - novelette by Jean Lamb
• 159 - Jotok - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1998) - novelette by Paul Chafe
• 197 - Slowboat Nightmare - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1998) - novella by Warren W. James

New weapons, new strategies and new leaders - the Kzin (warcats supreme) are on the march again and those contemptible humans had better watch out. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space.

Contents:

• 1 - Pele - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2001) - novella by Poul Anderson
• 97 - His Sergeant's Honor - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Hal Colebatch
• 177 - Windows of the Soul - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Paul Chafe
• 269 - Fly-By-Night - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2000) - novella by Larry Niven

The Kzin were the mightiest warriors in the galaxy, which they were wasting no time in conquering, one star system at a time. Then those feline lords of creation ran into those ridiculous weed-eating pacifistic apes who called themselves "humans." And the catlike Kzin found they had their collective tail caught in a meat grinder. When the mighty Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-infested worlds, they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equipment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Kzin heroes into ribbons. And then those underhanded humans gained a faster-than-light drive, and no amount of screaming and leaping could keep the Kzin from losing their first war in centuries of successful conquest. But you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders: Here they come again and those monkey-boys from Earth had better watch their backs. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space!

Contents:

• 1 - Three at Table - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Hal Colebatch
• 43 - Grossgeister Swamp - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Hal Colebatch
• 121 - Catspaws - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Hal Colebatch
• 269 - Teacher's Pet - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• 317 - War and Peace - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• 353 - The Hunting Park - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortstory by Larry Niven

The Kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, had a hard time dealing with their ignominious defeat by the leaf-eating humans. Some secretly hatched schemes for a rematch, others concentrated on gathering power within the kzin hierarchy, and some shamefully cooperated with the contemptible humans, though often for hidden motives. In war and in uneasy peace, Kzin and Humans continue their adventures.

Contents:

• 1 - Echoes of Distant Guns - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• 15 - Aquila Advenio - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Matthew Joseph Harrington and Hal Colebatch
• 131 - The Trooper and the Triangle - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch
• 149 - String - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch and Matthew Joseph Harrington
• 197 - Peace and Freedom - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• 227 - Independent - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (2009) - shortfiction by Paul Chafe

The perennially best-selling series set in Larry Niven's Man-Kzin universe continues with entry #13 including hard-hitting and thought-inducing tales from a host of talented contributors. The cat-like alien Kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, must learn to compromise with humans if they wish to survive and prosper once again as a species.

Larry Niven's bestselling Man-Kzin series continues! The kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, had a hard time dealing with their ignominious defeat by the leaf-eating humans. Some secretly hatched schemes for a rematch, others concentrated on gathering power within the kzin hierarchy, and some shamefully cooperated with the contemptible humans, though often for hidden motives. In war and in uneasy peace, kzin and humans continue their adventures with a masterful addition to the Man-Kzin Wars shared universe created by multiple New York Times best-seller, incomparable tale-spinner, and Nebula- and five-time Hugo-Award-winner, Larry Niven.

Contents:

• Misunderstanding - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q. Fox
• Two Types of Teeth - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Jane Lindskold
• Pick of the Litter - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novel by Charles E. Gannon
• Tomcat Tactics - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Charles E. Gannon
• At the Gates - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by Alex Hernandez
• Zeno's Roulette - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novelette by David Bartell
• Bound for the Promised Land - [Man-Kzin Wars] - short story by Alex Hernandez

The perennially best-selling series set in Larry Niven's Man-Kzin universe continues with entry #14 including hard-hitting and thought-inducing tales from a host of talented contributors Hal Colebatch, Matthew Joseph Harrington, Alex Hernandez, Jessica Q. Fox, and more. The catlike alien Kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, must learn to compromise with humans if they wish to survive and prosper once again as a species.

Larry Niven's bestselling Man-Kzin series continues! The kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, had a hard time dealing with their ignominious defeat by the leaf-eating humans. Some secretly hatched schemes for a rematch, others concentrated on gathering power within the kzin hierarchy, and some shamefully cooperated with the contemptible humans, though often for hidden motives. In war and in uneasy peace, kzin and humans continue their adventures with a masterful addition to the Man-Kzin Wars shared universe created by multiple New York Times best-seller, incomparable tale-spinner, and Nebula- and five-time Hugo-Award-winner, Larry Niven.

Contents:

• A Man Named Saul - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q. Fox
• Heritage - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• The Marmalade Problem - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch
• Leftovers - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Matthew Joseph Harrington
• The White Column - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch
• Deadly Knowledge - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Hal Colebatch
• Lions on the Beach - [Man-Kzin Wars] - shortfiction by Alex Hernandez

THE POPULAR MAN-KZIN WARS SERIES ROARS BACK INTO ACTION! New stories of the war between humanity and the catlike Kzin from Brad R. Torgersen, Brendan DuBois, Martin L. Shoemaker, and more!

The predatory catlike warrior race known as the Kzin never had a hard time dealing with all those they encountered, conquering alien worlds with little effort. That is until they came face to face with the leaf-eaters known as humans. Small of stature and lacking both claws and fangs, the humans should have been easy prey. But for years now the humans and the Kzin have been engaged in a series of wars, with neither side able to declare decisive victory once and for all.

A new collection of short stories set in the Man-Kzin Wars shared universe created by multiple New York Times best-seller, incomparable tale-spinner, and Nebula- and five-time Hugo-Award-winner, Larry Niven.

In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched.

In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization--at least one million years old--that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they've been unable to solve in over a million years.

Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." The San Francisco Chronicle declared that "as science fiction, The Mote in God's Eye is one of the most important novels ever published." Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award winning authors of such bestsellers as Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot, return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler.

There, 25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered-- a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function. Master, Mediator, Engineer. Warrior. Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For the Moties must breed-- or die. And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.

When he came back from the dead... he wished he hadn't.

Jaybee Corbell awoke after more than 200 years as a corpsicle -- in someone else's body, and under sentence of instant annihilation if he made a wrong move while they were training him for a one-way mission to the stars.

But Corbell picked his time and made his own move. Once he was outbound, where the Society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the Universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors.

Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he'd left... a planet that had had 3,000,000 years to develop perils he had never dreamed of -- perils that became nightmares that he had to escape... somehow!

"Niven has come up with an idea about as far out as one can get.... This is certainly classic science fiction-the idea is truly the hero." -Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

When leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline was prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided (and secretly spied upon) by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. But what they weren't prepared for was the smoke ring-an immense gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free-fall. When Discipline encountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis.

Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.

In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring, the descendants of the crew of the Discipline no longer remembered their Earth roots -- or the existence of Sharls Davis Kendy, the computer-program despot of the ship. Until Kendy initiated contact once more.

Fourteen years later, only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree Scientist, knew that Kendy was still watching -- and waiting. Then the Citizens Tree people rescued a family of loggers and learned for the first time of the Admiralty, a large society living in free fall amid the floating debris called the Clump. And it was likely that the Admiralty had maintained, intact, Discipline's original computer library.

Exploration was a temptation neither Jeffer nor Kendy could resist, and neither Citizens Tree nor Sharls Davis Kendy would ever be the same again...

Loosely based on Larry Niven's 1973 novella "Flash Crowd," Red Tide continues to examine the social consequences of the impact of having instantaneous teleportation, where humans can instantly travel long distances in milliseconds.

"Red Tide", by Larry Niven, is an updated version of his 1973 novella "Flash Crowd", about the social consequences of inventing an instant, practically free transfer booth that can take one anywhere on Earth in milliseconds.

One consequence not foreseen by the builders of the system was that with the almost immediate reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide - along with criminals - would teleport to the scene of anything interesting, thus creating disorder and confusion. The plot centers around a television journalist who, after being fired for his inadvertent role in inciting a post-robbery riot in Los Angeles, decides to independently investigate the teleportation system for the flaws in its design allowing for such spontaneous riots to occur.

"Dial at Random", a companion novelette also by Niven, steps back in time to when the new, experimental long-distance teleportation system is being tested by its inventor. Something goes terribly awry, and a teenage girl is subjected to a bizarre journey.

"Sparky the Dog" a novelette by Brad R. Torgersen, ties the lives of the journalist and inventor together with a flashback to the early days of the teleportation experiments, when the inventor and his dog went on a wild adventure.

"Displacement Activity" a novelette by Matthew J. Harrington, relates the story of a man accidentally teleported far across the galaxy, where he must adapt into a distant future society where humans are not much better than slaves.

Teleportation is a theme that has fascinated Niven throughout his career and even appears in his seminal work Ringworld, where the central character celebrates his birthday by instantly teleporting himself to different time zones, extending his birthday. Niven also discusses the impact of such instantaneous transportation in an included essay, "Exercise in Speculation: The Theory and Practice of Teleportation."