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Larry Niven

(Laurence Van Cott Niven)

(b.1938)

Born in Los Angeles in 1938, Larry Niven has been a full-time writer since leaving UCLA in 1963. A worldwide bestseller, he is best known for the legendary RINGWORLD series, which THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION called "the most energetic future history series ever written". A multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards, Niven was once named by Arthur C Clarke as his favourite author, and his rigorous scientific consistency has earned a reputation as the premier modern author of "hard" SF.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery

Series

Tales of Known Space
   1. The World of Ptavvs (1966)
   2. A Gift from Earth (1968)
   Tales of Known Space (1975)

Ringworld
   1. Ringworld (1970)
   2. The Ringworld Engineers (1979)
   Guide to Larry Niven's Ringworld (1994) (with Kevin Stein)
   3. The Ringworld Throne (1996)
   4. Ringworld's Children (2004)
   5. Fate of Worlds (2012) (with Edward M Lerner)

Moties (with Jerry Pournelle)
   1. The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
   2. The Gripping Hand (1993)
     aka The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye
continued in the series by J R Pournelle

Inferno (with Jerry Pournelle)
1. Inferno (1976)
2. Escape from Hell (2009)

State
   1. A World Out of Time (1976)
   2. The Integral Trees (1984)
   3. The Smoke Ring (1987)

Magic Goes Away
   1. The Magic Goes Away (1978)
   2. The Magic May Return (1981)
   3. More Magic (1984)

Dream Park (with Steven Barnes)
   1. Dreampark (1981)
   2. The Barsoom Project (1989)
   3. The California Voodoo Game (1991)
     aka The Voodoo Game
   4. The Moon Maze Game (2011)

Berserker (with Poul Anderson, Edward Bryant, Stephen Donaldson, Fred Saberhagen, Connie Willis and Roger Zelazny)
7. Berserker Base (1985)

Heorot (with Steven Barnes and Jerry Pournelle)
   1. The Legacy of Heorot (1987)
   1.5. The Secret of Black Ship Island (2012)
   2. Beowulf's Children (1995)
     aka The Dragons of Heorot
   3. Starborn and Godsons (2020)

Golden Road (with Jerry Pournelle)
1. The Burning City (2000)
2. Burning Tower (2005)

Known Space (with Edward M Lerner)
   1. Fleet of Worlds (2007)
   2. Juggler of Worlds (2008)
   3. Destroyer of Worlds (2009)
   4. Betrayer of Worlds (2010)

Bowl of Heaven (with Gregory Benford)
   1. Bowl of Heaven (2012)
   2. Shipstar (2014)
   3. Glorious (2020)

Novels

   The Flying Sorcerers (1971) (with David Gerrold)
   Protector (1973)
   Lucifer's Hammer (1977) (with Jerry Pournelle)
   The Patchwork Girl (1980)
   Oath of Fealty (1981) (with Jerry Pournelle)
   The Descent of Anansi (1982) (with Steven Barnes)
   The Time of the Warlock (1984)
   Footfall (1985) (with Jerry Pournelle)
   Achilles' Choice (1991) (with Steven Barnes)
   Fallen Angels (1991) (with Michael Flynn and Jerry Pournelle)
   Destiny's Road (1995)
   Rainbow Mars (1999)
   Saturn's Race (2000) (with Steven Barnes)
   Building Harlequin's Moon (2005) (with Brenda Cooper)
   The Goliath Stone (2013) (with Matthew Joseph Harrington)
   The Seascape Tattoo (2016) (with Steven Barnes)

Collections

   Neutron Star (1968)
   The Shape of Space (1969)
   All the Myriad Ways (1971)
   Inconstant Moon (1973)
   The Flight of the Horse (1973)
   A Hole in Space (1974)
   The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton (1976)
   Convergent Series (1980)
   Niven's Laws (1984)
   Limits (1985)
   Three Books of Known Space (1989)
   N-Space (1990)
   Playgrounds of the Mind (1991)
   Crashlander (1994)
   Flatlander (1995)
   Larry Niven Short Stories Volume 1 (2003)
   Larry Niven Short Stories Volume 2 (2003)
   Scatterbrain (2003)
   The Draco Tavern (2006)
   Stars and Gods (2010)
   Ringworld's Children / Fleet of Worlds (2016) (with Edward M Lerner)
   Madness from the Inconstant Moon (2017)

Anthologies edited

Ad Astra and Beyond (2016) (with Forrest J Ackerman, John DeChancie, David Gerrold, Charles Lee Jackson II, Len Moffatt, Catherine Lucille Moore and Fred Patten)

Graphic Novels

Death By Ecstasy (1991)

Novellas and Short Stories

   Becalmed In Hell (1965)
   The Jigsaw Man (1967)
   Wait It Out (1968)
   Not Long Before the End (1969)
   Rammer (1997)

Non fiction

Omnibus editions

   Three Trips in Time and Space (1973) (with John Brunner and Jack Vance)
   World of Ptavvs / A Gift from Earth / Neutron Star (1991)
   The Best of Larry Niven (2010)

Series contributed to

Man-Kzin
   1. The Man-Kzin Wars (1988)
   2. The Man-Kzin Wars II (1989)
   3. Man Kzin Wars III (1990)
   4. Man-kzin Wars IV (1991)
   5. Man-Kzin Wars V (1992)
   6. Man-Kzin Wars VI (1994) (with Gregory Benford)
   7. Man-Kzin Wars VII (1995)
   8. Choosing Names (1998)
   9. Man-Kzin Wars IX (2002)
   10. Wunder War (2003) (with Hal Colebatch)
   11. Man-Kzin Wars XI (2005)
   12. Man-Kzin Wars XII (2009)
   13. Man-Kzin Wars XIII (2012)
   14. Man-Kzin Wars XIV (2013)
   The Best of All Possible Wars (1998)
   Destiny's Forge (2005) (with Paul Chafe)
   Man-Kzin Wars XV (2019)

Stellar Guild
Red Tide (2014) (with Matthew Joseph Harrington and Brad R Torgersen)

Black Cat Weekly
28. Black Cat Weekly #28 (2022) (with others)

Anthologies containing stories by Larry Niven

Nebula Award Stories 1 (1966)
Dangerous Visions 2 (1967)
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 190 (1967)
Seven Trips Through Time and Space (1968)
World's Best Science Fiction 1968 (1968)
Nebula Award Stories 5 (1970)
The Best Science Fiction of the Year (1972)
The Hugo Winners: Volume 2, Part 1 (1973)
The Golden Road (1973)
The Best Science Fiction of the Year 4 (1975)
Antigrav (1975)
The Best from Galaxy, Volume IV (1976)
The Best from If, Volume III (1976)
Galaxy Science Fiction Vol. 37 No. 8 (1976)
The Best Science Fiction Stories (1977)
The Hugo Winners: Volume 3, Part 3 (1977)
100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories (1978)
The Best of Analog (1978)
The Science Fictional Solar System (1979)
Aliens! (1980)
Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year 1980 (1981)
Unicorns! (1982)
Sci-Fi Private Eye (1984)
Top Science Fiction (1984)
Great Science Fiction of the 20th Century (1987)
The Man-Kzin Wars (1988)
A Century of Fantasy 1980-1989 (1990)
Aliens and UFO's (1993)
Isaac Asimov's War (1993)
The Ascent of Wonder (1994)
Science Fiction, Science Fact, and You (1995)
How to Save the World (1995)
Tomorrow Bites (1995)
Sisters of the Night (1995)
The Wizards of Odd (1996)
The Way It Wasn't (1996)
Supernatural Sleuths (1996)
Cyber-Killers (1997)
Time Machines (1997)
The Playboy Book of Science Fiction (1998)
A Magic-Lover's Treasury of the Fantastic (1998)
Armageddons (1999)
Explorers (2000)

Short stories

	Bordered in Black
	Cautionary Tales
	Convergent Series [short story]
	The Deadlier Weapon
	Dry Run
	Like Banquo's Ghost
	The Meddler
	Night on Mispec Moor
	The Nonesuch
	One Face
	The Schumann Computer
	Singularities Make Me Nervous
	Transfer of Power
	Wrong Way Street (1965)		Nebula Awards (nominee)
	At the Core (1966)
	Neutron Star [short story] (1966)		Hugo
	A Relic of the Empire (1966)
	The Ethics of Madness (1967)
	Flatlander [short story] (1967)		Nebula Awards (nominee)
	Handicap (1967)
	The Handicapped (1967)
	The Long Night (1967)
	Safe at Any Speed (1967)
	The Soft Weapon (1967)
	All the Myriad Ways [short story] (1968)		Hugo (nominee)
	Grendel (1968)
	Death by Ecstasy [short story] (1969)
	The Flight of the Horse [short story] (1969)
	Leviathan (1970)
	The Fourth Profession (1971)		Hugo (nominee)
	Inconstant Moon [short story] (1971)		Hugo
	Rammer [short story] (1971)
	There's a Wolf in My Time Machine (1971)
	Cloak of Anarchy (1972)
	What Good Is a Glass Dagger? (1972)
	The Alibi Machine (1973)
	The Hole Man (1974)		Hugo
	A Kind of Murder (1974)
	Plaything (1974)
	ARM (1975)		Hugo (nominee)
	The Borderland of Sol (1975)		Hugo
	The Children of the State (part 3) (1976)
	Down and Out (1976)
	Mistake (1976)
	Cruel and Unusual (1977)
	Grammar Lesson (1977)
	Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation (1977)
	The Subject is Closed (1977)
	The Magic Goes Away [short story] (1978)		World Fantasy (nominee)
	The Locusts (1979) (with Steven Barnes)		Hugo (nominee)
	The Green Marauder (1980)
	The Real Thing (1982)
	The Integral Trees (part 3 of 4) (1983)
	The Integral Trees (part 4 of 4) (1984)
	The Warriors (1988)
	Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing (1989)
	The Return of William Proxmire (1989)		Hugo (nominee)
	The Wishing Game (1989)
	Madness Has Its Place (1990)
	Procrustes (1993)
	The South Los Angeles Broadcasting System (1993)
	Song of the Night People (1995)

Awards

	Nebula Awards Best Short Story nominee (1966) : Becalmed In Hell
	Nebula Awards Best Short Story nominee (1966) : Wrong Way Street
	Hugo Best Short Story winner (1967) : Neutron Star [short story]
	Hugo Best Short Story nominee (1968) : The Jigsaw Man
	Nebula Awards Best Novellette nominee (1968) : Flatlander [short story]
	Hugo Best Short Story nominee (1969) : All the Myriad Ways [short story]
	Hugo Best Short Story nominee (1970) : Not Long Before the End
	Nebula Awards Best Short Story nominee (1970) : Not Long Before the End
	Hugo Best Novel winner (1971) : Ringworld
	Nebula Awards Best Novel winner (1971) : Ringworld
	Hugo Best Novella nominee (1972) : The Fourth Profession
	Hugo Best Short Story winner (1972) : Inconstant Moon [short story]
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1974) : Protector
	Hugo Best Short Story winner (1975) : The Hole Man
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1975) : The Mote in God's Eye
	Hugo Best Novella nominee (1976) : ARM
	Hugo Best Novellette winner (1976) : The Borderland of Sol
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1976) : Inferno
	Nebula Awards Best Novel nominee (1976) : The Mote in God's Eye
	Nebula Awards Best Novel nominee (1977) : Inferno
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1978) : Lucifer's Hammer
	World Fantasy Best Short Story nominee (1979) : The Magic Goes Away [short story]
	Hugo Best Novellette nominee (1980) : The Locusts
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1981) : The Ringworld Engineers
	Prometheus Award Best Novel nominee (1983) : Oath of Fealty
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1985) : The Integral Trees
	Nebula Awards Best Novel nominee (1985) : The Integral Trees
	Hugo Best Novel nominee (1986) : Footfall
	Hugo Best Short Story nominee (1990) : The Return of William Proxmire
	Prometheus Award Best Novel winner (1992) : Fallen Angels
	Prometheus Award Best Book nominee (2008) : Fleet of Worlds

Larry Niven recommends

Extinction (2024)
Douglas Preston
"The novel moves like a bullet, and I was hooked throughout. Preston's research and scientific acumen were especially impressive. He really puts you there in the scene and convinces you . . . this is happening! An amazing achievement."

Hot Moon (2022)
(Apollo Rising, book 1)
Alan Smale
"I loved it. Great 'hard' science fiction with convincing space battles."

Space Station Down (2020)
Doug Beason and Ben Bova
"An awesomely realistic thriller."

Primordial Threat (2018)
(Exodus , book 1)
M A Rothman
"Primordial Threat is a good combination of science and adventure fiction."

Twelve Days (2017)
Steven Barnes
"Hellishly exciting - and uplifting."

Another Girl, Another Planet (2017)
Lou Antonelli
"I loved it. Brilliant idea well told."

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