Known Space: The Future Worlds of Larry Niven

Literary Reviews, Essays, Extrapolations and Awards and Bi[bli]ography Sites
Information
Ringworld Movie Information
Graphics Sites
Interviews, Commentary and Public Appearances
Humor
Newsgroups
Mailing Lists
Clubs and Discussion Boards
Everything Else

Literary Reviews, Essays, and Awards

Site Reviews:

Known Space Site Review
A review of the Known Space web pages by John Gosling. This was featured in Issue 5 of the UK Sci-Fi Magazine Infinity, and was voted "Site of the Month" (December 1996). Thanks very much to John and Infinity.
Known Space Site Review
A review of the Known Space web pages by Mark Wilson, from issue #107 of Science Fiction Weekly. They awarded these pages "Site of the Week" for the week commencing 3 May 1999. Thank you SFW!

Book Reviews (specific):

Burning City Review
By Nesssus
Burning City Review
By Bill at sffworld.com
Burning City Review
hosted at SciFi Weekly
Burning City Review
by Frank Gasperik
Burning City Review
by Robert Barror
Convergent Series Review
By Mathematical Fiction, compiled by Alex Kasman
Destiny's Road Review
From Science Fiction Age magazine, July 1997. Transcript courtesy of Dave Collins.
Destiny's Road Review
By John Gosling. Published in SFX Magazine around December 1997.
Destiny's Road Review
By Ernest Lilley by SFRevu.
Destiny's Road Review and Nit List
By Andy Love
Legacy of Heorot Reviews
By Brad Torgersen and Jeff Palermo at sffworld.com
Man Kzin War Story Reviews
by Nesssus and Joel Nap
The Mote in God's Eye Review
By Douglas B. McElroy
Protector Review
By Douglas B. McElroy
Rainbow Mars Review
By Nesssus.
Rainbow Mars Review
By Peter D Tillman hosted by Infinity+
Rainbow Mars Review
By Ernest Lilley of SFRevu
Rammer Review
A review, by Duncan Galloway, of a spoken version of Rammer on compact cassette, released by Infinivox. An unabridged reading by Pat Bottino. You can order the tape from their site for US$10.99.
Ringworld Throne Review
By John Gosling. John reviews all sorts of things SF. Here's his opinion on Niven's third work in the Ringworld series.
Ringworld Review
By Steven H Silver at sffworld.com
Ringworld Review
By Douglas B. McElroy
Ringworld Review
By Harry Raden at Onward Elsewhere.com
Ringworld Review & Ringworld Engineers Review
By W Blaine Dowler of Bureau42.com
Ringworld Study Guide by Frank Wilson
Saturn's Race Review
by Nesssus

Book Reviews (multiple) and Bi{bli}ographies:

Books of Larry Niven
A Work-in-progress page featuring Larry's series'. Page by Epoch.
Bücherliste (list of books)
By Jürgen Weinelt. Jürgen's list includes cover scans and information from Ringworld, The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton, and Fallen Angels (German/English).
Doug's Library - Larry Niven maintained by Douglas B. McElroy
Doug has summaries of many Niven collaborations and has also written his own reviews of Ringworld, Protector and The Mote in God's Eye.
Ebooks at Fictionwise.com
A small, but growing selection of ebooks available for direct download in a variety of ebook formats. If you're local bookstore doesn't stock any Niven or the title you are searching for is now out of print (sigh), this is a good place to try.
Larry Niven section in Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
Formerly España's Science Fiction Page. This site contains a short biography and an extensive bibliography of Larry Niven. There is a fairly extensive list of information on other authors as well.
Larry Niven: Author Information Page
Hosted by booksnbytes.com
Larry Niven biography
At the Dragon Con site.
Larry Niven Bibliography
Hosted by Fantasticfiction.co.uk
Larry Niven Bibliography
Hosted by sfsite.com
Lucifer's Hammer HQ
This site has not been updated in a long time, but does contain a pretty extensive bibliography.
Megastructures
Article by Ross Smith.
Reader's Choice Larry Niven Bookshelf
This site allows you to submit ratings of Larry's latest stories, judging by the scores already submitted there are some real Niven fans out there. The site also has extensive links to other Niven Resources. [I should note that the first link on this link list actually goes to the homepage of a Canadian Professional Photographer, also called Larry Niven, who seems to have the incredibly hard job of photographing beautiful women in swimsuits all day long. Are you sure that you're not *moonlighting*, Larry? ;-) - Nesssus]
Reviews of Larry Niven's books
Archived at The Linköping Science Fiction & Fantasy Archive
Steampunk: Authors : N : Larry Niven
A good selection of reviews and other links are listed on this site.
T&M's Online Bookstore
A selection of Niven reviews. To access the Larry Niven pages, go to Science Fiction, then Larry Niven. Direct link not possible due to the site's framesets.
Thomas Christensen's Book Reviews
Reviews of Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, The Ringworld Throne, N-Space, The Mote in God's Eye, The Gripping Hand and finally the World of Ptavvs.
Known Space Story List A Suggested Reading Order for the new Niven reader by Raja Thiagarajan created after Protector was voted as Book of the Month in May 2003 on the Hard SF yahoo discussion list.

Essays:

Essay
By Richard Finhold and John Carr on Larry Niven's writing. From Science Fiction Writers: critical studies of the major authors from the early 19th century to the present day. edited by E.F. Bleiler.
Essay
By William Laskowski, Jr. on Larry Niven's writing. From Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers by Noelle Watson and Paul E. Schellinger.
Andy Love's "Using Science Fiction for Education" Page
Andy, a teacher, has written study guides for two of Niven's short stories:
- Neutron Star
- Flash Crowd

Extrapolations:

As Niven played with certain aspects of Known Space History in the unfinished novel Down in Flames, so others have challenged assumptions too:

The Tnuctipun Plot
by Phillip and Simon Hibbs
Six Good Reasons Why The Pak Didn't Build The Ringworld
by Simon Hibbs
An Outsider Motivation for Building the Ring
by Jayson Vantuyl (hosted on Simon Hibbs's site)
The Kzin Question: Reconciling the Kzin with the modern Star Trek Universe
A Speculation by Allyn Gibson. This essay asks if the Kzin should be considered part of the Star Trek Universe and if so, how can they be fit into the trek folklore without being contrary to its history. This essay ponders the question of the early trek series, right up to the First Contact movie and postulates a way for the Kzin to exist.

Information

The Larry Niven Web Ring
Nesssus is also the mistress of this ring, which this site is now a part of. The web ring is a useful way of finding interesting Niven-related pages.
Krenon's "larryniven-l" Page
I (Ted Scribner, co-manager of the Known Space web pages) am a long time subscriber and frequent contributor to the larryniven-l mail list. Linked to my parent page is information on forthcoming conventions likely to be attended by Larry Niven, (read the notes or follow the links to find out more about each con; we can't always be certain of Larry's attendance so some of these are in the category of "might attend"). There is also a miscellany of links on this page, eg a filk composed by two fans and based on the Niven-Pournelle book "Footfall", a list of some recommended reading given by Larry to a fan, a reproduction of some posts to larryniven-l that I found interesting, the covers and tables of contents of two "con books" (books published in very limited edition to coincide with a sf conventions) by Larry and (added on 3 February 1999) a list of symptoms that might be acquired from reading too much Larry Niven. This highly fanciful list was drawn from posts to "larryniven-l".
The Kzin Home Page by Nesssus and Joel Nap
Veterans of the "Larry Niven Alien Web Page" genre, Nesssus and Joel have put together a really nice page here. It was inevitable really that they might collaborate, having already individually set up the Puppeteer and Pak home pages (the comment in italics after the puppeteer page entry below also applies here - EAS).
The Pierson's Puppeteer's Home Page by Nesssus
This is a well-organised and comprehensive page devoted to one of the most alien of Niven's creations, the Puppeteers. On this site you will find everything you ever wanted to know about the Puppeteers, including details about their origin, biology, and politics, and also information about particular Puppeteers featured in specific stories. (The above was written by Duncan Galloway and is not Nesssus blowing her own trumpet. However the trio that now manage this site form something of a mutual admiration society so we left it in - EAS.)
Known Space Encyclopaedia by Brian O'Neill
An on-line Encyclopaedia encompassing the Known Space Universe and Man Kzin War stories. Whilst the Encyclopaedia at present is still under construction, it looks as if it will be a useful resource for the on-line Niven information hunter, and well worth a visit. Brian's previous encyclopaedic effort is the Babylon 5 Encyclopaedia. Please note that this site is completely unaffiliated with the Known Space Encyclopadia Yahoogroup: Bruce is doing this one all on his own, and the site managers wish him the best of luck with this mammoth undertaking.
The Up To Date Known space Chronology compiled by I. Marc Carlson
This is a very detailed timeline for the Known Spaceuniverse, with additional contributions by Richard Holmes (see below) and converted to HTML by Larry King. Stories, novels, and significant events are all laid out in a continuous history all the way from the beginning of the universe to the projected end of life as we know it due to the galactic core explosion. Great job, guys.
Known Space Chronology maintained by Richard S. Holmes
This timeline for most of the Known Space stories can also be found in Tales of Known Space. It's invaluable as a guide to the total history and can also be useful for finding stories which you may not have read yet set in a particular time.
The Man-Kzin Wars Page, created by Spike MacPhee
The Man-Kzin Wars series is a collection of books containing stories written in the Known Space universe by authors other than Larry Niven, with his permission of course. Since he has a fair bit of control over what gets published here and what doesn't it's a fairly good bet that they'll be at a pretty high standard. There are some fairly well-known authors too! Now updated with information about Man Kzin Wars VIII.
Russell Martin's Chronological Listing 1.0, also maintained by Spike MacPhee
Chronology of the Man Kzin Wars books, recently updated to include VIII.
Databaun: Nivenverse
An old site that contains a FAQ or PAQ to Larry Niven
Man Kzin War: Companion
A guidebook of the Man Kzin Wars has been written by Alan Michaud. The Guide is called Annals of the Man-Kzin Wars: An Unofficial Companion Guide. You can read an excerpt from this Guide here. However, I am wondering how much of this information was "borrowed" from the Kzin website.
Kzinti Ground Forces Page by Art
Information about the Kzinti Ground Armies during the Man Kzin Wars. The site makes use of several graphics of tiger's heads super-imposed on human soldier's torsos. Sounds like fun!
Larry Niven @ Catharton Authors
Information about the author including a list of links.
Ringworld RPG maintained by David Gordon
David has been working on this new website designed as an on-line information source for the classic Chaosium Ringworld RPG game.
Technovelgy.com
Larry's got 67 entries so far on this interesting site

Ringworld Movie Information

Ringworld Movie News
A page on Known Space to accumulate all the Ringworld Movie News that we find out about.
Ringworld Movie Board
Known Space has its own movie discussion board. Got an opinion about the Ringworld Movie? Don't like the casting choices? Want to hazard a guess as to when it will actually be made? You can leave your opinions here.
Ringworld Movie Buzz
QDE Entertainment obtained the movie rights to Ringworld and the movie was said to be in development. This site is a little sparse but Red Raider welcomes updates, so email him if you have any information. (See also Science Fiction Weekly's News of the Week, April 21 1997). This site is now a little out of date, for more recent information, check out our own Ringworld Movie News page.
Ringworld Movie Listing
From the Coming Attractions Website.
Ain't It Cool News Website: Ringworld Movie Page
This information page denounces James Cameron's involvement in the project following Larry's announcement at the Albacon Convention.
Moviefans.de !!! Ringwelt
A German Ringworld movie fan page.

Graphics Sites

Known Space's Image Gallery
The Pierson's Puppeteer Image Gallery
Concentrating mainly on Puppeteers, the Gallery does feature some original 3D artwork by John C Atkeson, which is very impressive.
The Kzin Image Gallery
Featuring images of the Kzin and cover art of all Man-Kzin War Novels
The Pak Image Galleryby by Joel Nap
Images of the Pak, some particularly impressive renderings by John C. Atkeson
Jootje's Image Page by Joel Nap
More illustrations from the artist Paul Marquis.
Chmeee's Science Fiction and Computer Graphics Page by Steve Sloan II
An impressive collection of images and also self rendered POV Ray Art, including a "Ringworld Home Movie". This site also features graphics from David Brin's "Uplift" universe.
Ringworld by Mark Woolrich
A very impressive graphical site which goes into detail describing the Ringworld to the layperson. There is also a Ringworld movie animation which is well worth a download.
Rendering Larry Niven's Ringworld
James W. Williams has set up this page with images he generated for a Procedural Textures course at George Washington University. The images were not exactly how I'd imagined the Ringworld to look but they are fairly believable!
The covers and tables of contents of two "Con" books
These are Bridging the Galaxies and Niven's Laws.
"Wait it Out" artwork by Joe Bergeron.
The Ultimate Reality Central Website by Perry Papadopoulos
Perry has created some of the most spectacular animations of the Liar approaching Ringworld. Stills of this sequence can be found in the Ringworld Art Gallery.

Interviews, Commentary and Public Appearances

An interview with Larry Niven by Brenda Cooper
This page also gives the url for information for ordering The Burning City, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and Saturn's Race, by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes, from Amazon Books
Interview with Larry Niven
About Land of the Lost. Larry was one of the writers of the classic US TV show Land of the Lost. Here he talks to John Gosling about the show.
Locus: Larry Niven Interview - Painful Fiction
Excerpted from Locus Magazine - February 1997. [We lost this link for a while due to Locus reorganizing their site - thankfully I found it again via a search engine - Nesssus]
WorldCon Chat with Larry Niven
Larry was there, were you? In this transcript Larry talks about his books plus Babylon 5 and aliens... courtesy of @Worldcon
Compuserve Conference
With Larry Niven, 5th June 1996. Courtesy of John Tomlin.
Ringworld 30th Anniversary Chat
This was held on our very own IRC channel #knownspace, on the 30th Anniversary of the publication of Ringworld on 7th October 2000. This chat was un-moderated, and other chat participants were all from the Larry Niven-L mailing list. Larry participated in a discussion of Ringworld, its characters and other technology.
Larry Niven Reviews the Millenial Project
The Phlogiston Belt: Changing Science and the Hard SF Writer
This MP3 recording, made by Steven R. Station at the 2001 Phil Con (or MilPhil) is of Larry Niven, Stephen Baxter, Jack McDevitt (M), Derryl Murphy, and Stanley Schmidt at a panel entitled "The Phlogiston Belt: Changing Science and the Hard SF Writer" where they discuss how *real* recent scientific discoveries invalidate their stories. Larry comments on how his first story, The Coldest Place was obsolete almost before it was published when the first space probes approached Mercury and found that it was not a one face planet, and also on the phenomenon of Flash Crowds on Internet websites.
This recording courtesy of Deltos Fleet Computing

Larry Niven at Space.com
Larry has become one of the writers for this website. Articles which he has written for the site or predominantly feature Niven-related content are listed below:
- Surprises (Posted 9/11/00)
- Ringworld Movie Around the Corner (Posted 6/11/00)
- Making Somebody Pay (Posted 14/09/00)
- Wet Mars (Posted 10/7/00)
- The Rocket Men Who'll Sell the Moon (Posted 16/6/00)
- Travelers (Posted 17/5/00)
- How to Save Civilization... and Make A Little Money (Posted 14/4/00)
- Larry Niven Mailbag to Space.com (Posted 24/3/00)
- Mars, Who Needs It? (Posted 16/3/00)
- Neutron Star is Still Shining Light on Hard Science Fiction (Posted 18/2/00)
- Larry Niven: Recommended Reading (Posted 10/2/00)
- An Interview with Larry Niven (Posted 10/2/00)
Speaking With... Larry Niven
An interview with Silver Bullet Comics by Marv Wolfman. (2002)
Icon Online Chat Transcript (24/09/02)
Interview with Slashdot.org (posted 10-March 03)

Humour

Filks: (Humourous Songs)

Me and Brennan Out on the Warpath (Truesdale's Song)
Words by Mark A. Mandel, © 2000, to the tune of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", Paul Simon.
This song was performed in front of Carol Phillips at MilPhil Convention, September 2001
The Ringworld of Penzance
A Ringworld Parody, set to the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta "The Pirates of Penzance" by Jonathan Cresswell
Fithp Invasion Song
By Carol Phillips and Judy Craft
Larry Niven Carol and Song Page
by Nesssus (newly revived - the page that is!)
One Minute Summary of Ringworld from Ringworks' Book-a-Minute site

Teela: I'm lucky.

Speaker-to-Animals: I'm fierce.

Nessus: I'm scared.

Louis: I'm old.

(They fly to the RINGWORLD, and it is COOL. They almost DIE. They LEAVE.)

If you follow the link to the site you can read other hilarious summaries including one for Lucifer's Hammer, including other reviews of other works including 2001.

Jokes

Niven Double Dactuls
This is a collection of a type of poem about Niven's characters called a Double Dactul which was posted on the Larry Niven mailing list by various members and collected by fellow list member Jonathan Sheen.
You Know When You've Read Too Much Niven When.......
We've all done it, we've all picked through the "You Know When You're An XPhile When..." and "You Know When You've Watched Too Much Star Wars When...." well its time Niven had his own list. Pulled from postings to the Larry Niven mail list, this was compiled by Ted Scribner (who else would be mug? - EAS).
Known Space Lightbulb Jokes
Not exactly the ultimate in humour, but quite clever.
Left Jokes
This arose from a discussion about what would happen if two ships in Known Space were on a collision course and one had to turn away to the left. Could you define left? Here's what the list members came up with in line with the views of various Known Space species.
Niven's Laws
Niven's guidance for surviving life, the universe and everything.
Niven Swifties
Ted Scribner has collected these one liners from posts made to the Larry Niven mailing list, and collected by fellow list member, Abraham Thomas.
What I've Learned from Larry Niven
A list of insights from members of the Larry Niven-L Mailing List.

Newsgroups

alt.books.larry-niven
A newsgroup intended for discussion of Larry Niven's work and on Niven-related topics.
rec.arts.sf.science
A general newsgroup intended for the discussion of the science behind sf works of fiction. This often includes postings about Niven's work, where boffins nitpick the math of Niven's literary inventions. Fascinating really.
Google Search: Larry Niven
You can use this search link to see if any new information has been posted about Larry on either of the above groups, quickly and painlessly. Google has replaced the old Deja News search engine.

The Larry Niven Mailing List (Larryniven-l)
This is a mailing list devoted to discussions of the works of Larry Niven. This list has been in existence since 1995, and was first set up by Frank Wilson who was a member of staff at Bucknell University. The list was originally housed on the University, however, since August 2001 the list has been privately hosted by Jonathan Andrew Sheen. The managers of this site are co-administrators of this list - if you have any problems you can email us, although in the first instance you are better of contacting the Listmaster, jsheen@larryniven-l.org.

Edwin A Scribner maintains an information page for the list at: http://www.larryniven-l.org

You can subscribe to Larryniven-l by filling out the following form. You will be sent email requesting confirmation, to prevent others from gratuitously subscribing you. This is a private list, which means that the members list is not available to non-members.

Your email address:
You must enter a privacy password. This provides only mild security, but should prevent others from messing with your subscription. Do not use a valuable password as it will occasionally be emailed back to you in cleartext.
Pick a password:
Reenter password to confirm:
Would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?	No Yes

To learn about other members of this list, view the LN-L Membership Roll Call Page, where list members have submitted their biographies.

Yahoogroups:

Click to subscribe to Niven - This is a Yahoogroup for discussing the works of Larry Niven - not as high trafficked as the Main List - you might like to consider this if you can't keep up with the other one! You need a Yahoo ID to participate.

Click to subscribe to The Ringworld - This is a Yahoo Club for fans of Larry Niven. Fishgi is the original founder, but he has granted Founders rights to Nesssus too. Currently 26 members are in this Club, including Carol Phillips.

Click to subscribe to Larry Niven Fans. A new fan group.

Other Yahoo Lists:
- Larryniven-l - This is a now defunct list which was used as a remote archive for the original Larry Niven Mailing List which was housed at Bucknell University. The list has since moved to www.larryniven-l.org and a new list has been started, so joining this list is pointless as no posts are being made to it. Still this is a useful link for remotely accessing the old archives.

Clubs and Discussion Boards

Allscifi.com Larry Niven Club
A sci-fi discussion board coupled with very detailed reviews. Submit a review and get listed as a scholar on our site. [I am already a resident Scholar! Nesssus]

Everything Else

Deep Space Kzin: Home of the Kzinti Assault Taskforce
This page serves as an introduction the Kzin, aimed at players of Starfleet Command 2, and online interactive game in the star trek model.
Origami Puppeteer
Any origami fans out there - ? How about trying to make your own? Christopher Thomas has designed his own origami puppeteer which you can make following his instructions, Christopher recommends that you start with a frog base and then follow his instructions
Model ships based on starships from Larry's stories were entered into a competition at starshipmodeller.com
- Phssthpok's Ship from Protector
- I.N.S.S. MacArthur from The Mote in God's Eye
of the latter ship, Niven had the opportunity to inspect it personally. He was impressed and signed the bottom of the craft.
Ringworld T-Shirts by Softwear Toys and Tees
This T-shirt design, approved by Larry Niven, shows the Ringworld from space and says: "Ringworld - Where Every Day's An Adventure" and lists the "attractions":
- Ski...Fist-Of-God Mountain!
- Ride...the Tunnel of Rishathra! (must be over 18)
- See...Our Sunflower Garden!
- KIDS! Visit the Kzinti Petting Zoo!
- The universe's biggest amusement park experience can be yours!
- E-Tickets available from your local General Products representative.
- (Humans and aliens ride at their own risk)
Sized in Medium, Large, X-Large and XX-Large, Only $18 (plus s&h) from the above Company.
Ringworld Radio by Milo Black
Milo has created a series of high quality tunes depicting various events in the Ringworld story, starting off with the Blind Spot: In-System Arrival of the Liar. Milo states that this work is currently only a work-in-progress and hopes to build the collection into a double CD of tracks. The tracks are currently free for you to download, however, I personally found playing the tracks from the mp3.com site a very stop-and-start affair (however, its probably ok for people with high speed connections), but the tunes sound fine when downloaded to your hard drive and played though an MP3 player.
Jerry Pournelle's Home Page
Also called the "Chaos Manor" page, as that is what Jerry calls his house. Jerry is very active on this page, and by keeping an eye on it you will often get a bit of insight into the personal side of his friend Larry Niven. Especially look at the pictures - he has some good ones.
Dimpleworld - Tour by Matthew Dockrey
Just a bit of run really, this came about from a "What if" discussion on the Larry Niven mailing list.
Animated STAR TREK - "The Slaver Weapon"
This episode of the animated series inspired by Star Trek was written by Larry Niven and based on his short story The Soft Weapon (#16).The goofy looking kzin are a highlight.
The Physics of the Ringworld
This article by Alan Eisinger was published in Modern Astronomy in May 2000, and as well as giving an overview as to what a Ringworld is, Alan goes into some of the theoretical physics involved.
Ringworld Physics Simulation
A java applet simulation of a rotating space settlement without gravity. You can position objects in the cylinder then adjust the speed of rotation to see what happens to them. A fun site, by NASA.
The Crazy Eddie Project
Fancy sailing on a 40km high kite? Here's a plan to do it for real. Not quite sure if this is serious or not, but I found this article whilst surfing one day.