Site Reviews

• 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 hosted at SciFi Weekly
• Burning City Review by Frank Gasperik
• Burning City Review by Robert Barror
• Destiny's Road Review

  From Science Fiction Age magazine, July 1997. Transcript courtesy of Dave Collins.

• 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+
• 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 Review by Douglas B. McElroy
• Ringworld Study Guide by Frank Wilson
• Saturn's Race Review by Nesssus

Book Reviews (multiple), Biographies and Bibliographies:

• Books of Larry Niven An (incomplete) page featuring summaries of Larry's works'.  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, 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 Bibliography Hosted by Fantasticfiction.co.uk
• Megastructures Article by Ross Smith.
• 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. This list was created after Protector and was voted as Book of the Month in May 2003 on the Hard SF yahoo discussion list.

Essays

• Essay

  By Richard Finhold and John Carron 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.

• The Encyclopedia of Known Space

  by Brian O'Neill An excellent online encyclopedia of all things Niven. Highly recommended!

• 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.

• Databaun:  Nivenverse An old site that contains a FAQ or PAQ about Larry Niven
• Technovelgy.com Larry's got 67 entries so far on this interesting site.

• Ringworld Movie News

  A page on Known Space to accumulate all the Ringworld Movie News that we find out about.

• 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.

• 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 Gallery

  by Joel Nap. Images of the Pak, some particularly impressive renderings by John C. Atkeson

• 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.

• "Wait it Out" artwork by Joe Bergeron.

• Locus: Larry Niven Interview - Painful Fiction Excerpted from Locus Magazine - February 1997.
• 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.

• 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:

  • 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)

Filks: (Humourous Songs)

• The Late Frank Gasperik's Filk Page
• 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.

• Larry Niven Carol and Song Page

  by Nesssus (Page missing! Find it!)

• 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

  • 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.
  • What I've Learned from Larry Niven A list of insights from members of the Larry Niven-L Mailing List.

• 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.