Larry Niven

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born

April 30, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, The United States

gender

male

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy

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Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.

Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.

Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He...more Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.

Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.

Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.

He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.

In addition to his awards for Ringworld, Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Neutron Star" in 1967. He won the same award in 1972, for "Inconstant Moon", and in 1975 for "The Hole Man". In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "The Borderland of Sol".

Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early story "The Soft Weapon". He adapted his story "Inconstant Moon" for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.

He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...

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Books by Larry Niven

Average rating: 3.78 · 104,123 ratings · 3,834 reviews · 112 distinct works

	Ringworld 3.89 avg rating — 19,701 ratings — published 1970 — 57 editions	My rating:
	The Mote in God's Eye 3.98 avg rating — 13,250 ratings — published 1974 — 37 editions	My rating:
	Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 3.91 avg rating — 9,904 ratings — published 1977 — 17 editions	My rating:
	The Ringworld Engineers 3.72 avg rating — 6,321 ratings — published 1980 — 31 editions	My rating:
	Footfall by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 3.77 avg rating — 3,969 ratings — published 1985 — 15 editions	My rating:
	The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 3.68 avg rating — 2,739 ratings — published 1993 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Neutron Star 4.00 avg rating — 2,475 ratings — published 1967 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Protector 3.94 avg rating — 2,465 ratings — published 1973 — 20 editions	My rating:
	The Ringworld Throne 3.40 avg rating — 2,557 ratings — published 1996 — 17 editions	My rating:
	The Integral Trees/The Smoke Ring 3.60 avg rating — 2,041 ratings — published 1983	My rating:

More books by Larry Niven…

Series by Larry Niven

Known Space (30 books)
by Larry Niven

3.79 avg rating — 45,855 ratings

Ringworld (4 books)
by Larry Niven

3.79 avg rating — 30,328 ratings

Moties (2 books)
by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

3.93 avg rating — 15,946 ratings

Man-Kzin Wars (13 books)
by Larry Niven (Creator), Gregory Benford, Mark O. Martin, Hal Colebatch, Paul Chafe

3.58 avg rating — 3,875 ratings

Heorot (2 books)
by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes

3.75 avg rating — 2,755 ratings

More series by Larry Niven…

Upcoming Events

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Quotes by Larry Niven

“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
― Larry Niven, Ringworld

tags: science-fiction , social-commentary

36 people liked it

“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!”
― Larry Niven

tags: dinosaurs , extinction , insightful , space-exploration

32 people liked it

“Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun. ”
― Larry Niven

tags: fun , nature , science

26 people liked it

See all Larry Niven's quotes »

Polls

This poll is a first round for the January Science Fiction theme: Science Fiction Masters.

Pick your selection and, with the choices, I'm pretty certain we'll end up with a run-off ... so lets see where this takes us.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

6 votes 27.3%

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven

5 votes 22.7%

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

3 votes 13.6%

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

3 votes 13.6%

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

3 votes 13.6%

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

2 votes 9.1%

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin

0 votes 0.0%

22 total votes

3 comments

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Larry Niven

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Larry Niven

Series by Larry Niven

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Larry Niven

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

combine editions
Books by Larry Niven