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Three Books of Known Space

by Larry Niven

3.96 · rating details · 203 ratings · 7 reviews

Let three complete books in one take you on a dazzling journey into science fiction's most famous future history: Known Space!
WORLD OF PTAVVS
Kzanol was a thrint from a distant galaxy. He had been trapped on Earth in a time-stasis field for two billion years. Now he was on the loose, and telepath Larry Greenberg knew everything he was thinking. Thrints lived to plunder and ...more

Paperback, 592 pages

Published September 3rd 1996 by Del Rey

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Apr 15, 2009

Christopher Culver rated it

This omnibus brings together three tales set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe that had only sporadically been available since their publication in the 1960s.

WORLD OF PTAAVS was Larry Niven's first novel, published in 1966, and with its 2106 setting it is one of the first stories chronologically in the Known Space canon. It is clearly a weak work, and offers only hints of the wonderful ideas that Niven was to write about later. It begins two billion years before the present with ...moreThis omnibus brings together three tales set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe that had only sporadically been available since their publication in the 1960s.

WORLD OF PTAAVS was Larry Niven's first novel, published in 1966, and with its 2106 setting it is one of the first stories chronologically in the Known Space canon. It is clearly a weak work, and offers only hints of the wonderful ideas that Niven was to write about later. It begins two billion years before the present with the alien Kzanol, a member of the Thrintun race, which had the ability to control others telepathically and are the Slavers mentioned in later Known Space works. After the drive on Kzanol's ship burns out, he puts himself into a stasis field and aims himself at Earth, supposing that only 90 years will pass until he is rescued. However, eons go by while he lies in stasis after falling into Earth's oceans. In the near-future, a scientist believes that he can break open Kzanol's stasis field and enlists the help of Larry Greenberg. A telepath, Greenberg's job is to read the alien's mind for several seconds before the field is reactivated. However, Kzanol's telepathic abilities overwhelm Greenberg, and Greenberg comes to believes he is Kzanol. The two Kzanol's set out to Neptune, racing against each other to claim the telepathic amplifier that Kzanol sent there, with which one could enslave all of Earth. Lucas Garner, an agent with the UN, gives chase.

WORLD OF PTAAVS was clearly written in the mid-60's. There is only one female character, and she is a stereotypical June Cleaver housewife. Niven was unable to foreesee the advent of powerful personal computing, and the computers of the novel output their information on paper strips like stocktickers. One amusing part of the novel for modern audiences is a reference to "West Berlin." Even the science of the story is outdated, one part refers to landing on Neptune, but Neptune is a gas giant without a solid surface.

A GIFT FROM EARTH is a tale of a rebellion on the colonized world, a Venus-like cauldron with only one habitable area, the giant mountain Mt. Lookitthat. When the slowboats sent by the UN reached it, the crew, who had worked hard for 30 years to bring the ship to Plateau, decided to set up a dictatorship over the colonists, who were frozen in statis during the journey. The Crew's power over the Colonists is their control of the Hospital and their ability to punish criminals by the death penalty and extract their organs to prolong the life of those loyal to the Crew. This story is set in the first half of Niven's Known Space universe (2000-2400), and shows the same obsession over the death penalty and organ transplantation as other works of that era, such as the Gil "the Arm" Hamilton stories collected in FLATLANDER. Change comes to Plateau in the form of a UN ramrobot carrying blueprints for improved alloplasty (using gadgets instead of organs). Such a development threatens the existence of the status quo and the Crew scrambles to deal with the situation. The Sons of Earth, a Colonist rebel group, decide to seize the moment. Their new hero is Matt Keller, an unassuming young man with a physic power of invisibility through making others not notice him. The novel is full of improbable developments, and Matt's power essentially makes him a superman, which means there's little intrigue or depth because Matt can get through anything. Again, characters seem like they came out of 1960's America, as the women are submissive and everybody has American names, plus nobody seems to use the metric system.

TALES OF KNOWN SPACE was the second collection Known Space short stories. Unlike the first collection, NEUTRON STAR, it is lackluster. NEUTRON STAR collected the golden age Known Space stories of the late-60's. TALES OF KNOWN SPACE, on the other hand, was compiled after the decline in Niven's writing and collects material from both before the golden age (1964-65) and after (1972-75). Several of the stories are among the earliest in the chronology of Known Space stories, charting Man's exploration of Venus and the outer planets from 1975-1990 (Niven was a little optimistic). They suffer from poor science and bad characterization (everyone's American, there are no female characters, and no one seems to have heard of the metric system), and it's painful to think that these stories are in the same universe as NEUTRON STAR and RINGWORLD. Next are a couple of stories about Mars, and a couple with Lucas Garner, all of which are instantly forgettable. There's a look at a social experiment, the "anarchy park" in the 1972 story "Cloak of Anarchy," and also one of the worst Beowulf Shaeffer stories, the unbelievably awful "The Borderland of Sol." The short "Safe At Any Speed", set in 3100, is supposedly about how the spread of the Teela Brown luck gene will change human society; strangely the story was written before Niven even introduced the concept of genetic luck.

There are a few okay stories. "The Jigsaw Man" is one of Niven's earliest stories to deal with the theme of organ transplantation and expanded use of the dealth penalty, with its protagonist condemned to death for mere traffic violations. "The Warriors" marks the first appearance of the Kzinti, who went on to become a major part of Known Space. "There is a Tide" introduces Louis Wu, who went on to become the protagonist of RINGWORLD.

I'd recommend this omnibus only after someone has read the classics of the Known Space universe--NEUTRON STAR, FLATLANDER, and RINGWORLD.(less)

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Jun 25, 2009

Ratiocination rated it

Shelves: science-fiction, anthologies

A pretty good Niven intro, all told. Some of the stories in Tales of Known Space are noticeably rough as early work; others are better, and he'd hit his stride more by World of Ptavvs and A Gift From Earth. Also nice for the completist-- none of the component books are easy to find, and World of Ptavvs in particular is quite rare. Even as a long-time Niven fan, I'd never read it prior to this omnibus.

I still might recommend Neutron Star or Crashlander over this one among Niven anthol...more

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Feb 25, 2008

Michelle rated it

A spotty and uneven collection of stories of Known Space, the universe that the Ringworld series is set in. I wasn't surprised that the writing was all over the place, though: this collection includes Niven's first story, published in 1966, so he could only improve from there.

Some things amused me greatly, the best of which was the space suit with the pipe for tobacco smoking built right in. Apparently Niven never thought that smoking would go out of style, even in deepest darkes...more

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Oct 31, 2008

Servius Heiner rated it

Shelves: sci-fi

I am not a big fan of short stories but there were a few really good novellas in here as well.
Over all I dig the way this guy thinks. He definitely has a fetish for things going wrong with space exploration. It seems to be a reoccurring plot device regardless of the level of technology deployed by the characters in the stories. From man's first travels and mans final travels there always seems to be a failure of some type. This was a good introduction to Niven, Gives one a good taste of ...more

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Apr 24, 2010

Lock rated it

A good place to start with Larry Niven's Known Space books, and a great science fiction collection in general.

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Dec 26, 2009

Martin rated it

I really enjoyed these short stories. It was interesting to fill out motlee of the known universe.

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Aug 02, 2007

Will rated it

If you like Niven you will like this.

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About Larry Niven

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...moreLaurence 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.

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