The Shape of Space

Known Space (Publication Order)

by Larry Niven

Contents
The Warriors (Known Space series) / Larry Niven
Safe at Any Speed (Known Space series) / Larry Niven
How the Heroes Die (Known Space series) / Larry Niven
At the Bottom of a Hole (Known Space series) / Larry Niven
Bordered in Black / Larry Niven
Like Banquo's Ghost / Larry Niven
One Face / Larry Niven
The Meddler / Larry Niven
Dry Run / Larry Niven
Convergent Series / Larry Niven
The Deadlier Weapon / Larry Niven
Death / Ecstasy (Gil Hamilton series) / Larry Niven

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

244 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1966

About the author

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.

Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. 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 Kzin 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...

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Niven's second collection was a delightful book; it includes "The Warriors," which featured the first appearence of the Kzinti, and "Death by Ecstacy," which was the first Gil Hamilton story. Most of the stories included here have been reprinted in subsequent Niven collections, but this old original is a fun one to have around.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many short story collections, Larry Niven's "The Shape of Space" is a mixed bag. First published in the late 1960s, it gathers together a dozen shorter works, all of which appear to have been previously published elsewhere. And most of these are first-rate. Among the stronger pieces are "At the Bottom of a Hole," a somewhat anachronistic tale of that favorite, the Red Planet; "Bordered in Back," an intriguing take on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life; the unexpected and clever ET-meets-film-noir story, "The Meddler"; "Dry Run," a sort of metaphysical morality play; the brilliant "Convergent Series," which belongs more to the realm of fantasy than sci-fi; and the heart-pounding "The Deadlier Weapon," which has nothing to do with either genre, demonstrating that Niven has skills beyond his favored confines. In addition to these are a number of also-rans which, in this context, serve as filler.

Then there are the two problematic stories, which, together, lower my rating from four to three stars. "How the Heroes Die" might have passed the smell test were it not for its reliance on homophobia as a major plot element, essentially serving as the motivation which, through the central character, sets all of the subsequent action into motion. Granted, this story was first published in 1966, the veritable dark ages of gay rights. However, it would have been a simple matter to substitute any number of other potential driving forces without altering the rest of the story in the least, so why Niven chose gay-bashing (of all things!) remains a mystery. As a reader in 2019 I found it distasteful in the extreme, although a good reminder of how far we have come.

The lengthy story which closes out this collection, "Death by Ecstasy," suffers from a different set of problems, characteristic of my least favorite Niven works. For one thing, it exudes that brand of misogyny which seems pervasive in the science fiction of its era. This is true of a great deal of fiction, film, television, etc., which emerged in the 1960s. As such, it is the lesser of the flaws here. Far more problematic, in my opinion, is Niven's reliance on psychic abilities amongst its very human characters. I have been called out for this criticism in the past when reviewing other works by Niven. The argument runs that Niven is writing science fiction, a genre which demands, out front, a certain suspension of disbelief. How is a human possessing telekinesis that much different than, for example, a Betazoid in Star Trek possessing telepathy? Ah, but there is a difference. One of them is human. One of them is not. This warrants further qualification.

In "Death by Ecstasy" Niven is writing what can easily be described as so-called "hard" sci-fi. He is deliberate in his efforts to create a story set in an unknown future, but which is, in its details, plausible based on the science of 1969. And he maintains this plausibility in every area of the story, except that he attributes psychic abilities -- ESP and telekinesis -- to two of his nothing-but-plain-old-human characters. Although no time frame is ever given, this is clearly not a story set millions of years in the future, which might allow for the evolutionary development of such abilities. Nor is this a piece of fantasy, in which case all of the rules could fly out the window. No, instead, Niven implies that human beings have somehow, magically, simply discovered that some of them possess psychic abilities. And by "some of them" I mean what is evidently a statistically significant number. Consider that during the 1950s and 1960s, legitimate science was still on the fence as to whether human being possess psychic powers. In the decades which followed, research into the so-called paranormal debunked most of these beliefs. But in 1969, when Niven was writing this story, it was still a matter of conjecture, presumed to be pseudo-science, but not yet proven to be such. For me, if not for others, the disjunction between the plausibility of the rest of the story and Niven's reliance on the paranormal is too jarring to accept, and it ultimately ruins the longest story in this collection. I will be interested to read some of Niven's later works (which I have yet to get around to) in order to see whether he backs away from this sort of thing, but when it does crop up in his earlier works it feels like any other lazy deus ex machina, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shape of Space is a 1969 collection of short stories by Larry Niven originally published in various magazines over the years 1966-1969. Most have stood the test of time rather well, the obvious exceptions being ‘The Warriors’ and ‘How the Heroes Die’ which demonstrate respectively sexism and homophobia of a sort that places them firmly in the 1960s. Otherwise, a good selection of ‘hard’ science fiction as you might expect from Niven.

[Jim Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised by the story since I wasn't aware that Niven wrote anything besides SF. This was an excellent noirish story concerning a hitchhiker's attempt to rob the driver who picked him up.

Merged review:

This was not the typical hard SF story I usually expect from Niven. After I finished the story I had to recheck who the author was. Instead I found it to be a very good mystery/fantasy story.

Merged review:

OK mixture of private eye genre with a SF slant.

[Maryann Fläsch]

The way some of the stories don't match with the rest of the universe ois frustrating but I just tell myself that it's a different time, so perhaps history books got it wrong come the time of the Ringworld/Fleet of Worlds.

Still a great collection!

[bluetyson]

The shape of space by Larry Niven (1969)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

That weird homophobia in "How the Heroes Die" is NASTY!

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1985 grade B-

Short stories.

[Thomas Radke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just short of perfect.

[Anthony Yvonnica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very quick read. I don't know what I expected before I read this story. Nothing special.