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Man-Kzin Wars #12
Man-Kzin Wars 12
The kzin, formerly invincible conquerors of all they encountered, had a hard time dealing with their ignominious defeat by the leaf-eating humans. Some secretly hatched schemes for a rematch, others concentrated on gathering power within the kzin hierarchy, and some shamefully cooperated with the contemptible humans, though often for hidden motives. In war and in uneasy peace, kzin and humans continue their adventures, as told by Paul Chafe, Hal Colebatch, and Michael Joseph Harrington, expanding on the concepts created by New York Times best-selling writer Larry Niven.
A human secret agent and her hired kzin companion infiltrate a planet newly occupied by the kzin, and discover that humans were on the planet before the dawn of space travel, and claim to be part of the Roman Empire. Where did they come from - and can they survive the inevitable kzin attack?
A man wakes up with over a month's gap in his memory. He remembers being hired by a mysterious woman for a job with the condition that his memory would be scrubbed afterward. Obviously, the scrub worked, but now the police suspect him of murdering the missing woman. And a kzin is threatening him with much worse than anything the police would do.
The Protectors - powerful ancestors of the human race who live only to guard it and destroy all its enemies - have learned that the kzin have discovered a rich cache of anti-matter in deep space. One Protector brings a human out of stasis-sleep and enlists his involuntary help in her desperate mission to stop the kzin from gaining this source of unimaginable power.
A human secret agent and her hired kzin companion infiltrate a planet newly occupied by the kzin, and discover that humans were on the planet before the dawn of space travel, and claim to be part of the Roman Empire. Where did they come from - and can they survive the inevitable kzin attack?
A man wakes up with over a month's gap in his memory. He remembers being hired by a mysterious woman for a job with the condition that his memory would be scrubbed afterward. Obviously, the scrub worked, but now the police suspect him of murdering the missing woman. And a kzin is threatening him with much worse than anything the police would do.
The Protectors - powerful ancestors of the human race who live only to guard it and destroy all its enemies - have learned that the kzin have discovered a rich cache of anti-matter in deep space. One Protector brings a human out of stasis-sleep and enlists his involuntary help in her desperate mission to stop the kzin from gaining this source of unimaginable power.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 3, 2009
12 people are currently reading
493 people want to read
About the author
Larry Niven
689 books3,313 followersLaurence 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 14, 2018
I have enjoyed this series very much since book 1. While the books could be read independently they long running background storyline makes them a great epic read. Never a back selection of SiFi stories and just an overall enjoyable read. Recommended
March 5, 2017
The 12th installment of the Man-Kzin Wars continues to make me a happy Kz'eerkti! It starts off with some short background tales about pre-first-encounter times for Man and Kzin in 'Echoes of Distant Guns'. Then almost a full novel on the 'true story' of what happened to the Roman 9th Legion at Hadrian's Wall in 'Aquila Advenio'. Next is a somewhat morose short story about a reluctant young Kzin soldier who's only solace in life (and death, apparently) is a gift from a human in 'The Trooper and the Triangle'. The best story in the book follows in the hilarious romp through space by a husband and wife teamed up with a Telepath and Cyborg Kzin in 'String'. In 'Peace and Freedom' we find out that another slaver is loose in the galaxy and is causing trouble on Kzinhome... trouble that only our Protector friend Peace Corben can fix for us. As a side note, Mr. Harrington manages to avert the disaster of the coming destruction of the Galaxy that Larry Niven set into motion in one of his Beowulf Sheafer stories, and consequently wrote volumes around, in a single paragraph... kudos to you Mr. Harrington! The last story is a murder mystery short reminiscent of the movie 'PayCheck' called 'Independent'. All in all, I give this book 3 1/2 stars. The creativity is great, but the stories themselves were lacking a bit in execution. 'String' was the best and had me laughing out loud after the true nature of the stasis box discovery is revealed. 'Peace and Freedom' had great potential, but was way too rushed. Some of it almost seemed like an inside joke that the reader doesn't quite understand. Still, I love the continuing saga in Known Space, and definitively call this one a Really Good Read.
December 15, 2013
Not bad. Coupla good ones.
"The Trooper and the Triangle" made me think of Steve Earle's "John Walker's Blues" also about a misfit who found sanctuary unexpectedly.
"String" was silly and funny and clever. Nice change of pace.
"Independent" was weak, I thought. They did this, then they did this, and they got trapped, and then they did this, and there was a predictable ending. Yawn.
The long "Aquila Advenio" wandered around for a while then put a Roman legion into play, sort of. Well, maybe. It was the manipulations in the rest of the story that mattered.
"Peace and Freedom" was a tribute to Niven at his most impenetrable. Tnuctipun, Slavers, Protectors, Kzin, humans, and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. Big chunks of text where they seem to have written a plain story then taken out half the sentences so the reader can feel as if there's a puzzle to be solved. Again, it reeks of Niven's "But this means .." "No, because protons!" "Not if they ..." "I anticipated that, and used adeledicnander shielding" "So the Pak .." "Yes!" -- leaving the reader all "WTF are they talking about? Did anything happen there?" Too many characters on stage at once, too much unexplained. Perhaps I suffered from not having read the previous book in the "series".
"The Trooper and the Triangle" made me think of Steve Earle's "John Walker's Blues" also about a misfit who found sanctuary unexpectedly.
"String" was silly and funny and clever. Nice change of pace.
"Independent" was weak, I thought. They did this, then they did this, and they got trapped, and then they did this, and there was a predictable ending. Yawn.
The long "Aquila Advenio" wandered around for a while then put a Roman legion into play, sort of. Well, maybe. It was the manipulations in the rest of the story that mattered.
"Peace and Freedom" was a tribute to Niven at his most impenetrable. Tnuctipun, Slavers, Protectors, Kzin, humans, and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. Big chunks of text where they seem to have written a plain story then taken out half the sentences so the reader can feel as if there's a puzzle to be solved. Again, it reeks of Niven's "But this means .." "No, because protons!" "Not if they ..." "I anticipated that, and used adeledicnander shielding" "So the Pak .." "Yes!" -- leaving the reader all "WTF are they talking about? Did anything happen there?" Too many characters on stage at once, too much unexplained. Perhaps I suffered from not having read the previous book in the "series".
January 15, 2013
The Peace corben story (Sequel to Teacher's Pet and War and Peace from MKW 11) is IMO the best reason to read this collection, she's a great character...More stories please Mr Harrington
April 6, 2022
Harrington should not have been permitted to play in this sandbox. Both of his stories have been total travesties of creation. It's as if he only received a briefing on different races and some basic mechanics and then was permitted to write whatever he wanted to without any regard to all of the canon already set in the universe. I thought this was one of the weakest books in the entire series. (Having just read all 100 Known Space stories and novels over the past 9 months, it's all pretty fresh in my head.)
May 11, 2020
I'm back in forward gear.
I liked "Independant", another noirish detective story by Paul Chafe and "Peace and Freedom", another great installment in the Peace Corben story by Matthew Joseph Harrington.
I liked "Independant", another noirish detective story by Paul Chafe and "Peace and Freedom", another great installment in the Peace Corben story by Matthew Joseph Harrington.
November 23, 2025
Another series of Short Stories set in the Known-Space universe. There's a murder mystery, a story about the opening a Stasis field with unintended resaults. A story about the missing ninth leigon from Rome. A protector, gets to clean-up a Outsider mistake.
The stories varied in quality. The murder mystery was alright, but not really good. The story about the roman leigon, was funny, and interesting. THe protector story, gives a lot to think about, in the Known space universe.
The stories varied in quality. The murder mystery was alright, but not really good. The story about the roman leigon, was funny, and interesting. THe protector story, gives a lot to think about, in the Known space universe.
August 6, 2022
I liked it
I didn't know what to make of the character peace Corbin on my first read through, but after a second read I realized that the author had done a very good job in making me believe that she was a super genius. That's not easy and speaks well for his writing craft
I didn't know what to make of the character peace Corbin on my first read through, but after a second read I realized that the author had done a very good job in making me believe that she was a super genius. That's not easy and speaks well for his writing craft
October 5, 2023
If you enjoy the series in general, and enjoy seeing stories of humans interacting with Kzinti in ways that aren't necessarily antagonistic, this book is worth reading. But it's nothing special.
August 20, 2011
this is the next instalment of the Man-Kzin wars. This is a share world series originally created as part of Larry Nivens tales of known space. It has since grown and grown in to a standalone series of stories where leading authors of the genre have added their own private stories to the history of the Man-Kzin conflicts. The stories though in no chronological order are now leaving the clearly drawn battle lines of the early conflicts and now start to explore the outskirts where Kzins are starting to work along side humans and get drawn in to the trials of mere hairless monkeys.
This book i will admit is pure escapism at its best and i hope they find a way to keep the series going.
This book i will admit is pure escapism at its best and i hope they find a way to keep the series going.
July 3, 2011
Reasonable read. Entertaining although the fabric is worn a bit thin these days by too much for a good thing. An ample airplane book to distract one from the Trailways quality of modern air travel and the tyranny of pretentiously overprotective government.
October 22, 2014
MKW12 is a fine addition to the venerable Man-Kzin Wars series. As is often the case with multi-author anthologies, the quality and tone varies from story to story. The cast of characters includes human telepath Larry Greenberg, Pak Protectors, the Pierin and even a lost Roman Legion.
September 20, 2016
Off to see there are more in this series.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews