Tales of Known Space
Tales of Known Space: The Universe of Larry Niven is a science fiction collection by American writer Larry Niven, collecting thirteen short stories published between 1964 and 1975 (all in Niven's Known Space future history) along with several essays by Niven and a chronology. This book was collected in Three Books of Known Space.
Contents
- "Timeline for Known Space" (1975 essay, Larry Niven)
- "Introduction: My Universe and Welcome to It!" (1975 essay, Larry Niven)
- "The Coldest Place" (1964)
- "Becalmed in Hell" (1965)
- "Wait It Out" (1968)
- "Eye of an Octopus" (1966)
- "How the Heroes Die" (1966)
- "The Jigsaw Man" (1967)
- "At the Bottom of a Hole" (1966)
- "Intent to Deceive" (1968)
- "Cloak of Anarchy" (1972)[1]
- "The Warriors" (1966)
- "The Borderland of Sol" (1975) (In the Three Books of Known Space omnibus, "Madness Has Its Place" replaced this story)
- "There Is a Tide" (1968)
- "Safe at Any Speed" (1967)
- "Afterthoughts" (1975 essay, Larry Niven)
- "Bibliography: The Worlds of Larry Niven"
- "About the Cover" (1975 essay, Rick Sternbach)
Literary significance and reception
In John Clute's survey of Niven's work in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, he described the sequence as a "wide-ranging, complex, unusually well integrated Future History which, within an essentially optimistic and technophilic frame, provides an explanatory structure for the expansion of humanity into space, one notable from the first for the complexity of the Universe into which it introduces the burgeoning human race." Particular note is given to the inclusion of the timeline chart in Tales of Known Space.[2]
In his essay on the theme of "Future Histories", Alastair Reynolds said that Known Space was the first of the kind he encountered as a teenager and remembered reading this collection (though he incorrectly gives the title as Tales from Known Space). Reynolds describes it as having "a sense of the future as teeming, chaotic, prone to unexpected swerves and lurching accelerations."[3] His earliest attempts at SF (Union World, Dominant Species and a number of short stories) were set in a Niven-inspired background and, although they were not published, elements of them were incorporated into his later novels.
References
- ^ Niven, Larry (1972). "Cloak of Anarchy". larryniven.net. Retrieved October 5, 2022.
- ^ "Niven, Larry". SF Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
- ^ Main influences discussed extensively in Alastair Reynolds, Essay: "Future Histories", Locus, Vol. 57, No. 5, Issue 550, November 2006, p. 39; also included as afterword to Galactic North
- v
- t
- e
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Ringworld |
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Man-Kzin Wars1 | |
Fleet of Worlds2 |
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- The Magic Goes Away (1976)
- The Magic May Return (1981)
- The Burning City (2000)
- Burning Tower (2005)
- The Seascape Tattoo (2016)
Jerry Pournelle
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Moties3 |
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Heorot4 |
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- Dream Park (1981)
- The Barsoom Project (1989)
- The California Voodoo Game (1992)
- The Moon Maze Game (2011)
- A World Out of Time (1976)
- The Integral Trees (1984)
- The Smoke Ring (1987)
- The Flying Sorcerers (1971)
- The Descent of Anansi (1982)
- Fallen Angels (1991)
- Building Harlequin's Moon (2005)
- Bowl of Heaven (2012)
- All the Myriad Ways (1971)
- The Flight of the Horse (1973)
- Inconstant Moon (1973)
- A Hole in Space (1974)
- Convergent Series (1979)
- Limits (1985)
- N-Space (1990)
- Playgrounds of the Mind (1991)
- Bridging the Galaxies (1993)
- Rainbow Mars (1999)
- Scatterbrain (2003)
- The Draco Tavern (2006)
- Stars and Gods (2010)
- The Best of Larry Niven (2010)
- "At the Core"
- "The Borderland of Sol"
- "Death by Ecstasy"
- "The Defenseless Dead"
- "Flash Crowd"
- "Flatlander"
- "Grendel"
- "The Handicapped"
- "The Hole Man"
- "The Jigsaw Man"
- "The Magic Goes Away"
- "Neutron Star"
- "Procrustes"
- "The Return of William Proxmire"
- "The Soft Weapon"
- "What Good Is A Glass Dagger?"
- "The Slaver Weapon" (Star Trek: The Animated Series)
- "Downstream" (Land of the Lost)
- "Hurricane" (Land of the Lost) with David Gerrold
- "Circle" (Land of the Lost) with David Gerrold
- Collections by Niven or others
- With Edward M. Lerner
- Set in the CoDominium series
- With Steven Barnes