Customer Reviews (3)

Not Free SF Reader
This book came about because of interest in the older work of The Shape Of Space being not easily obtainable, and adding a similar amount of new material.

The latter half of the collection is the more recent work, and that is certainly better in general, as that material is pretty much from the seventies.

So, up to 3.36 now with one.

Some humour added in with some of those stories, as well as some fairy tale, Dunsany and Cabell references.

Convergent Series : Bordered in Black - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : One Face - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Like Banquo's Ghost - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : The Meddler - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Dry Run - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Convergent Series [SS] - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : The Deadlier Weapon - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : The Nonesuch - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Singularities Make Me Nervous - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : The Schumann Computer - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Assimilating Our Culture That's What They're Doing! - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Grammar Lesson - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : The Subject Is Closed - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Cruel and Unusual - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Transfer of Power - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Cautionary Tales - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Plaything - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Mistake - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Night on Mispec Moor - Larry Niven
Convergent Series : Wrong-Way Street - Larry Niven


Overcee project farm people find.

3 out of 5


Subspace overspace Brain Jumper landing problem secrets.

3 out of 5


SETI Snarkhunter probe success.

3.5 out of 5


PI no Martian Manhunter.

3.5 out of 5


Great Dane killing breakup test.

3.5 out of 5


Demon summoming time limit Atom solution.

3.5 out of 5


Carjacking Frogger letout.

3 out of 5


Alien fairy story big bad.

3.5 out of 5


Should I stay or should I go now?

4 out of 5


Bored Baby.

3.5 out of 5


If you don't sell the scientific recipe for long pig, it will be pirated anyway. Pretty relevant, really.

3.5 out of 5


Two-faced possessiveness.

3.5 out of 5


G0d talk.

3.5 out of 5


Execut1on slowdown.

3 out of 5


Edge of the world dragon manoeuvre.

2.5 out of 5


Immortality search may be of not much interest.

3 out of 5


Mathematical time machine Coal Sack enemy trap nova attack.

3.5 out of 5


Probe bashing.

3 out of 5


Last trip.

3 out of 5


Offworld mercenary Cabell nightwalker Spectrum Cure.

4 out of 5


Alien lunar timespaceship discovery.

3.5 out of 5




3.5 out of 5

Not a bad little intro to Niven.
Larry Niven, Convergent Series (Del Rey, 1979)

Convergent Series is half previously published material and half new material written for this book, including five new Draco's Tavern tales and some new Known Universe stuff. (Some of the previously published stuff is proto-Known Universe material, as well.) If you're a Larry Niven fan, you know what that means. If you aren't, what it means is that this is a pretty good place to get to know Larry Niven.

There is (as there is in most science fiction; about 90% of this collection is solidly in the sci-fi vein, while a story or two is more in the straight mystery genre) a little of the annoying "this was put in just to make this sound like a science fiction story" claptrap here, but it's kept to a bare minimum, and Niven allows the stories to be carried by the characters and the plots within, rather than relying on gadgetry and technology to do the work for him. As such, Niven's science fiction is more accessible than a good deal of the hard stuff, and he's easily as readable as, say, Greg Bear. If you've not managed to glom onto Niven yet, thirty-five years into his career, this collection is a fine way to start. ***

Clever, thought-provoking, but not really all that good
Larry Niven's Convergent Series is a pleasant little collection of 21 stories ranging from science fiction and fantasy to almost everyday stories of Los Angeles.Aside from the handful of "short shorts" involving the chirpsithtra, Niven's yarn-spinning aliens, these stories have no real connection to any of his other works.Generally, the long stories are the more satisfying, as with the space mutiny in "One Face", and especially the hard-nosed Private Investigator fiction of "The Meddler" (which features perhaps the most memorable character in a book weak on characterization), while the shorter works such as "Mistake" and "Convergent Series" come off as, at most, clever.Perhaps the best stories are those that deal with the complexities of time travel, where Niven lets his logical gifts wrestle with the standard paradoxes of cause and effect with interesting, and for once almost believable, results.Sadly, the short story format leaves little or no room for what is surely Niven's greatest strength - constructing vast new worlds, new races, and new social orders populated with unusal beings that stay with us long after the book is finished.Instead, we see Niven trying out different kinds of stories, with varying results.Fans of Niven's work will find that some of these stories are wryly amusing, others are seriously thought-provoking, and others are perhaps overly precious.Despite its breadth, however, this collection is not strong enough overall to serve as a good introduction to Niven's work because the individual stories themselves aren't that great.If you aren't already a fan of Niven's "hard" science fiction, start off with one of his fine novels instead of this book of second rate stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Super Reader
Not Long Before the End as a story begins thusly :

"A swordsman battled a sorcerer, once upon a time.

In that age such battles were frequent. A natural antipathy exists between swordsmen and sorcerers, as between cats and small birds, or between rats and men. Usually the swordsman lost, and humanity's average intelligence rose some trifling fraction. Sometimes the swordsman won, and again the species was improved; for a sorcerer who cannot kill one miserable swordsman is a poor excuse for a sorcerer."

The tone follows, as a barbarian swordsman encounters the sorceror and his female assistant. Said swordsman has a bad magic sword.

Magic, in Niven's Warlock series, is a non-renewable resource, and when the mana is gone, it is gone. This sorcerer sets a disc to spinning magically, to tell him when the mana is all gone.

Also useful as a weapon against sword arms, when the arm is carrying a magic sword that protects against all magic.

Diminished Magic
3.5 stars

A collection of mostly above average stories that despite the title are really not about the possibility of the magic returning, but of the hard life during and after the end of magic and how societies are going to survive with no, or greatly diminished and different magic.

The weakest story by far is the tale of humans being used as pawns in a game of the old gods in order to bring the magic back in an unlikely scenario of a satellite blocking sun mana from reaching the earth. The story doesn't work on any level and the heavy handed overtones of monotheism at the end don't help it one bit.

Better are the other stories, a tale of a wizard using a magic dead spot to defeat a demon, a charlatan wizard with no power being outed when encountering some mana rich stones, Barnes tale of an African tribe preserving magic in its young and finally the tale of the "first shaman". These were all good stories, average to above.

Still though, they all indicate that the magic is gone, despite the title and will only live on in a sorely diminished form if that.

Also the artwork must be commented on, though serviceable it doesn't really add anything to the stories. It isn't to the level of the Vallejo work in "The Magic Goes Away"

The Possible Return of a Lost Resource
The Magic May Return is a collection of short fantasy stories based on a common theme. Each tale involves the concept that magic, once prevalent on Earth, has now become at best an extreme rarity, having been exhausted through use. However, each story also raises, in its own way, the possibility that the loss of magic may not be permanent (hence the collection's title). The only exception to this is "Not Long Before the End" which is set in the time before the magic was used up.

This is a delightful collection of stories which is sure to entertain.

Niven is brilliant, Alicia Austin's illustrations fabulous
ONCE THERE WAS MAGIC IN THE WORLD....Unlimited magic, enough magic for everywizard's son who ever wished to cast a spell. But the "mana;' thepower that makes the magic and fuels the spells, is drying up, a naturalresource wasted by centuries of careless and short-sighted magicians. InThe Magic Goes Away master fantasist Larry Niven chronicled the end of anage, and the beginning of a new world where steel and muscle rule. In thiseagerly awaited sequel, Larry Niven has invited Poul Anderson, SteveBarnes, Mildred Downey Broxon, Dean Ing and Fred Saberhagen into his worldto tap the hidden reserves of mana and uncover the forgotten places ofpower. All is not lost. The magic may return. Illustrated by Hugo winnerAlicia Austin. ... Read more

Product Description
Once upon a time, in the earliest days of interplanetary exploration, an unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin. But the Kzinti learned the hard way that the reason humanity had given up war was that they were so very, very good at it. Thus began the Man-Kzin Wars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Good book
I read this book in collage. It is the first in the series I read and I enjoyed it. Josehf Lloyd Murchison author of "Tails of a Gay Incubus" sold at Amazon.Tails of a Gay Incubus: The Memoirs of Divine Turin

Good start to a great series
There are now 11 volumes of Kzin stories; some of the stories are much better than others, but most are just good satisfying SF.

Revisiting the First Chapter
This is a reissue of the first short-story incursion into this world by Larry Niven, complete with a retrospective introduction, in which Larry reflects on how much his "universe" has grown in detail and characterization since that story first saw the light of day.Still thoroughly enjoyable, with believable characters on both sides of the species divide.Coupled with the original Niven story are two more stories, contrubutions to the genre by Poul Anderson and Dean Ing, two master craftsmen of the Sci-Fi art.A thoroughly enjoyable trip to alternate reality.

Sexual tension between different species.
A collection of short stories by three authors, the first by Larry Niven, creator of the series, is very short, written early in his Known Space chronicles. Although this story is not a great example, Niven has a special knack for SciFi, if you have not yet read him. In a genre of fiction over-crowed with tripe, Niven's writing has a sly wit and a subtle edge, evoking a strange but very plausible future for mankind among the stars.
The second and longest story by Poul Anderson is somewhat tedious. Poul's emphasis on putting the "Science" back in Science Fiction is impressive but a bit heavy-handed in this context. The third novelette is great fun and the best of the three. The author Dean Ing writes enough like Niven that you hardly notice the difference, but I do have a couple quibbles. One is that he sort of plagiarizes Niven's "Ringworld". I will give you a brief synopsis, trying not to be a spoiler:
Locklear, a human scientist is captured by Kzanti, the cat-like aliens who walk on two feet towering eight foot tall. He figures out a clever way to get himself dropped off on an unknown planet. It turns out to be terra-formed with patches of small scale models of actual homeworlds in Known Space, Earth and the Kzinhome among them (a rip-off of Ringworld). So Locklear becomes a Robinson Crusoe type castaway. Eventually he stumbles across a number of creatures in stasis; one who he releases, with some trepidation, being a Kzin female. To his surprise she is not a mindless breeder. She speaks an arcane dialect of Kzin and in fact she is a Kzin rebel feminist from an era 40, 000 years earlier before Kzin breed their females to be non-sentient. I quibble with the 40.000 years, because could we speak English to 40,000 year old human? Anyway, those sexist Kzin warriors are in for a big surprise! The most interesting and strangest part of the story is the sexual tension between male and female of different species.

Painful
I entitled this review as "painful" for a reason, that's exactly what this book is to read. It's hard to say which is worse of the book if it is more poorly written than it is boring, but in either case it is a bad thing for the reader.

Much of the book consists of the characters prattling on with meaningless conversations as the authors try to establish the universe, culture and politics of the Humans who live in it. Unfortunately, this prattle rarely goes anywhere and has so little coherence at times that you don't know what they are trying to get at. They attempt to use a bunch of different nicknames for people from a certain locations, but they never explain them well so you are still left wondering what the difference between the people are. The fact they all talk and act the same doesn't help differentiate them either.

Speaking of culture, the Kzin culture is pretty lame. Their violent and proud warrior ideals set them apart the most from humans, but its not enough, and it isn't anything we haven't seen a hundred times over in scifi already. There is nothing special about this race at all, they're a watered down Kilrathi from the Wing Commander saga.

The writing is also weak. Short sentences, trying to explain every little detail, and description after description that lasts so long you forget what the first things described were. They leave nothing to the imagination of the reader yet don't even paint a good picture while they're at it.

The characters are mundane. Nothing really sticks out about them and they all talk the same. If it weren't for the writers saying who spoke you would have no idea there is so little difference in the dialogue from character to character. You constantly roll your eyes and ask yourself "where is this going?" only to find it leads nowhere in particular. Everything seems mashed together, transition during conversations and paragraphs is terrible.

And the ironic part of the book? Despite being billed about a war, there is very little of it in the book.They tell you about the incident that started the war then jump forward an unknown many decades after the war ended, giving some scraps here and there. If you bill a book about war, at least have the material related to the war, much of which this book did not do.

Even at $3.99 I cannot suggest this book. I had to constantly force myself to read it and after fifty pages it started to become a chore. I know this review sounds very biased and hate filled, but it is just that I honestly have nothing positive to say about it. I don't like bashing a work, but this book was just bad. Avoid this novel; it is worth neither your time nor money.
... Read more

Product Description
Bestselling science-fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of rising young author Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind's first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. 5 maps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (52)

Gripping!
Terrific sci-fi, faced paced, excellent character development, plausible scenario.Couldn't put this one down!

No Masterpiece, But A Whacking Great Read
This is an extremely fun read - someone with no expectations other than to be amused and thrilled for several hours could do a lot worse than to read this book. The pacing is fast, the suspense knife-edge, and the xenobiology fascinating. I surprised myself with a second reading of the book, many years after my first reading which left me with an ambivalent reaction.

A reviewer has posted that they are not sure what Steven Barnes had to do with the writing - I would venture that the book's more disciplined structure and social interations probably are mostly his work. This can be deduced by a read of other Niven/Barnes collaborations, such as "The Descent ofAnansi" or "The Locusts." In the latter, a group of interplanetary colonists face the tragic realization that mankind's entire intellectual evolution is solely a mechanism for seeding other worlds, as their babies are all born as throwbacks to Homo Erectus - a Niven story idea if there ever was one. Given to Barnes to complete, this novella has a clean, clear structure quite different from Niven's natural momentum/shaggy dog story-type of narrative. The relationships within the colony are also more utilitarian and down-to-earth than in some Niven's more recent works which display aggressively libertarian societal presumptions (as in "The Smoke Ring" or "The Ringworld Engineers").

Of course, the concept of heroism and military tactics point straight at Pournelle in the character of Cadman. It's very believable that in a seemingly harmless world, a career officer might find themselves sidelined, and struggle to win the colony's respect. That is pure Pournelle, master of that sort of self-defining warrior character. And just as likely, the eerie uncertainties and jolting peril are trademark Niven, who could just as easily been one of the great crime or horror writers of today.

So while it's a fun read, it is certainly not a masterpiece. There are definitely moments when the pet quirks of the authors conspire to overwhelm the suspension of disbelief in the reader - such as the reactions of the characters in the conclusion of the story. Niven's strange notion that sexual freedom somehow results in the lifting of personal standards and emotional bonding kicks in as the tattered community bypasses the process of grieving and gets down to negotiating coupling rights. And the resolution of the conflict with the monsters is simply unbelievable - after carefully constructing and amplifying the logic of an insurmountable biological threat, the solution is tossed off in a couple of careless sentences followed up by no explanation of any depth. Without giving any of the story away, an isolated group of human defenders somehow get their mindless monster attackers to acknowledge their supremacy as predators. How this translates to all the other mindless monsters all over the rest of the world I'll never guess, because three authors never get around to telling me. I'd assume that the minute the defenders ran into a new group, we'd be back at page 225.

All this aside, it's a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Its sins of inconsistency or faulty characterization are certainly no greater than, say, Dracula or Around the World in 80 Days. Except for the lurking presumption that between the three of them, the authors might have come up with a classic like those two books rather than just a page-turner.

Stultifyingly Boring ... and Unlikely To Boot In At Least One Area
As numerous other viewers have already stated, this is one of the worst efforts to ever spring from the minds of Niven and Pournelle. A guaranteed insomnia cure.

Even the name of the hero is hokey - Cadmann??? Why not Dirk or Apollo? what's wrong with a hero, for once, named Orville? But where I find it unlikely - given that we, as science fiction fans, readily accept the premise of a human colony on the fourth planet in the Tau Ceti system - is when one of the characters is careful to "blow his smoke away from her face...."

Now, come on! This is who knows how far into the future, they've just traveled for 100 years in an induced coma, and where every ounce of weight is presumably measured in terms of fuel, and they've brought along cigarettes?? Or the seeds to grow tobacco plants maybe?

Even the fact that some idiot would still be smoking at that distant future date is hard to fathom. Then again, maybe THAT is the ultimate science fiction.

Read it only if you've run out of Sominex.

Not Free SF Reader
A group of settlers on a planet include a lot of your smart scientific types.There is, however, one of your hard nosed, pragmatic security and military experts.He is not happy with how everything is set up.

Cue horror movie plot.Animals are eaten/disappear and Beowulfesque monsters roam, although they are just the local lifeforms, with their rather odd breeding cycles.Reminiscent of Heinlein's Stobor of course.

This is really pretty ordinary.

Yamabushi's mini reviews XVI
one the best books I've ever read, absolutely perfect in every regard
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Shameless escapism (& happily timeless)
On a personal note on the progression of time, I remember picking up my copy of The California Voodoo Game from the second-hand section of Rainy Day Books (Fairway, Kansas) and reading it while my mom was at work. I was, at most, 13.

This was the first book I ever read in the Dream Park series - and it lead to some pretty wild speculation about my own future career. Somehow I parlayed my skills at math (awesome) and tennis (not so hot) to become a fearsome warrior the likes of which the world had never seen... Two decades later, I suck at math, Rainy Day Books is on Twitter and The California Voodoo Game is as wildly entertaining as ever.

First published in 1992, The California Voodoo Game is the third and final book in Niven and Barnes' Dream Park series. The overriding premise is that, in the 2050s, the ultimate spectator sport is Live Action Role Playing (LARP). The geeks have successfully inherited the earth.

"Gaming" is a combination of physical skill, strategy and some pretty phenomenal holographic technology. Players wear special lenses that let them "see" things based on their character's powers and skills. Holographic special effects abound, but there's also a lot of climbing around, leaping off of things and whacking at props with foam-rubber blades.

The lion's share of the trilogies entertainment value comes out of these scenes. Not just watching the characters crawl around being chased by tentacle-monsters, but also seeing how those tentacle-monsters were brought to life. The California Voodoo Game goes a step further than the other two books in the series: the teams in the Game are competing against one another - something like the SuperBowl of Swords n' Sorcery.

If there's a flaw in the series, it is the heart-on-its-sleeve charge to promote LARPing. My 13-year-old self may have glided past the heavy-handed messaging in search of more action (or the sex scenes), but my 30 year-old self didn't. Like with Piers Anthony's Killobyte, the authors of the Dream Park series aren't happy to let an entertaining concept sell itself. Showing that fantasy/sport sword-gaming will be COMPLETELY AWESOME is a very easy pitch. Showing LARPing as the means to send people to Mars, get nerds laid and end terrorist conflicts... that's over-egging it.

More skillfully done, each of the novels combines a murder mystery with a Game. Although using a Game to cure eating disorders is a stretch (seriously, that's book two), the combination of fantasy escapism & professional sporting is a fantastic foundation for intrigue. The California Voodoo Game is a particularly well-crafted mystery - the reader knows whodunnit from the early pages (hell, everyone does) - but the "why" is a tangled mystery that isn't revealed until the very end.

Of the three books in the Dream Park series, Voodoo is perhaps the most entertaining - but also has the weakest characters of the lot. The series protagonist, Alex Griffin (the theme park's head of security) is almost a background character. A host of other characters return from the first book in the series, including the man-eating Acacia Garcia (don't worry, man-geeks, she's swiftly put back in her place).

If anyone shines through, it is Nigel Bishop, the book's villain. A recently-reinstated Gaming legend, Bishop literally wrote the book on Game strategy. A villain and a genius, the majority of the book is spend with his intellectual inferiors (the good guys) trying to figure out what he's doing. He's also a gourmet chef, a ninja warrior, an umpteenth-level wizard and a tiger in the sack. If it weren't for his sociopathic tendencies, he'd be a fantasy reader's aspiration. As it is, he's still the most compelling character in the book.

Although it is indefensibly cheesy, The California Voodoo Game is now even more entertaining than ever.It is also a two-decades old, charmingly optimistic look at a geektopia future, where nerds of all descriptions have come up with a way to be publicly lauded for their geekery. It is an undeniably appealing future - and that's part of the book's escapist appeal.

Plenty of action and strategy in the Game and out
Alex Griffin is back as the intrepid Chief of Security at the theme park of tomorrow, where the adventures are scripted but the gamers are on their own.Welcome back to Dream Park - Niven and Barnes' not-so-futuristic getaway resort, where a combination of animatronics, live actors, holograms, and computer-aided design allows well-heeled patrons to participate in the fantasy adventure of a lifetime.Once again there's been a murder at Dream Park, and once again one of the gamers must be the culprit, so once again Griffin has to join the game to try and identify the killer.

You don't need to read the other books to enjoy this bi-leveled adventure-ride, although it might be best to read Dream Park first to get to know the characters better.As the title suggests, this time around the game deals with a uniquely Californian brand of voodoo, but Griffin has his hands full keeping his eye on the five competing teams of fanatical gamers who seem willing to go to any length to win.As in the previous novels, the Game really steals the show, so this book is recommended for gamers more than for sci-fi readers, who won't find much in the way of scientific innovation here.But there's plenty of action and strategy both in and out of the Game, so despite the feeling that we've seen it all before, this may be the best of the three Dream Park novels.This volume's mystery gets a much neater resolution than that of the original novel, while the book as a whole possesses considerably more meat than the lightweight Barsoom Project.

Not Free SF Reader
Again, a murder is committed in Dream Park, and this time the deceased is Alex Griffin's girlfriend. That was probably a mistake.

The California Voodoo Game is massive, involving several teams of top class players, and five Gamemasters, including Tony McWhirter.

Griffin again has to join the game, but this time as a NPC guide. Eventually they discover a complicated, very clever game of industrial espionage is being played within the Voodoo Game itself.

Not as good as the original
If you're already a fan of Dream Park, this is a decent read.Don't expect it to be as good as the original, but it's worth the cost for a light, entertaining read.

That Voodoo That They Do
This second followup to the cult hit "Dream Park" is not as good as its inspiration, but is mounds better than its predecessor, "The Barsoom Project".I'll save my Barsoom bashing for another review, though, and just talk about "The California Voodoo Game" in this one.

This novel has everything that was good about "Dream Park", but still manages to be a tedious, less interesting version of the original.Most of the familiar characters are back, Griffin, the tough-as-nails Security Chief with the heart of gold, Acacia Garcia, the tough-as-nails gamer with the squishy insides, Tony McWhirter, the hacker criminal made good.They're all tossed into the Dream park salad to play a game called "California Voodoo", which would be fine if not for the fact that - DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUHHHH - someone get's murdered before the game and the Dream Park staff must infiltrate the game in order to catch the killer without setting off the alarms, spooking the gamers or losing their merchandising rights.

Just like the other two novels.

Sadly, this outing picks up a little of the creaky, world-weariness of the second book and keeps none of the rollicking, out and out fun of the first.The concept of Voodoo magick played out in a gigantic, ruined building is at once interesting and limiting.The authors, for all their bibliographic citations, show only a rudimentary understanding of vodoun and its many variations.The random appearance of loa is distracting and confusing.

The thing that was most fun about "Dream Park" was the fact that Griffin had to join a game as a player and track his prey from under cover; this meant the reader got to experience the game much as the players did.Here, the real focus is on the investigation.Too much takes place outside the game, too little explanation goes into the game and the authors don't really support the world they've created within the walls of Dream Park.

Frankly, the mystery just isn't that compelling.While the outcome may have cost Dream Park's parent company a ton of dough, I just didn't care.While the villain had murdered someone in the beginning of the book, I just didn't care about the victim or the methods used to catch the killer.What I DID care about was The Game.And there just wasn't enough game to go around.

The writing duo's prose this time around is more accessible than in The Barsoom Project and those reading the series for the first time will not be too disappointed to finish here instead of there.But overall, the magic feels like it's gone. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Boris Vallejo made this book readable
Honestly, the cover is so fantastically campy that I had to read it.I found it while shelving books at the library where I work.

The story was not too painful, especially if you skim through it, and the Boris Vallejo illustrations sprinkled throughout the book were my reward for sludging through the text.They're kind of like the marshmallows in my Lucky Charms.Awesome.

Meh.Nice pitchers.
I've read most of the collaborations that involve Larry Niven; I think Mr. Niven is the perfect example of why author collaborations can be a good idea.The man has absolutely brilliant ideas, but he is really not much of a writer, so if the idea itself is not enough to carry you, the prose won't do it either -- this is why Ringworld is a watershed work in the science fiction world, but I couldn't finish reading it.

Niven and Barnes are one of the better collaborative teams, though not as good as Niven and Jerry Pournelle; Niven and Pournelle complement each other perfectly (Niven is a fair-to-middling writer with great ideas, Pournelle is an excellent writer with mediocre ideas), whereas Steven Barnes is actually a good writer all by himself, and thus doesn't mesh as well with Niven.And -- oh, it's illustrated by Boris Vallejo!Well, alright then: let's read about muscly women in skimpy outifts.

And that's much of the book.The premise is fairly interesting: the Olympics of the future has become a testing ground for the best and the brightest; athletes now have to participate in academic and artistic events along with their athletic events.As the world has moved toward a one-world, corporate-run society, the Olympics is less about national pride.But now there's a twist: athletes can opt to undergo a surgical procedure, called the Boost, that increases their nerve output and makes them quicker, stronger, more coordinated, and also able to think faster and heal better.But it kills them within eight or nine years, and so they only get two Olympics to try for the ultimate prize before they become too damaged to compete -- though if they win, they become Linked, one of the elite members of the ruling class, and they are given a means of managing their screwed-up bodies that gives them back their lifespan.So it's all or nothing: win enough gold medals and get chosen to survive, or fail and die.Since most of the athletes choose to Boost, there is no other option -- an unBoosted person simply can't compete with the Boosted ones.

So it fits in well with our modern version of sports, what with steroids and manic over-training to maintain a competitive edge, and I like that.I love the idea that the athletes have to be complete, rather than one-trick monkeys like our modern overpaid mindless amoral hulks.I like the heroine, to some extent, though there are some annoying things about her, too.But the message of the book is too focused on competition as a means of fixing everything.Too capitalistic for my tastes.I mean, the world has become a single peaceful society, and war is a thing of the past; however, the oligarchy in charge of the world has intentionally kept society from becoming a utopia, because they, like so many other futuristic societies I have read or seen in movies, have realized that a perfect world is self-defeating, that elementary chaos theory as well as a simple reading of human nature shows that people, given paradise, will find a way to mess it up.Okay, I got that; I may even agree, though I think we could find a new concept of what "mess it up" means that would lead to a utopia that we would see as perfection -- like, they live in peace and harmony but they all dress really badly, or something.But the underlying idea is that the heroine is the savior of this society, that she will be the one who fixes all of the problems and makes it better -- and they had to find her through the Olympics.She had to win an athletic contest, after Boosting, to prove herself worthy.The authors tried to construe it as evidence that she'd never give up, that she was willing to do anything to be the best, but come on.The character from Pursuit of Happyness is a far better example of determination than someone who is willing to kill themselves in order to win a goddamn sports event.

Anyway, it was a one-day read, and the Vallejo pictures were actually quite nice; since this was about hyper-athletic people, his usual depiction of perfect human musculature was appropriate here.It was good enough to read.

Not Free SF Reader
A short, entertaining, illustrated novel.Nothing too flash about it other than that.A woman decides to compete in an all-encompassing super-olympic style competition to enter society's elite.

The only way to win is to take a drug to boost your performance.This drug will kill you in a few years, unless you do manage to win and get into the elite and get treatment.

Behind all this is a conspiracy, and the woman involved discovers there is something not nice going on.Well, not nice compared to the get rid of competitors and other repression that is already going on, anyway.

Stepping into a Painting
This was enjoyable and engaging.Niven shows us a key part of Known Space, pulling us into a story that becomes reality as we read.I found myself seeing the world, however briefly, as a land where a drug can increase awareness and intelligence, but at great cost.This is the goal of every artist- not to paint reality, but to make reality for the viewer and reader.Although this was a short story, and lacked a great deal of depth, it is encouraging to read that rare case of a Christian existing in the future, and a protagonist at that.This book is finely crafted science fiction, both believable and pulling the reader in.

A swing and a miss
Here's the deal, kids -- if you have never read any Larry Niven, go read almost anything else he has ever written or collaborated in writing or even done an introduction for.Do that, and the odds are really good that you'll wind up reading everything he's ever written, and find yourself haunting the bookstores and logging on to Amazon daily hoping he'll write something more for you.

Read this book last out of all the things he's written.

If you've already read everything else he's written, then you might as well read this and have that feeling of completion.

OK, it really isn't all that bad -- but Niven is a great writer, and other things he's done with Barnes have been very good (I have not read any solo efforts by Barnes)and so this one is just so TANJed disappointing. ... Read more

Product Description
Novel by Hugo and Nebula Award winner, first serialized in Analog Science Fiction (1983/84). A sequel, "The Smoke Ring," appeared in 1987. Like much of Niven's work, the story is heavily influenced by the setting: in this case, a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star. ... Read more

Product Description
is forced to push his skills to the limit by hooking himself up to to a high level computer for a dangerous amount of time, an act that causes his species to become insane. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Improper story line?
I was puzzled by the story of how the humans first acquired the hyper drive.I think the author made a few foul ups, and am not sure that part of it fits the entire story line.Otherwise, not a bad read overall.

Best of all the Man Kzin reads
A Darker Geometry is quite simply, the finest non-Niven Kzin/Man story. It has the works - Kzin, Outsiders, Puppeteers (even an aggressive, WARLIKE Puppeteer !) A superb story that would have graced Niven.

Excellent!
If you like Sci-Fi and you like Space, then You've GOT to read Larry Niven's Man Kzin books. He's gotten together with scientists and over 20 writers and created a so-fi world unlike any that's ever been created.

His sci-fi world will continue perpetuating itself long after he's gone because many young writers have bought into his sci-fi version of space as well as MANY older well established ones.

Excellent!
An excellent and exciting contribution to an excellent series. In particular I liked "The Colonel's Tiger" by Hal Colebatch, which as well as filling in an important part of the story of the Man-Kzin wars, is a subtle detective story and a convincing and frightening portrait of a defenceless society smothered by blandness in the tradtion of Huxley's "Brave New World." - the naive, defenceless Earth as it existed just before the carniverous, predatory Kzin came calling! The other stories are good too, increasing the complexity of the Kzin without distorting their nature. Buy it as an entertaining read and a good mind-stretch.

Fills in some interesting gaps in the history...
For those of you new to the series, the Kzinti are a race, created by Larry Niven, which he has given other authors permission to write stories about in this series. They are a spacefaring, sentient race evolved from carnivorous hunting cats rather than omnivorous monkeys, just as intelligent as humans and slightly more advanced technologically, at least in some areas. The only thing that has kept them from enslaving all of humanity is that their code of honor frowns upon sufficient caution; their genral idea of strategy is "first you scream and then you leap."

This installment comprises three stories, two short and one nearly novel-length by itself. On balance, they are well-written, but the characterizations seemed somewhat flat by comparison to previous stories in the series. It's difficult to say why exactly; the characters were not by any stretch of the imagination stereotypical, but I simply found it difficult to really care what happened to them.

The first story details the events just after first contact, when the first human ship to encounter Kzin was attempting to persuade a dubious government back home of the reality of the threat. The writing was good, but the main character lacked anything to make him a sympathetic character, and the plot turned on a rather dubious bit of retroactive deus-ex-machina.

The second story detailed the events that led to humanity acquiring a faster-than light drive technology, giving them the technological edge over the Kzin for the first time. These events had been referred to in previous installments, but the full story had never been told. Again, the writing was good, but while the main characters were certainly more sympathetic than the main character in the first story, they never really connected, and events still seemed rather like a deus-ex-machina, out of the control of the characters and dependent on aliens vastly more advanced, and vaguely reminiscent of beings from the Cthulu mythos.

The third story was in some ways the best, except that it was too short to live up to its potential. Just a hint, but it may be that we actually met the Kzin Patriarch himself in this one! If so, he demonstrated that he deserves his position. ... Read more

Product Description
A fix-up novel. A somewhat different version of the first chapter of this book appeared in Galaxy magazine, November 1971, entitled "Rammer". Other selections appeared as "Down and Out" (Galaxy, February 1976) and the serial "The Children of the State" (Galaxy, September - November 1976). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

After Two Hundred Years Sleeping, You'll Never Know!
Larry Niven (1938) is a multi-awarded Hugo winner and best known by his "Ring World" series.

He is a "hard sci-fi" writer, that is to say he emphasizes scientific aspects of the narration over more humanistic facets. He is more concerned on the "how" rather than on the "who". His style is nearer to sci-fi writers of the '50s & early '60s than to more recent generations.

Niven has developed the Known Space Universe as a common background to many of his novels. "A World Out of Time" does not use this backdrop.

The story starts when Corbell's persona is revived on a new body. Corbell was frozen before dying in the `70s and awaited to be "awakened" when a cure to his cancer is available.
But... surprise, surprise, 200 years after he started his hibernation the State has become omnipotent and use ancient cryobodies to extract their personality and install it on criminal's bodies devoid of their personality.
Corbell realizes that he is absolutely helpless and must follow State's instructions. In his case consist in being trained as a starship pilot and sent into an interstellar "plowing" mission.

Once in deep spaces Corbell manages to cut loose and explores the galactic core. Then he tries to return to Solar System. Due to relativistic time-debt three million year has elapsed and he is not sure that the planet into which he is descending is ancient Earth.
From here on the story catch up momentum and really interesting situations are described: strange civilizations, animals and sentient interacting in complex relations.

This book is a good starting point to appreciate the author's writing style.

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

A story that takes 3 million years and 246 pages to tell
This is an excellent novel. It does everything you would expect of a novel. It entertains; it surprises and motivates thought. This book covers 3 million years of time through the viewpoint of one personality. I say personality rather then person, as it is not necessarily the same thing for the purposes of this novel. The author does an excellent job of not getting bogged down in the vast areas of change that happen in 3 million years and only shows us things that are relevant and aid the telling of the story rather then bog it down.

Basically, the story is that of humanity and its cycles of evolution. All of this is told through one mans viewpoint and gives us a 1970's perspective on the rest of future humanity. A very well told story that is told succinctly and with the correct level of pithiness. A definite recommendation on my part. The only reason that I give this book four stars instead of five is because although it has aged well over 25 years I do not believe the story survives completely independent of the science in this case and that has aged less well. A very entertaining read.

A story that takes 3 million years and 246 pages to tell
This is an excellent novel. It does everything you would expect of a novel. It entertains; it surprises and motivates thought. This book covers 3 million years of time through the viewpoint of one personality. I say personality rather then person, as it is not necessarily the same thing for the purposes of this novel. The author does an excellent job of not getting bogged down in the vast areas of change that happen in 3 million years and only shows us things that are relevant and aid the telling of the story rather then bog it down.

Basically, the story is that of humanity and its cycles of evolution. All of this is told through one mans viewpoint and gives us a 1970's perspective on the rest of future humanity. A very well told story that is told succinctly and with the correct level of pithiness. A definite recommendation on my part. The only reason that I give this book four stars instead of five is because although it has aged well over 25 years I do not believe the story survives completely independent of the science in this case and that has aged less well. A very entertaining read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Essential Reading
Find and buy a copy of this book, if you think of yourself as human: it is one of the few places to find a copy of "The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" AND "Our Lady's Juggler" - both essential reading, even if they're the only fantasy you ever read. The former tale is the story Heinlein was proudest of, and the latter is his choice as the best least-reprinted story - and no other English translation of Anatole France's little gem is worth the paper it's printed on. Find this book and buy a copy. The other stories in it are fine, but the last two are worth the price of admission all by themselves.

a bedtime story book for thinking people
A long time fan of spider's this is the book i turn to for that point in time when somrthing new is too much and callahan's too punny.

Not an anthology but a Unique Collection of favorite stories
BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS (Ace Books, Science Fiction, 1980)by SpiderRobinson.

Here is why this book is so exceptional.

Spider Robinsonpicked his favorite short stories from each of his favorite authors - notthe most popular or the ones with the most awards, just the best accordingto him, the ones he really loved.

He then wrote an introduction for eachone of these stories, explaining, in his refreshing style, who the writeris, why he picked this particular story and how did the author reacted tohis choice.Yes - and that's how this book develops a parallel anthology - he also contacted each of the authors and asked each one of them to pickone of their favorite stories by someone else and write an introduction forit.

When asked to handle this project by Jim Baen, Ace's science fictioneditor, Spider Robinson recalls, in the foreword, how he "wasdrooling" at the idea and said "My favorite stories plus myfavorite writers' favorite stories ?Christ, that sounds like the best ofall possible worlds.""Yeah," (said Baen) "that's myworking title."

This book is a gem.It starts with Larry Niven's"Inconstant Moon" and follows with Niven's choice "Spud andCochise" by Oliver La Farge - an unforgettable "western thatblooms into fantasy, compelling awe, laughter and belief."

The nextone is "Need" by Theodore Sturgeon - my own favorite - andSturgeon then picked "Hop-Friend" by Terry Carr.Following that,we have The Duel Scene from William Goldman's "The PrincessBride" and Goldman picked Robert Sheckley's "SeventhVictim".The next one is Dean Ing's "Portions Of ThisProgram..." who then chose "They Bite" by Anthony Boucher.

Spider Robinson's last pick is an exquisitely touching story by RobertA. Heinlein (his introduction is a wonderful read in itself), "The ManWho Traveled in Elephants" which recreates magically a Fellini-likeatmosphere combined with the All American, mid century charm of Capra's"It's A Wonderful Life".Not only is this story surprisinglyunHeinlein but Heinlein's own pick is another surprise, a sweetly naive andreligious story by Anatole France "Our Lady's Juggler" very aptlytranslated by Spider Robinson himself (who was turned off by the twotranslations which were available at the time).

This anthology is notreally an anthology as we know it.Spider Robinson's world - past andpresent - is revealed throughout and we also get a glimpse into the worldsof his favorite writers as they candidly recall their reactions to theirfavorite stories.It is, in the best sense of the word, a Collection, onewhich touches the heart and caresses the mind.In that sense and so manyothers, it is Unique.

This truely is the Best of all Possible Worlds
This book is amazing in that every story in it is exceptional. During the 10 or so years that I have been collecting Spider, I have only seen one copy of this book. People who read this one tend to hold tightly to it and only loan it to close friends. One of the most amazing items about this book, is that all of the stories could have been written by Spider. This book holds gems that may not have seen the light of day for quite some time. Among these stories are the very best Heinlein and Sturgeon stories in print. All in all, I cannot recommend this collection highly enough.

Classic short stories that are hard to find anywhere else
The essence of this collection is that Spider Robinson picked his favorite short story, actually an excerpt from his favorite book (the swordfight on the Cliffs of Insanity from "The Princess Bride") and then contacted the author of that piece - William Goldman - and asked him what his favorite story was. Spider then contacted that author... and so on. The result is a unique collection of stories that provide insight into what affects these authors.

The book was published quite a few years back and I do not have a copy so I cannot list all the stories but I can say that no other collection has ever had the impact on me that this one did. If you ever wondered what Authors read and remember, find a copy and hang onto it - I've been trying to find a replacement copy for 12 years. ... Read more