Customer Reviews

Man-Kzin Wars IV

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In each of the first three books of this series, the book was made up of two or three stories of relatively equal length. This book varies somewhat from that format; there are two stories, the first a small novel in and of itself, taking up about 75% of the book (240 pages out of 310). The remaining 70 pages are a story more similar to the others we've seen in the series, perhaps a bit shorter.

Both of the stories in this book are excellent, particularly the longer first story ("Survivor", by Donald Kingsbury). I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone not familiar with the basic concept of Kzinti, a race of spacefaring carnivorous cats, constantly at war with us omnivorous monkeys and constantly losing in the long run because we monkeys are capable of THINKING about the long run, whereas Kzinti consider it shameful to be so cautious as to excercise forethought and planning. (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it conveys the spirit of the situation.) Still, it isn't necessary to have read all of the previous three collections to appreciate this one; granted, the first story refers back to some events in a story in volume three, but if you didn't know that, you would probably simply assume that the events glossed over were events of tangential importance to this story, and you'd be correct.

This is my favorite of the series so far, even if the ending to the second story was somewhat less than satisfying.

Similar to Man-Kzin Wars I through VI: many excellent stories about Kzinti and humans at war across interstellar space. Did I mention that Kzinti telepaths go mad interrogating human vegetarians? Or that human prisoners are considered additions to the meat larder? Or that Kzinti women are not even sentient? This is _not_ for kiddies. Ironically, Niven goes far out of his way in the introduction to Man-Kzin Wars IV to criticize a parody of his work and claim ownership of "his" fictional universe. "The Only Fair Game" (an explicit work involving S&M and homosexuality) may be found at http://www.halcyon.com/elf/other/

Similar to Man-Kzin Wars I through VI: many excellent stories about Kzinti and humans at war across interstellar space. Did I mention that Kzinti telepaths go mad interrogating human vegetarians? Or that human prisoners are considered additions to the meat larder? Or that Kzinti women are not even sentient? This is _not_ for kiddies. Ironically, Niven goes far out of his way in the introduction to Man-Kzin Wars IV to criticize a parody of his work and claim ownership of "his" fictional universe. "The Only Fair Game" (an explicit work involving S&M and homosexuality) may be found on the author's webpage at http://www.halcyon.com/elf/other/

This one was pretty good because it's the one with 'The Man Who Would Be Kzin', written in part by Greg Bear, which was one of the more interesting premises. I'd say if you only read 3 stories from the series, it should be the stuff from Dean Ing from books 1 and 2, which are combined in the 'houses of the kzinti', and this one. If you read one more, it should be 'The Survivor' and the continuation 2 books later, also starting in book 4.

However, there are some dubious attributes of this book which really should be made open. First, like at least a FEW others (so they didn't even just make this mistake once), the so-called Kzin on the cover does appear to have 5 fingers in his gloved hand. I mean, what's the deal? Do they keep going back to the same artists who don't even bother to get enough of the picture to know they're supposed to have 4 fingers on each hand?

Even more dubious is the introduction at the beginning of this book by Niven himself, which is basically a warning and a threat to any readers who want to produce any fiction within the universe he established - he expresses his unwillingness to allow ANYone to embed the Kzinti in the star trek universe, but this is ridiculous, because he HIMSELF was responsible for 'The Slaver Weapon', an episode of the original Star Trek animated series, if actually you're old enough to remember the show. To refresh your memory, that animated cartoon is a ludicrous adaptation of 'The Soft Weapon', ludicrous because the man and his wife are verbatim replaced by Sulu and Ohura, and even worse, the puppeteer, supposedly a 2-headed, 3 legged monstrosity of a grazing animal is played by, who else, Spock. In spite of how ridiculous it sounds, it was pulled off, and apparently Niven was pulling the strings, as it attributes itself to him at the beginning. So, since he himself already established the Kzinti into the Star Trek universe, I think it's downright hypocritical for him to chastize anyone for continuing what he started.

And nothing short of outrageous that he should start this book with an self-gratifying essay reproving anyone so wicked as to put the Kzinti into the Star Trek universe, and conveniently forgetting he already set the standard.

So skip Niven's introduction. Or laugh at the lunacy of it all. But I say, this book is a good read other than that. At least it doesn't have any of those terrible, anesthetic (they will put you to sleep) Poul Anderson stories that appear in more than 2 books of the series. Oh man, those are awful.

How the hell could this book be out of print? Anyway, I really liked the character Grass Eater, because it shows a whole new side of the Kzinti, and gives insight into who they really are. You see that even the mightiest warriors among them are not fearless, but are basically brutalized from birth into constant fights for survival that is the basis for their entire society. I liked it.