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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
good early stuff, August 19, 2005
This review is from: Tales of Known Space: The Universe of Larry Niven (Mass Market Paperback)
thought provoking examinations of the social effects of
technological change, which seems to me to be one of the
primary purposes of sci-fi, and can therefore be forgiven
for its failure to be perfectly accurate in predicting
what will happen when (plus, i like the old stuff, and am
willing to add 100 years to whatever the old stories come
up with). i highly recommend these stories since niven's
near-future look is worthwhile compliment to his distant
galaxy hopping work, even if it may not perfectly fit in
his later conception of his universe.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Known Space Rules! Interesting as hell, too., July 7, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Tales of Known Space: The Universe of Larry Niven (Mass Market Paperback)
This collection of stories was the first book of the now renowned Known Space Series. A lot of the stories are from a long time ago, so they seem kind of outdated, but most of them are still pure Niven, pure cool. Especially liked that one, "Hole Man" I believe it was, where the scientist on Mars murders someone with a black hole. Man, this is some good stuff.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Early Larry Niven, March 8, 2009
Known Space is the huge area of the galaxy in which man has explored, though not necessarily settled. In this vast area events occur that are filled with intrigue, wonder and adventure. In Howie's very unusual spacecraft has developed a fault that might require some canny thought to fix it. In <Wait It Out> the hero is marooned on Pluto trapped in an eternal vigil that may never end in rescue. In <The Jigsaw Man> Lew Knowles bemoans the unfairness of both fate and the law, but will he escape both? Niven has a knack for entertaining his readers by including the surprising and unusual. Of course I cannot give you any examples as that would spoil the book.
This is a collection of thirteen short stories, but has a little of the feel of a novel. Niven has invented a future history for mankind stretching from the 20th Century to the 31st. and all of these stories fit into that imagined chronicle. Some of these tales refer to one another, and others refer to other stories in this series that are published in other books. The book has a time line showing the major 'historical' events and most of the stories Niven has written in this series. This volume is arranged in time line order so the reader gets a sense of progression and development as he moves through the book.
The best stories in this volume are and <Cloak of Anarchy>. The first gets my vote because of its wide-eyed, aghast humor and the second because of its relevant social comment. The least interesting are <The Coldest Place> and <The Borderland of Sol>. <The Coldest Place> is Niven's first published story and unfortunately lacks plot. Niven explains in his introduction that he thought of rewriting it but eventually decided against that idea. At 47 pages <The Borderland of Sol> is by far the longest tale in the book and unfortunately the quasi-scientific hoo-ha bored me.
If you like this book, which on the whole I did, you will probably also enjoy Neutron Star, Protector, The World of Ptavvs (Tales of known space), Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers (Ringworld) all of which are in this future history series.
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