33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction to Known Space, August 9, 1997
This review is from: Three Books of Known Space (Paperback)
People interested in Larry Niven should not be reading his newer work, it is in early novels and stories like the ones portrayed here that they should start, for this is classic Niven. The writing and ideas that made Known Space so popular is easily seen here in a fine mix of novels and stories.
Some quick notes about the novels included herein:
World of Ptavvs is a great first novel and clearly shows off Niven's Known Space while providing a story that is part science-fiction, part suspense thriller. The alien is truly frightening, and the twist of having him in different bodies was great. Niven was off to a good start
A Gift From Earth was much better than World of Ptavvs for a number of different reasons. One, you sympathized with the main characters more, the plot was bursting with more ideas than the previous novel, and everything just seems to be better, which is how it should have been. The one great thing about reading this collection is seeing how his writing got better and better. And, oh yes, his next novel was a piece you might have heard of. Anyone remember Ringwold?
Tales of Known Space rounds out the collection, and Niven had a good idea in shuffling them in with the novels to keep everything chronological. Most of the stories are classic science-fiction and those that aren't are still pretty decent. This collection also adds notes by Niven and a chart along with a bibliography of everything he had written up to The Ringworld Throne, so new fans can easily figure out which books to get and where they fit in.
So, while these novels are not exactly out of print (I know A Gift From Earth and Tales From Known Space are still available), this is still the Niven fan's best bet, whether he be new or old, to get some great science-fiction tales. Highly recommended
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Larry Niven, June 12, 2004
This review is from: Three Books of Known Space (Paperback)
I'm sure I'm not alone in "cutting my teeth" on Niven's work by reading Ringworld, and then discovering that it actually assumed prior knowledge of the Kzinti, indestructible General Products hulls, stasis fields, and other weird stuff. Three Books of Known Space fills in some of the gaps in that knowledge.
This volume is an omnibus collection of three previous books, World of Ptavvs, A Gift from Earth, and the short story collection Tales of Known Space. Niven has rearranged all the stories in chronological order according to his future history.
World of Ptavvs is a decent novel - Niven's first - about an alien Slaver who attempts to escape from Earth after being trapped there for 2 billion years in a stasis field. Human experiments with stasis technology allow him to escape - but not only in his own body. When telepath Larry Greenberg attempts to communicate with whatever is in the stasis field, he comes away with a copy of the Slaver's consciousness in his own brain. A chase across the solar system ensues as the authorities attempt to capture the Slaver and the schizophrenic Greenberg.
Niven's sophomore novel, A Gift From Earth, is slightly better. The planet We Made It has a single habitable feature: a plateau at the top of 40-mile-high Mount Lookitthat. The colony there is governed by a hereditary aristocracy, the descendants of the crew that piloted the two colony ships. The colonists, who arrived on We Made It in hibernation, are their serfs. "Justice" is swift and draconian, and colonists on the wrong side of the law wind up as spare parts in the crew's organ bank. Naturally, there is resentment, and A Gift From Earth recounts a rebellion by a faction of colonists after a robot spaceship arrives from Earth with a technological gift that could strengthen the crew's hold on power. The rebellion is led, reluctantly, by Matt Keller, who has begun to manifest some sort of psychic ability. The story is decent hard science, but would actually be improved if Niven hadn't resorted to giving the protagonist mysterious powers, which always strike me as a bit of a cheat.
But the real treasure of this volume are the short stories. Niven's future timeline begins with the early colonization of space; the first stories are about the exploration of the extremities of the solar system. (The first story, "The Coldest Place," relies on an [admitted] major scientific gaffe by Niven: at the time he thought one side of Mercury always faced the sun, though it was already known this was not the case.) The three best stories are "Eye of an Octopus," "How the Heroes Die," and "At the Bottom of a Hole," about the colonization of Mars and the discovery of the Martians. On the other hand, "The Warriors," about first contact with the Kzinti, lacks plot and seems pointless. "There is a Tide" will be a pleasant surprise for Ringworld fans: it's an earlier story starring Louis Wu as a treasure hunter who gambles with an alien Trinoc for possession of a Slaver stasis field and its contents.
Three Books of Known Space also includes a Known Space timeline, a helpful complete Niven bibliography, and numerous annotations. A lot of the stories are starting to show its age, but nonetheless this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to appreciate Larry Niven's fictional universe.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth every penny., April 2, 2003
This review is from: Three Books of Known Space (Paperback)
Larry Niven's Known Space universe is probably one of the most developed in all of science fiction. It mixes hard science fiction with space opera so seamlessly that it's easy to just slip in a wave reality bye-bye.
This book represents the largest concentration of known space stories anywhere, with many of the ones included now impossible to find elsewhere. The novels are both excellent stuff, but the short stories are where the book really shines. They cover over a thousand years of future history (and even a little of the past), and their topics are just as varied. You can expect to read about your favorite characters, plus a few new ones. The timeline is also indispensible to know how the stories relate to each other.
All in all, you should own this book if you consider yourself a science fiction fan. It's that good.
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