Well there doesn't SEEM to have been on a thread on these chaps, so I thought I'd start one.
Alone and with Pournelle, Niven has been one of the best known proponents of hard-SF to come out of the Silver Age of SF (I mean roughly the 60s and 70s). I have read only a few of his works, and in the interests of subjectivity, will kick this off with my own views thereof;
The World of Ptavvs: Niven's first novel. Published in 1966, when many comtemporary authors were pushing on with entirely new approaches to SF, this was a triumphantly traditional wide-scale space-opera style romp. An exciting adventure tale, with a truly gripping space chase across the solar sytem, it is clearly a first novel, but great fun of its kind. Extra points for the talking dolphins!
Inconstant Moon: a Collection of sort stories. A good variety of tales, Niven seems quite comfortable in the shorter format and mixes equal parts of scientific speculation, action and human interest.The title tale is an unforgettable doomsday scenario.
The Mote In God's Eye - Possibly the Niven/Pournelle team's best known work. A classic work in the SF canon, it has elements that do not sit too well with me. Although the Motie alines themselves are fascinating, the human characters are less so. The protagonist is called Lord Captain Rod, for crying out loud!!! The milieu is terribly Anglo Saxon, with a few Scots and Russians and a token Arab thrown in. The political set-up is a galactic empire and most of the human protagonists ae cardboard cut-outs: Hard Nosed Naval Officers, Compassionate Chaplain, Schemeing Trader, Idealistic Scientists, Virtuous and Headstrong Maiden, bah....
A great read for the description of the alien beasties, though.
Oath of Fealty: Niven/Pournelle
Even more distasteful in its proud depiction of a future fedual state. The story itself is only marginally interesting. Very avoidable.
Anyway, I'm not that easily put off a potentially interesting author, and one Niven work I definitely want to read next is Ringworld. Any other opnions/reccomendations?
Alone and with Pournelle, Niven has been one of the best known proponents of hard-SF to come out of the Silver Age of SF (I mean roughly the 60s and 70s). I have read only a few of his works, and in the interests of subjectivity, will kick this off with my own views thereof;
The World of Ptavvs: Niven's first novel. Published in 1966, when many comtemporary authors were pushing on with entirely new approaches to SF, this was a triumphantly traditional wide-scale space-opera style romp. An exciting adventure tale, with a truly gripping space chase across the solar sytem, it is clearly a first novel, but great fun of its kind. Extra points for the talking dolphins!
Inconstant Moon: a Collection of sort stories. A good variety of tales, Niven seems quite comfortable in the shorter format and mixes equal parts of scientific speculation, action and human interest.The title tale is an unforgettable doomsday scenario.
The Mote In God's Eye - Possibly the Niven/Pournelle team's best known work. A classic work in the SF canon, it has elements that do not sit too well with me. Although the Motie alines themselves are fascinating, the human characters are less so. The protagonist is called Lord Captain Rod, for crying out loud!!! The milieu is terribly Anglo Saxon, with a few Scots and Russians and a token Arab thrown in. The political set-up is a galactic empire and most of the human protagonists ae cardboard cut-outs: Hard Nosed Naval Officers, Compassionate Chaplain, Schemeing Trader, Idealistic Scientists, Virtuous and Headstrong Maiden, bah....
A great read for the description of the alien beasties, though.
Oath of Fealty: Niven/Pournelle
Even more distasteful in its proud depiction of a future fedual state. The story itself is only marginally interesting. Very avoidable.
Anyway, I'm not that easily put off a potentially interesting author, and one Niven work I definitely want to read next is Ringworld. Any other opnions/reccomendations?
Good point!
