Saturday, September 15, 2007

Larry Niven's "Tales of Known Space": 13 stories

Table of contents below is ordered on how well I like a story rather than publication order - best story first. My rating is in brackets (ABC: A = time well spent, C = don't bother).

  1. "The Jigsaw Man" (A); 1967: Chilling implications of human organ transplant technology. Nominated for Hugo Awards 1968 in short story category.
  2. "The Warriors" (A); If, Feb 1966: Very readable space opera. Man's first encounter with aliens of Kzinti species. Kzinti's have vastly superior technology, but heroic men beat them in the little war in deep space!
  3. "How the Heros Die" (A); Galaxy, Oct 1966: Only one of the two men can live. Who?
  4. "Intent to Deceive" (B); Galaxy, April 1968: Humor. A software bug creates major chaos at a fully automated restaurant.
  5. "Becalmed in Hell" (B); F&SF, July 1965: An accident on Venus.
  6. "At the Bottom of a Hole" (B); Galaxy, December 1966: Human explorers to Mars are killed by the natives.
  7. "Wait It Out" (B); The Future Unbound Program Book, 1968: An accident on Pluto puts a man in natural semi-stasis, awaiting & hoping eventual rescue.
  8. "Eye of an Octopus" (B); Galaxy, Feb 1966: Humans dig up a Martian's grave.
  9. "The Coldest Place" (B); If, December 1964: Hunt for alien creatures on "the dark side of" Mercury.
  10. "Safe at Any Speed" (B); F&SF, May 1967: A man is eaten by a huge bird along with his air car, & survives! On an new colony world.
  11. "There Is a Tide" (B); Galaxy, Jul 1968: An alien cons a human on an extra-Sol world, & regrets because of an unexpected development.
  12. * "Cloak of Anarchy" (B); download Analog, Mar 1972: An experiment in an anarchy-based society where there is no government.
  13. "The Borderland of Sol" (C); Analog, Jan 1975: Space pirates are robbing commercial traffic on busy interstellar routes with a novel weapon. Our heroes are out to hunt them down.
Fact sheet.
Tales of Known Space, collection, review
First published: August 1975

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