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Scatterbrain (book)
''Scatterbrain'' a collection of short stories, novel excerpts and essays by Larry Niven. It was published in 2003, as a sequel to ''N-Space (short story collection), N-Space'' and ''Playgrounds of the Mind''. Contents #Introduction: Where Do I Get My Crazy Ideas #Destiny's Road (Excerpt from the novel) #The Ringworld Throne (Excerpt from the novel) #The Woman in Del Ray Crater #Loki #Procrustes #Mars: Who Needs It? (Non-fiction for Space.com) #How to Save Civilization and Save a Little Money (Non-fiction for Space.com) #The Burning City (Excerpt from the novel, with Jerry Pournelle) #Saturn's Race (Excerpt from the novel, with Steven Barnes) #Ice and Mirrors (With Brenda Cooper) #Discussion with Brenda Cooper re: Ice and Mirrors #Smut Talk #Telepresence #Learning to Love the Space Station #Autograph Etiquette #Tabletop Fusion #Collaboration #Intercon Trip Report #Handicap #Did the Moon Move for You, Too? #Hugo Awards Anecdotes #Introduction to Peter F. Hamilton, Pete Hamilton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are ''Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, ''The Mote in God's Eye'' (1974) and ''Lucifer's Hammer'' (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named him the 2015 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series ''The Magic Goes Away'', rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource. Biography Niven was born in Los Angeles. He is a great-grandson of Edward L. Doheny, an oil tycoon who drilled the first successful well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field in 1892, and also was subsequently implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal. Niven briefly attended the Califor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
N-Space (short Story Collection)
''N-Space'' is a collection of short stories by American science fiction author Larry Niven released in 1990. Some of the stories are set in Niven's Known Space universe. Also included are various essays, articles and anecdotes by Niven and others, excerpts from some of his novels, and an introduction by Tom Clancy. Its sequel is ''Playgrounds of the Mind''. Contents * "Introduction: The Maker of Worlds" by Tom Clancy * On Niven (by David Brin, Gregory Benford, Wendy All, John Hertz, Steven Barnes, and Frederik Pohl) * Dramatis Personae * Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind * from '' World of Ptavvs'' * " Bordered in Black" * "Convergent Series" * "All the Myriad Ways" * from " A Gift From Earth" * "For a Foggy Night" * "The Meddler" * "Passerby" * "Down in Flames" * from ''Ringworld'' * "The Fourth Profession" * "Shall We Indulge in Rishathra?" (with cartoons by William Rotsler) * "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" * "Inconstant Moon" * "What Can You Say about Chocola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playgrounds Of The Mind
''Playgrounds of the Mind'' is a collection of short stories by American writer Larry Niven, published in 1991. It is the sequel to ''N-Space (short story collection), N-Space''. Many of the stories are set in Niven's Known Space universe. There are also excerpts from his ''The Magic Goes Away'' novel series, as well as several stories from his ''The Draco Tavern'' setting (an alien bar) and other sources. Contents * "Thraxisp: A Memoir" * "A Teardrop Falls" * From Inferno (Niven and Pournelle novel), ''Inferno'' (with Jerry Pournelle) * From ''A World Out of Time'' * "Rammer" * From "The Ethics of Madness" * "Becalmed in Hell" * "Wait It Out" * "A Relic of the Empire" * From ''Lucifer's Hammer'' (with Jerry Pournelle) * "The Soft Weapon" * "The Borderland of Sol" * From ''The Ringworld Engineers'' * "What Good Is a Glass Dagger?" * From ''The Magic Goes Away'' * "The Defenseless Dead" * From ''The Patchwork Girl'' * "Leviathan!" * From ''Oath of Fealty (novel), Oath of Fealty'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Destiny's Road
''Destiny's Road'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1998. It follows Jemmy Bloocher's exploration of Destiny's Road, a long scar of once-melted rock seared onto the planet's surface by a Spacecraft, spaceship's Nuclear fusion, fusion drive. Jemmy is descended from the original Destiny colonists, who were stranded when their landing craft (which created the Road) deserted them. The novel takes place in the same universe as the novel ''The Legacy of Heorot''. Back story The novel is set several hundred years in the future, on an Earth-like planet named Destiny, along a length of fused bedrock known as the Road. The Road was created to enable humans to survive on the planet, as its native life is not nutritious to Earth life—and vice versa. By sterilizing a peninsula with the ship's fusion engines and seeding the cleansed ground with Earth plant life, along with the burials of dead colonists (colloquially known as ''lifegivers'', as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ringworld Throne
''The Ringworld Throne'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1996. It is the direct sequel to his previous work '' The Ringworld Engineers'' (1980). He wrote it as a replacement after being unable to finish his contracted novel ''The Ghost Ships'', the sequel to ''The Integral Trees'' and '' The Smoke Ring''. Plot summary This book consists of two main plot threads, which only come together towards the end of the book. A variety of Ringworld hominid species, led by the Machine woman Valavirgillin (from '' The Ringworld Engineers''), join together to kill a large nest of vampires (the shadow nest) which has been feeding on all of them. With the help of two Ghouls, who know that the nest is located under an abandoned floating factory, they manage to cast out the vampires. The Ghouls find one of the Hindmost's spying devices in the factory and transport it all the way to the rim, to ask for help against the Protectors who rule the rim. Mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework. Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like the ''Timaeus'' of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called ''khôra'' (i.e. "space"), or in the ''Physics'' of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition of ''topos'' (i.e. place), or in the later "geometrical conception of place" as "spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Burning City
''The Burning City'' is a fantasy novel of social and political allegory by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It is set in an analogue of Southern California in an imaginary past shortly after the sinking of Atlantis about 14,000 years ago in the twilight of a civilization then struggling and now vanished for lack of a crucial natural, and essentially non-renewable resource upon which almost all of its economy and technology depended. The vanishing resource is not oil but ''mana'', something vital to the technology of magic and the metabolism of the supernatural. As mana becomes scarce gods sleep and finally die, unicorns get smaller and finally turn into hornless ponies, and magic becomes less and less effective and finally vanishes. The book was published in 2000, and was followed by a sequel, ''Burning Tower'' in 2005. It is part of the same timeline as ''The Magic Goes Away''. Plot summary The first and last parts of the novel are set in Tep's Town, on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in ''Gizmodo'', he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future." Pournelle's hard science fiction writing received multiple awards. In addition to his solo writing, he wrote several novels with collaborators including Larry Niven. Pournelle served a term as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Pournelle's journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine ''Byte'', writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, "We do this stuff so you won't ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn's Race
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock ( silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes (born March 1, 1952) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. He has written novels, short fiction, screen plays for television, scripts for comic books, animation, newspaper copy, and magazine articles. Career Barnes wrote several episodes of ''The Outer Limits'' and ''Baywatch''. His " A Stitch In Time" episode of The Outer Limits won an Emmy Award. He also wrote the episode "Brief Candle" for ''Stargate SG-1'' and the '' Andromeda'' episode "The Sum of Its Parts". Barnes's first published piece of fiction, the 1979 novelette "The Locusts", was written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee.Award nominees [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brenda Cooper
Brenda Cooper (born August 12, 1960) is an author and futurist who resides in Kirkland, Washington, where she is the Chief Information Officer of the city of Kirkland. She has co-written various short stories with Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are ''Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, ''The Mote in God's Eye'' ... and has written ten novels. Brenda was educated at California State University, Fullerton, where she earned a BA in Management Information Systems. She is also pursuing an MFA at StoneCoast, a program of the University of Southern Maine. Brenda lives in Woodinville, Washington with her family and three dogs. Bibliography Novels * '' Building Harlequin's Moon'', (2005) written with Larry Niven. * * ;Silver Ship series # # # ;Ruby's Song # #The Diamond Deep (2013) ;The Glittering Edge (sequels to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
