Larry Niven (Larry Lawrence Van Cott Niven) Biography

American science fictionwriter, born and educated in California. He combined an erudite style with a sound scientific basis in a series of novels and stories about Known Space beginning with World of Ptavvs (1966). Perhaps the best-known of these are Ringworld (1970), which argued the efficacy of constructing an artificial world in the shape of a sun-encircling ring, and Protector (1973); other volumes in the sequence were Neutron Star (1968) and The Shape of Space (1969), which espoused the romantic aspects of technological extrapolation. He collaborated with J. Pournelle in a series of novels including The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Lucifer's Hammer (1977), Oath of Fealty (1981), and Football (1985). His best short fiction is published in N-Space (1990) and Playgrounds of the Mind (1992).