Автор - Larry Niven

The Man-Kzin Wars 11

The Kzin were the mightiest warriors in the galaxy, which they were wasting no time in conquering, one star system at a time. Then those feline lords of creation ran into those ridiculous weed-eating pacifistic apes who called themselves humans. And the catlike Kzin found they had their collective tail caught in a meat grinder. When the mighty Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-infested worlds, they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equipment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Kzin heroes into ribbons. And then those underhanded humans gained a faster-than-light drive, and no amount of screaming and leaping could keep the Kzin from losing their first war in centuries of successful conquest. But you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders: Here they come again and those monkey-boys from Earth had better watch their backs. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space!

The Mote in God's Eye

In the year 3016, the Second Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a light sail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, and an expedition is dispatched. In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization—at least one million years old—that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming and kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they’ve been unable to solve in over a million years. This is the first collaboration between Niven and Pournelle, two masters of hard science fiction, and it combines Pournelle’s interest in the military and sociology with Niven’s talent for creating interesting, believable aliens. The novel meticulously examines every aspect of First Contact, from the Moties’ biology, society, and art, to the effects of the meeting on humanity’s economics, politics, and religions. And all the while suspense builds as we watch the humans struggle toward the truth.

The Ringworld Engineers

Ringworld, the most celebrated work in Niven’s “Known Space” sequence, posited a vast body of matter — enough for an entire solar system — spinning around a sun in the form of a single giant artifact of unknown origin: a continuous million-mile-wide ribbon provided with oceans, atmosphere, and vast flat projections (life-size “maps”) of Earth and other inhabited planets. The present book takes up the puzzle some 20 years after Louis Wu’s escape from the Ringworld. Kidnapped by the mate of Nessus, their two-headed alien companion of the previous voyage, Louis and his catlike ally Chmeee are transported to the Ringworld — now spinning dangerously off-center — in an attempt to discover the cause of the aberrant rotation before the world grazes its sun. Searching for clues to the design of the structure’s long-vanished original engineers, they encounter various hominid and other races before finding the barely feasible, wholly appalling solution hidden beneath the “Map of Mars.” Niven, a longstanding favorite with “hard” SF buffs, commands an impressive vein of invention, but his plotting here is limp and threadbare; the idea was more striking the first time around. Nominated for Hugo and Locus awards for best novel in 1981.

The Ringworld Throne

An honored SF writer returns to his best-known creation: the artificial world, built far from Earth by aliens over a half million years ago, in the form of a ring 600 million miles in diameter, hosting an astonishing multitude of inhabitants and cultures. This third fictional voyage to the Ringworld (after Ringworld, 1970, which won both the Hugo and the Nebula for best SF novel of that year, and Ringworld Engineers, 1980) offers two stories crowded into one. A motley array of hominid inhabitants are seeking to defeat a plague of vampires. Meanwhile, returning hero Louis Wu is battling what effectively is a plague of Protectors (superbeings common to many Niven novels) whose rivalries threaten Ringworld’s existence. The battle against the vampires is the more exciting of the two stories, filled with action, scenes of the Ringworld and explorations of ritualistic interspecies sex. Wu’s pursuit of the Protectors displays Niven;s deft hand at portraying aliens, but the dialogue that fills in the backstory slows the narrative. Niven still ranks near the top of the SF field, but this outing is likely to satisfy determined Ringworld fans more than other readers.

The Warriors

Tronul Lumii Inelare

Cartea conţine două fire narative principale, care se întrepătrund abia spre final. Marea parte a primei jumătăţi a poveştii este dedicată reunirii unor specii hominide de pe inel, pentru a ucide un cuib de vampiri care se hrăneşte cu ele. Unele personaje au apărut şi în Inginerii Lumii Inelare, doar puţini hominizi fiind omorâţi în timpul operaţiunii lui Louis Wu şi a Ultimului de stabilizare a inelului, desfăşurată la sfârşitul cărţii anterioare. A doua parte descrie aventurile lui Louis Wu, acum bătrân şi bolnav. În cele din urmă, el şi Chmee revin la Ultimul, fiind vindecaţi, doar pentru ca ei — şi un alt Kzin, pe nume Acolyte, care este fiul lui Chmee — să devină sclavii unui Protector Pak vampir. Urmează o luptă între Protectorii de pe Zidul de Margine şi Protectorii vampiri care controlează apărarea Lumii Inelare.