X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Larry Niven


Gas torus

A gas torus is the setting for Larry Niven's novels The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring, wherein a gas giant orbiting a neutron star generates a gas torus dense enough for (even human) life; this arrangement is implausible in reality.

Halo.Bungie.Org

As such, the site founders took aliases from Larry Niven's novel Ringworld; Errera assumed the name "Louis Wu", after the novel's protagonist.

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex

"Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" is a 1971 essay in which science fiction author Larry Niven details the problems that Superman would face in sexual intercourse and reproducing with "a human woman designated LL for convenience," using arguments based on humorous reconciliation between physics, biology, and the abilities of Kryptonians as presented in Superman comic books.

Memory RNA

This concept shows up in several of Larry Niven's short stories and various episodes of The Invisible Man (2000 TV series).

Springville, California

In the science fiction novel Lucifer's Hammer, written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, fragments of a comet strike the Earth, causing massive tidal waves to destroy most of the planet's coastal cities.

Superflare

In the Larry Niven short story "Inconstant Moon", a superflare devastates the day side of the Earth.

The Forge of God

It features a character, Lawrence Van Cott, that is modelled on science fiction author Larry Niven, whose full name is "Laurence van Cott Niven".


Chemical chirality in popular fiction

In Larry Niven's Destiny's Road, the title planet's indigenous life is based upon right-handed proteins.

Conucopia

Program participants highlighted by the convention included Harlan Ellison, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, authors David Brin, Larry Niven, and Harry Turtledove, plus Warner Books editor Betsy Mitchell.

Dan Alderson

A member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, an Official Editor of the comic book APA CAPA-alpha, and an early member of gaming fandom, he came into contact with a number of science fiction writers, notably Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, who, in their books, credit Dan Alderson with ideas that inspired some of their science fiction, notably the Alderson drive and the Alderson disk.

Finagle's law

Eventually the term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.

Freemartin

In Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, a lithely built woman doubts her sexuality with misgivings as to whether she is a freemartin, although she is not a cow.

George Clayton Johnson

He was the proprietor of Cafe Frankenstein, and co-created the comic book series Deepest Dimension Terror Anthology with cartoonist Jay Allen Sanford for Revolutionary Comics, which adapted his stories from The Twilight Zone (including unproduced teleplays) and stories by his friends and contemporaries such as Larry Niven, Robert Bloch, and Dennis Etchison.

Inertialess drive

Inertialessness, though not for faster-than-light travel, is discussed in Robert A. Heinlein’s Methuselah's Children, Isaac Asimov's short story The Billiard Ball, Larry Niven’s Known Space universe, Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey, and

Klemperer rosette

In Larry Niven's novel Ringworld, the Puppeteers' "Fleet of Worlds" is arranged in such a configuration (5 planets spaced at the points of a pentagon) which Niven calls a "Kemplerer rosette"; this (possibly intentional) misspelling (and misuse) is one possible source of this confusion.

Mars: The Home Front

The concept of the Martians of Wells and Burroughs coexisting (and fighting) on the same fictional Mars was also used in Larry Niven's 1999 novel Rainbow Mars and briefly indicated in Ian Edginton's 2006 comic Scarlet Traces: The Great Game.

Peter Andrew Jones

During his career he has provided book covers for a slew of prolific science fiction and fantasy authors including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Greg Bear, Larry Niven, Philip K. Dick, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Harry Harrison.

Phlegethon

In the novel Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Phlegethon is guarded not by centaurs, but by military officers taken from all eras of history (with instructions to shoot anyone who tries to escape).

Star Control II

David Brin's science fiction series about the Uplift Universe is also often mentioned as inspiration for the Star Control II universe, as well as Larry Niven's Known Space universe.

Taken at the Flood

"There is a Tide" is also the name of a short story by Larry Niven, set in the Known Space universe.

The Burning City

The Burning City is a fantasy novel of social and political allegory by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle 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.

Thomas Thurston Thomas

He has also contributed one title, An Honorable Defense (1988), to the Crisis of Empire series (with David Drake), and the novelette Hey Diddle Diddle to the fifth installment of the Man-Kzin Wars series (based in the Known Space Universe of Larry Niven).

Watchmaker

In the scifi novel The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, the Watchmakers are a small technologically intelligent sub-species of the Moties that will repair/improve things left for them (accompanied by food as payment).


see also

Man of Steel

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, an essay about Superman's sexuality by Larry Niven

Slashdot effect

The term "flash crowd" was coined in 1973 by Larry Niven in his science fiction short story, Flash Crowd.

Tasp

Tasp, a device in the Known Space short stories written by author Larry Niven which remotely mimics the effects of wireheading

The Burning City

According to the afterword published with the book, Larry Niven originally developed the story in order to channel his feelings of frustration relating to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.