Fantastic worlds by Larry Niven

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Fans of book fiction at one time could not miss the sensational book "The World of the Ring", Larry Niven's calling card. His books about fictional worlds and surprisingly twisted plot immerse the reader headlong to the very last page.

Winner of many prizes and awards, Niven continues to create his science fiction novels to this day.

Biography

April 30, 1938 in the city of angels - Los Angeles was born Lawrence van Cott Niven. His childhood was spent in Beverly Hills. And only for 2 years did he leave his sunny California to serve in the army, after being assigned to Washington. In 1956, Niven enrolled at C altech, a failed student, after Larry discovered a science fiction bookstore. Niven eventually went to Washburn University in Kansas and graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1962. After a year of unsuccessful work on a similar department at the University of California, Niven began to write. And his first book, The Coldest Place, sold for $25 in 1964.year.

Love of science led him to write novels, all of Larry Niven's books were literally at the cutting edge of scientific discovery throughout his career. As soon as authoritative publications reported on the discovery of neutron stars, Niven immediately takes this topic into circulation. And scientists' descriptions of dark matter inspired him to write The Missing Mass in 2000. He wrote stories about quantum black holes (after talking with Stephen Hawking), solar flares, and why Saturn's rings "really" appear twisted.

Creating a "fantasy"

Larry's first published story, "The Coldest Place", appeared in December 1964. It was based on a description of the dark side of Mercury, which was listed as the coldest place in the solar system. Accordingly, the other side should have been illuminated by the sun at that moment. And at the same time as the publication of the book on the cold side, scientists discovered that Mercury does indeed rotate relative to the sun. Larry Niven was steadfast in his letter and continued to talk about the wonders of our universe.

Some of his contemporaries (David Brin, for example) jokingly accused Larry of forcibly exhausting fiction, arguing that he did not leave topics for other authors to explore.

Early years

Initially, Larry never intended to describe the era of the future in a historical context. Of his first 11 published stories, there are only two recurring ones.character (Eric Cyborg's solar system exploration team and his human partner, Howie). Two other stories supported the themes and concepts of fantasy worlds that would later be added to "Known Space" (including the hyperspace Dead Spot and several strangely named planets - Canyon, Damnation, We Made It and Wonderland).

In his 1990 essay "Playgrounds for the Mind", Larry Niven writes: "I have dreamed all my life of telling stories, not from magazines and science anthologies. One day my dreams began to form into stories. Astrophysical discoveries implied supernatural worlds. I wanted to touch the minds of strangers and show them wonders I wanted to be a science fiction writer I really wanted to win the Hugo Award ".

Larry Niven's art is a richly populated universe with a past and a future, and endless story potential.

In the 1960s, his friend, the publicist Fred Paul, suggested writing scientific stories about "strange corners of the universe." Larry immediately jumped at the idea, and soon one of the most interesting and long-term characters was created: a jobless spaceship pilot and newly minted tourist Beowulf, who visits neutron stars, antimatter planets and even the galactic core during all his travels. These stories also includedintroduces the Pearson Puppeteers, a quirky, cowardly race of two-headed, three-legged adventurers who will have a profound impact on the future stories of Known Space.

Birth of "Known Space" and "The Ring"

While writing about the era of Beowulf Schaeffer, Larry Niven conceived the trees with solid fuel cores grown for rocket boosters in the book World of Ptaavs. "I feel like I was a pyrotechnician in a previous life," Larry jokes. "Relic of the Empire", the world of Kzanol and other characters of "Ptavv" were connected with the world of Beowulf's puppeteers, and soon there was a whole collection that bears the name "Known Space". In "Known Space" there were settlements of well-realized aliens, for example, Kzinti, Trinoki, Kdatlino. Vivid descriptions of distant worlds brought the universe to life, and fans were afraid to lose such a breathtaking space of time and fantasy.

However, in 1968, Niven's close friend, Norman Spinrad, offered to write a story that would blow up Known Space to pull the author onto a new route. And after a while, Niven stumbled upon an idea called the Dyson sphere. "This fully captured my imagination, and I developed a compromise structure: the Niven ring." Thus, the basis for the story called "The World of the Ring" was created.

Larry Niven - "The World of the Ring"

Popular series of books about the world in the form of a ring is the completion of the cycle"Known space". An amazing world, conveniently located on the "hoop".

It revolves around the distant sun, showing us how trillions of inhabitants can populate a strange outer space that is a million kilometers wide, a billion in diameter, and only a few tens of meters thick. The story of the world among the ruins, war and love of the humanoid race is told in four books: "The World of the Ring", "Engineers of the World of the Ring", "The Throne of the World of the Ring", "Children of the World of the Ring". This world is running from a terrible explosion of the galactic core, with surprising ease it invites readers to dive into exotic places and draws in its plot so much that it is impossible to remain indifferent.