Larry Niven Books in Order

Telepath Larry Greenberg helps investigate an ancient statue recovered from the sea. When an experiment frees the alien trapped inside, Greenberg faces a creature whose power to control minds could threaten everyone living on Earth.

On a colony confined to a plateau above a poisonous atmosphere, the ruling elite harvest organs from ordinary settlers. Matthew Keller becomes involved in a rebellion, and his unusual psychic ability may challenge their seemingly secure control.

This collection combines science fiction stories with essays about alternate realities, teleportation, time travel, and superhero biology. Its fiction includes a detective confronting parallel worlds and a couple trying to understand an unexpectedly brilliant moon.

These eight Known Space stories follow explorers facing dangerous stars, unfamiliar species, and mysterious alien technology. Beowulf Shaeffer's journeys feature alongside tales involving an ancient empire, a stolen weapon, and the consequences of untreated mental illness.

These three mysteries follow Gil Hamilton, a police investigator whose psychic abilities include an invisible arm. In a future shaped by organ transplantation, he investigates suspicious deaths and crimes connected with the demand for replacement body parts.

This early collection gathers science fiction stories about alien encounters, space exploration, and future crime. Its contents include humanity's first confrontation with the Kzin, a murder investigation involving organ thieves, and dangerous discoveries beyond Earth.

This novel follows Louis Wu and a mixed expedition of humans and aliens investigating an enormous artificial ring surrounding a star. Their exploration brings them into contact with unfamiliar inhabitants and the mysteries of its construction.

This collection includes stories about space exploration, dangerous alien environments, and organ theft. In the title story, a man notices the moon shining unusually brightly and fears that a disaster has left Earth facing its final night.

An alien travels across space seeking the descendants of his species, while a human smuggler becomes involved in the encounter. Their meeting raises disturbing questions about humanity's origins and introduces a powerful new threat to Known Space.

This collection includes five adventures of Svetz, a traveler sent into the past to retrieve extinct animals who encounters creatures from mythology instead. Other stories explore teleportation's social consequences and a world where magic is dwindling.

This collection explores alien contact, teleportation, black holes, and humanity's expansion into space. Its stories include an investigation involving an alien drinking companion and a Mars expedition where a strange discovery becomes entangled with a deadly dispute.

Human explorers encounter an alien civilization in an isolated star system, beginning an uncertain first contact. As diplomats and scientists study the Moties, questions about their society and intentions complicate relations with humanity's expanding interstellar empire.

This collection traces humanity's exploration and settlement of the solar system and nearby stars. Its thirteen stories feature dangerous expeditions, encounters with alien species, organ transplantation, and the first clash between humans and the warlike Kzin.

After centuries in frozen storage, Jerome Corbell awakens in another man's body under an authoritarian government. Assigned an interstellar mission, he takes control of his ship and embarks on a journey that carries him far beyond familiar time.

A comet strikes Earth, triggering earthquakes, tidal waves, and the collapse of modern civilization. Those who survive must find food, defend themselves, and decide how to rebuild communities amid the violence and scarcity of a drastically changed world.

This collection ranges from science fiction to fantasy, including stories about alien visitors, magic, and the Draco Tavern. Its title story follows a man trying to escape the consequences of summoning a demon through an unusual bargain.

Louis Wu returns to Ringworld with a Kzin companion under the control of a Puppeteer. Their search for the immense structure's builders becomes urgent when they discover that the ring is unstable and its inhabitants face catastrophe.

Spider Robinson edits an anthology pairing stories by writers he admires with works those authors recommend. The selections include Larry Niven's Inconstant Moon, Theodore Sturgeon's Need, and Robert Heinlein's The Man Who Traveled in Elephants.

Gil Hamilton travels to the Moon, where a crime investigation draws him into the politics of a lunar colony. His detective work unfolds in a society where criminals can be executed to supply organs for other people.

Descendants of a lost spaceship crew live on enormous trees floating in a breathable gas ring around a neutron star. A struggling community faces environmental dangers while the ship's computer watches for an opportunity to regain contact.

This collection brings together science fiction and fantasy, including Draco Tavern stories and collaborations with other writers. Its tales explore alien customs, magic after the destruction of Atlantis, and the boundaries that shape human lives.

Humans living on a floating tree encounter another society within the gas ring surrounding a neutron star. Meanwhile, the computer aboard their ancestral spaceship seeks renewed contact, bringing questions about their origins and independence into focus.

This anthology introduces the conflict between humans and the predatory Kzin through stories by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and Dean Ing. Encounters include a colony ship's first meeting with the aliens and a civilian stranded in an alien zoo.

Two stories continue the struggle between humanity and the Kzin. Dean Ing revisits an alien zoo and its unexpected inhabitants, while Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling follow an assassination mission on the occupied colony of Wunderland.

Three stories explore humanity's preparations for the Kzin threat, resistance on occupied Wunderland, and a search for a missing man. Ancient alien technology complicates the conflict in contributions by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Poul Anderson.

This retrospective combines Larry Niven's short fiction, excerpts from novels, personal anecdotes, and reflections on writing. Selections from Known Space sit alongside other imagined worlds, with commentary tracing the ideas and experiences behind his work.

This anthology pairs Donald Kingsbury's account of an unusual Kzin's life with Greg Bear and S. M. Stirling's story about a human telepath infiltrating a Kzin ship. Both explore the conflict through deception and alien perspectives.

This companion to N-Space combines short stories, novel excerpts, essays, and personal reflections. Larry Niven revisits Known Space, fantasy settings, and collaborations, offering selections from his fiction alongside accounts of how he develops and writes his ideas.

On occupied Wunderland, Kzin governor Chuut-Riit teaches his offspring to adopt human methods, making him a dangerous opponent. Human resistance and an assassination mission converge in this expanded novel drawn from two Man-Kzin Wars volumes.

Guardian Ganthet recruits Earth’s Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, to prevent a dangerous discovery about the universe’s origins. Their mission exposes questions about the Guardians’ history and authority while placing the wider universe at risk.

Two stories place humans and Kzin in danger from ancient alien technology. Suspicious partners uncover something beneath a gold mine, while a spaceship crew searches a forested planet for a stasis box before the Kzin can claim it.

This collection follows pilot Beowulf Shaeffer through encounters with neutron stars, alien secrets, kidnappers, and dangerous technology. Six adventures are connected by a framing story in which questions about his past threaten the life he has built.

Two stories continue humanity's war with the Kzin, whose latest fleet adopts more deceptive tactics after earlier defeats. Donald Kingsbury revisits Nora Argamentine, while Mark O. Martin and Gregory Benford describe a plan involving a captured human spaceship.

Five mysteries follow Gil Hamilton, a UN police investigator with psychic abilities, through crimes on Earth and the Moon. Cases involving organ theft and murder accompany a new investigation into a woman's body found in a radioactive crater.

Three stories range from a historical encounter with a tigerlike visitor to humanity's contact with the Outsiders and a Kzin reconnaissance mission. Contributions by Hal Colebatch, Gregory Benford, Mark O. Martin, and Paul Chafe expand the interstellar conflict.

This novel expands a story from Man-Kzin Wars VII, exploring mysteries behind the species and technologies of Known Space. Gregory Benford and Mark O. Martin examine the Kzin, Puppeteers, Pak, Jotoki, Outsiders, and their hidden connections.

Louis Wu, the Puppeteer Hindmost, and the Kzin Acolyte face new dangers on Ringworld. With incoming ships being destroyed, vampires gathering, and competing protectors pursuing their interests, the immense artificial world's future becomes increasingly uncertain.

This omnibus combines World of Ptavvs, A Gift from Earth, and stories from Tales of Known Space. Alien mind control, a colony's oppressive organ banks, and humanity's expansion across space feature alongside a timeline and author commentary.

Jemmy Bloocher leaves his isolated community to explore the mysterious road burned into Destiny's surface by a spacecraft. Descended from stranded colonists, he seeks answers about the planet, its history, and a route from which travelers never return.

This anthology includes five stories about humans and Kzin, from captured telepaths to commandeered spaceships and the aliens' distant past. Larry Niven's title story follows a prisoner who demands recognition after the first Kzin attack on humanity.

This selection gathers four stories from the Man-Kzin Wars series, covering first contact, humanity's preparations for invasion, an infiltration mission, and an uneasy mining partnership. Contributions include Larry Niven, Greg Bear, Jerry Pournelle, and S. M. Stirling.

Time traveler Hanville Svetz returns with an animal for the Secretary General’s zoo and discovers that his employer has died. A new regime sends him into Mars’s past, opening another strange assignment alongside five earlier adventures.

Human ingenuity has checked Kzin expansion, but the feline warriors seek new ways to regain dominance. This anthology continues their conflicts in Known Space, including an expedition to observe a star approaching a catastrophic planetary collision.

The Children’s Hour and Cathouse share this omnibus of human-Kzin conflict. One Kzin commander experiments with cooperation, while stranded human Carroll Locklear seeks a way to survive among prehistoric Kzinti, where unexpected alliances may offer hope.

Hal Colebatch’s stories trace Wunderland’s preparations for Kzin invasion and the struggles that follow occupation. Scientists, survivors and explorers confront enemy forces, uneasy cross-species relationships and disturbing discoveries in a colony whose peace remains difficult to secure.

Short stories, novel excerpts, essays, interviews and correspondence form this collection of Niven’s fiction and nonfiction. Selections from Rainbow Mars and Ringworld’s Children join reflections on topics ranging from space stations to behavior at science fiction conventions.

Louis Wu becomes caught in interspecies intrigue as war and a powerful weapon threaten Ringworld. With Tunesmith, Acolyte and the mysterious native Wembleth involved, protecting its inhabitants requires confronting dangers to the vast artificial world itself.

Stranded interstellar travelers terraform a moon to produce the antimatter needed to resume their journey. Gabriel directs the project, while moon-born Rachel questions a system that treats her people as labor and may abandon them afterward.

Defeated by humans who transformed civilian technology into weapons, the Kzin regroup rather than surrender their ambitions. Stories by Hal Colebatch and Matthew Harrington explore renewed strategies and confrontations as the warlike species continues challenging humanity in Known Space.

Exiled as rival Kzin prides tear the empire apart, the young heir to the patriarchy faces annihilation amid war with humanity. An alliance with two human warriors may provide his only route back to leadership.

Rick Schumann runs a Siberian tavern serving the many alien species arriving through Earth’s new spaceport. These twenty-six stories and vignettes explore unsettling conversations and encounters involving religion, hunting, wisdom and humanity’s place among its visitors.

Kirsten Quinn-Kovacs volunteers to scout ahead of the Puppeteers’ fleeing planets as radiation from the galactic core approaches. Guided by Nessus, her human crew searches for threats and uncovers concealed truths about the people who supposedly rescued them.

Earth’s covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller investigates conspiracies threatening humanity and encounters the schemes of Puppeteer representative Nessus. As the secretive alien race vanishes from Known Space, Sigmund struggles to uncover the forces manipulating human and alien affairs.

An alien refugee fleet fleeing the galactic catastrophe leaves devastated worlds behind as it approaches the Puppeteers. Unwilling to confront the threat directly, they turn to their former human subjects on newly independent New Terra for help.

Humans and Kzin form uneasy partnerships in this anthology, confronting invasions, assassins and a dangerous antimatter cache. A memory-wiped agent and a reluctant human protector face threats that test their resourcefulness amid continuing conflict and fragile peace.

The fleeing Puppeteer worlds face converging threats from old enemies and ambitious allies. Louis Wu seeks escape from a civil war, a Gw’oth intelligence builds a new colony, and disgraced politician Achilles sees an opportunity to seize power.

Novel excerpts, short fiction, essays, interviews and correspondence gather in this collection of Niven’s work and collaborations. Subjects range from space stations to convention etiquette, offering both speculative adventures and reflections on the ideas behind his writing.

Twenty-seven works survey Niven’s science fiction and fantasy across thirty-five years. Stories of Known Space, Draco’s Tavern and diminishing magic bring together speculative problems, alien encounters and imagined societies, including Neutron Star and The Magic Goes Away.

Ringworld’s sudden disappearance leaves rival war fleets seeking another prize: the secrets of the Puppeteers. Their traveling worlds face external attack and internal power struggles as Louis Wu, Hindmost and other competing figures pursue conflicting plans.

Defeated Kzin plot renewed conflict, compete within their hierarchy or cooperate uneasily with humans in this anthology. Jane Lindskold, Charles E. Gannon and other contributors explore how war and concealed motives shape relations between the former enemies.

This anthology follows Kzin coping with defeat by humans through revenge schemes, internal power struggles and uneasy alliances. Contributions by Hal Colebatch, Matthew Harrington and Alex Hernandez revisit Known Space’s unresolved tensions in both war and peace.

When a massive asteroid threatens Earth, nanotechnology pioneer Toby Glyer suspects his lost asteroid-mining machines may be involved. On the run, he seeks former partner William Connors and a way to contact the increasingly independent artificial life they created.

Instant teleportation creates dangerous flash riots and unexpected social upheaval. Aspiring reporter Jerryberry Jansen works with physicist Robin Whyte to address the problem, while misdirected journeys and malicious hackers complicate a world transformed by effortless travel.

On a largely peaceful Wunderland, young Peter Cartwright and his Kzin friend Marthar acquire a map to pirate treasure on a distant planet. Pursuing it brings them into conflict with ruthless rivals determined to claim the same prize.

This collection gathers Inconstant Moon, Becalmed in Hell, The Jigsaw Man and other earlier stories alongside essays about teleportation and time travel. Author commentary and a new introduction accompany tales exploring unsettling scientific and fantastical possibilities.

The human-Kzin wars continue in this anthology by Brad R. Torgersen, Brendan DuBois, Martin L. Shoemaker and others. A predatory species accustomed to conquest confronts resourceful humans who remain harder to defeat than their physical weaknesses suggest.