Book Review
Nov. 11th, 2003 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicicadaThe Best of All Possible Wars/The Best of the Man-Kzin Wars
created by Larry Niven
This book contains 4 short stories, the last of which is more of a novella running somewhere over 200 pages. The intro makes a point of saying these stories are to cover the Man-Kzin wars and as war is something that Niven does not have much experience with, he has invited other authors to help out. Without that phrasing, I probably would have enjoyed this book more as there wasn't much actual conflict portrayed. That's not to say that I was looking for a war novel, but that I expended too much time wondering if I'd wandered into the wrong novel. At any rate, the stories were generally enjoyable, but I didn't feel any real rush to get back to the book. This is a good book to pass the time in an auto-repair shop, although after the first hour you may being to hope your car would be fixed soon and indeed leave it in the shop when your car was ready. The last story, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was cowritten by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling. It took a while to get started, but was ultimately worthwhile. The characters were compelling, particularly the kzin, Spots. What I truly enjoyed was that the authors made the character likable without making him less kzin. Often alien main characters are the more human examples of the species. There are some deep emotions portrayed which snuck upon me. Perhaps this is part of the advantage of having two authors.
The whole 'known space" universe is supposed to be a big deal and yet I really haven't read many books in this series. From this collection, I am thinking that I wouldn't mind reading others if I came across them, but I'm not inspired to seek them out.
created by Larry Niven
This book contains 4 short stories, the last of which is more of a novella running somewhere over 200 pages. The intro makes a point of saying these stories are to cover the Man-Kzin wars and as war is something that Niven does not have much experience with, he has invited other authors to help out. Without that phrasing, I probably would have enjoyed this book more as there wasn't much actual conflict portrayed. That's not to say that I was looking for a war novel, but that I expended too much time wondering if I'd wandered into the wrong novel. At any rate, the stories were generally enjoyable, but I didn't feel any real rush to get back to the book. This is a good book to pass the time in an auto-repair shop, although after the first hour you may being to hope your car would be fixed soon and indeed leave it in the shop when your car was ready. The last story, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was cowritten by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling. It took a while to get started, but was ultimately worthwhile. The characters were compelling, particularly the kzin, Spots. What I truly enjoyed was that the authors made the character likable without making him less kzin. Often alien main characters are the more human examples of the species. There are some deep emotions portrayed which snuck upon me. Perhaps this is part of the advantage of having two authors.
The whole 'known space" universe is supposed to be a big deal and yet I really haven't read many books in this series. From this collection, I am thinking that I wouldn't mind reading others if I came across them, but I'm not inspired to seek them out.
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Known Space
Date: 2003-11-11 09:27 pm (UTC)What Doug said...
Date: 2003-11-13 03:59 pm (UTC)The MKW are inherently uneven because they are written by folks who have been invited to play in Niven's sandbox.
In addition to Doug's recommendations, there are also RW's two sequels (and another next year!), "Protector" (one of my personal Niven favourites), and "Three Books of Known Space" (a nice starting point).
Eschel