ugo- and Nebula-Award winner Larry Niven is one of the best writers in the field of hard science fiction (fiction very much grounded in science, mathematics and physics). Born on April 30, 1938, in Los Angeles, he graduated with a bachelor of arts in mathematics from Washburn University, Kansas, in 1962 and completed one year of graduate work at UCLA before dropping out to write.
In 1964, he sold his first short story, "The Coldest Place," for the sum of $25 to Worlds of If magazine. Of his next three stories, "World of Ptavvs" was published in Worlds of Tomorrow, while "Wrong-Way Street" and "One Face" both appeared in Galaxy. All these magazines were edited by sci-fi legend Frederik Pohl.
Niven's first novel was an expansion of his short story "World of Ptavvs" in 1966. He also penned such classics as The Integral Trees, Footfall, Destiny's Road and The Mote in God's Eye (co-written with Jerry Pournelle). He is author of the Ringworld series: Ringworld (which has won a Hugo, a Nebula, a Ditmar in Australia and a Daicon in Japan), The Ringworld Engineers, The Ringworld Throne and most recently Ringworld's Children.
Besides books, he has also written scripts for TV series, such as the original Land of the Lost, Star Trek: The Animated Series and the 1995 Outer Limits, with "Inconstant Moon" (a story about a physics professor who realizes that the sun has gone nova and that mankind has only a few hours to live, and who spends his final hours courting a woman he secretly loved).
Did you ever imagine that Ringworld would still be popular after 34 years? What do you think contributes to the novel's popularity?
Niven: After it was published and after it was having some success, then I could imagine it would last 34 years and more. When I was writing it, I wondered if anyone would take it seriously. The size of the structure was way outside limits I've seen on hard science fiction (1 million miles wide and 600 million miles long). There had been soft science fiction that had dealt with things bigger, such as Cosmic Engineers by Clifford Simak, which I read when I was a kid.
What I was after was to present this huge structure and make people believe in it, and I did my damnedest to do that. I had my doubts until it hit print and started getting good reviews and winning awards.
Is Ringworld's Children your last in the series, or do you have other books planned?
Niven: It always feels like I've written my last. I never leave a cliffhanger that is intended to be taken seriously. It always feels like I said everything I had to say. It is always true until I think of more things to say.
Freeman Dyson introduced the concept of the Dyson sphere in the early 1960s. Was this theory influential in your Ringworld series?
Niven: Yes, definitely. Freedom Dyson conceived the "Dyson shell." The notion of the Dyson shell is that a successful civilization will eventually need all the output of its star. It will have to enter up all the sunlight of a star in order to use it for industrial purposes. You'll wind up looking at a much bigger object, a shell of anything, radiating heat about the temperature of warm water, that is, if it is built by things remotely resembling humans or Earthly life. That is the Dyson shell.
The Dyson sphere is taking the idea to an extreme, building a giant ping-pong ball outside of a star—93 million miles in radius, again if they resemble Earthly life.
I looked at the ping-pong ball and started redesigning; there is no way to get gravity on that ping-pong ball. There never used to be, when I was writing. At this point, dark energy seems to promise that we can have anti-gravity if we really want it—which wasn't true when I was writing Ringworld. I put it in anyway, but not in the Ringworld.
In Lucifer's Hammer (co-written with Jerry Pournelle), the protagonist, Tim Hammer, who first sights the comet, is blamed for the terrible things that happen to Earth. Do you see him as an example of the classic outsider?
Niven: Yes. In fact, Tim Hammer, as he came out, is Jerry Pournelle's version of what I'm like. I didn't fiddle because much of what Jerry's version of what I'm like is an interesting character [laughs].
In earlier works, your background in mathematics played a noticeable role in the storyline—for example: The physics involved in the practical use of teleportation devices (alibi machines) or moving about the Integral Trees on the rim of Ringworld. In later works, the stories took a more transparent role, imposing their rules by nature. What affect does character development have on how vivid the world will be?
Niven: I've always done my best for development of characters, and they've always been shaped by the nature of the story I'm after. The environment might come first, or a question might come first, or a puzzle might come first—all of those will shape the characters. I always did my best to shape them to reality; I feel best when my characters start to act for themselves.
How do you maintain an active fascination for science fiction?
Niven: It is very easy to maintain active an attraction for science—because the sciences have been so active themselves, new discoveries everywhere. Once upon a time, Isaac Asimov wrote an article about the difficulty of keeping up with the science field. If he was writing today, his problem today would be—he could keep up, but so could every yahoo. The Internet can tell you everything. That is how I keep up with the sciences.
How do I keep an interest with science fiction? There are some good writers out there, is the answer.
On the same line, who are some of your favorite genre writers?
Niven: In fantasy, I like Terry Pratchett. He got my attention pretty quickly—one of his first novels, Strata, was a pastiche of Ringworld. In science fiction I've read a lot of Stephen Baxter's books—I'm not caught up with him like I am with Pratchett.
I have read both The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Devils [by Dan Brown].
It was 35 years ago this summer that the Apollo 11 went to the moon. Do you think we'll get a manned mission to Mars in our lifetimes?
Niven: Well, I'm 66. How old are you?
I'm 40-something.
Niven: Maybe yes for you, but no for me.
Mars is tough. Mars is tougher than the moon, and we can't get to the moon. If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon?
Do you mean like a colony on the moon?
Niven: We can't reach the moon at all today; it is already a part of the past. People born on the day we reached the moon are already middle-aged.
Today, what recent discoveries or advancements in science amaze you?
Niven: There has been a lot of wonderful stuff. Dark matter, dark energy—we're getting more answers to these puzzles. The puzzles didn't exist, as far as I'm concerned, until recently.
Games played with light speed, you can slow light down, and you can stop light in its tracks and restart it.
The Hubble is still at work and discovering wonderful things.
What I find scary is, I don't know why I find this scary—it just gets me in the bones. The universe has about 20 billion years to go. By the end of 20 billion years, planets—then everything—come apart, and then atoms come apart, then subatomic particles come apart. All pulled apart by dark energy, getting stronger and stronger, rolling into the other forces of the universe. I find that an unpleasant picture.
You've done a number of collaborations with Jerry Pournelle. What is the secret of your success with this collaboration?
Niven: Mutual respect. I've written a couple articles on collaborations. Mutual respect is one of the secrets. One of you has to have the veto power, or you can get stalled in the middle of something. When we first started, Jerry and I agreed one of us would rewrite the novel from the beginning to smooth out discrepancies in style. You don't want jarring changes in style in a novel. The one who was going to do that work on the first novel [The Mote In God's Eye] was going to be Jerry. In the second novel [Inferno] it was me.
With Inferno it took us four months to write. Most of our novels take two to four years.
What kinds of things do you do to relax?
Niven: I do yoga, I hike, and I play racquetball with a partner named Peggy Little, who can only get loose on Friday evenings because she works for a living.
The term "Tales of Known Space" is used to describe your early work. What does that phrase mean?
Niven: I worked it out like this: Known space is the volume which is known—that we know something about, having sent probes or ships through it. Human space is the volume controlled by human beings. They both are vague volumes. Most of the space between stars still isn't occupied in through Louie Wu's [protagonist from Niven's short stories and Ringworld] time. Known space is a future you understand running from several years ago through 3100.
Robert Heinlein did the first future history to be named one. It looked like a fun thing to do for a lot of us.
Was it The Mote In God's Eye that Robert Heinlein said was one of his favorite science-fiction books?
Niven: Yes.
How did that make you feel? Was that a real high in your career at that point?
Niven: Yes, it was, it was definitely a high in our career—my career and Jerry's, too. What Robert [Heinlein] did when Jerry imposed upon him to read our manuscript was, he said, "If you make certain changes this will be the best science-fiction book that I have ever read." We looked his changes over and argued about it and then made them, and that was the first time that had ever happened to Robert—but now he was committed, he did a full proofreading job on The Mote in God's Eye because his reputation was behind it now, and death upon our heads if we ever revealed the fact while he was still alive. He didn't want to do that twice [laughs]—let alone 30 or 40 times. He had friends closer than Jerry Pournelle.
That was a high in our careers and a terrific boost and a terrific set of lessons.
What are some of the genre movies you have been watching lately?
Niven: I don't catch as many movies as I like to. I have not gotten to Spider-Man 2, I heard good things about it. I want to see Big Fish. I have it on my TV screen as a pay-per-view.
Because this is an election year, what are your thoughts on the upcoming 2004 election?
Niven: I'm still in a dither; I'm either going to vote Libertarian or vote for [President George] Bush. I'm a registered Libertarian. The damn problem is Bush's father got up my nose—he raised taxes, after running a campaign on one issue: "Read my lips, no new taxes." Taxes went up, I voted Libertarian, not Democrat.
Is your character Alex Griffin [co-created with Steven Barnes] going to have any new adventures in the Dream Park?
Niven: Steven Barnes has moved up to the Northwest, not just for years, but decades. We did a little writing together then. But he's moving back into the Los Angeles area—which means it will be easier to collaborate. We want to do a Dream Park novel. We haven't gotten into huge detail yet—but we want to do that.
Last words?
Niven: Keep the faith in the future.
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Also in this issue:
Milla Jovovich of Resident Evil: Apocalypse
