INTRODUCTION
BY LARRY NIVEN
MEMOIR
From June 1988 to January 2013
When I first said, “No! Known Space is mine,” I was craning around to talk to Jim Baen in the back seat of our car. Marilyn was driving. Jim and I had already done a similar thing for Ace Books, opening up the Magic Goes Away universe to other writers. Now he was pressuring me to open the Known Space worlds. I thought it over, then added, “We can open the Man-Kzin Wars. I don’t do war stories.”
I didn’t have a plan then, exactly, but I had hopes.
First: I had to hope that other writers would find it intriguing or even lucrative to work in my Known Space universe. To sweeten the deal, I offered to pay the writers all of the advance money and wait until the advance was paid out. Then I’d start earning my cut.
Second: I hoped they’d do well by my fictional universe. They did. Mostly they came through spectacularly. It bothered me when I had to reject a story or two, one for violating basic assumptions, one for being dull. I shouldn’t have worried. Jim got other writers to collaborate on turning the duds into something worthwhile.
Third: I’d said everything I knew to say about that period in the Known Space universe. I hoped others’ work in the field would re-inspire me.
Over these past twenty-five years I’ve added stories to the Man-Kzin Wars aspect of the Known Space universe. I haven’t had a story in every volume, but there have been several. For a while it seemed I was the only one who could write anything short in this universe. It’s been a kind of slow, long range conversation with a gathering horde of other writers.
Poul Anderson’s story in this first volume, “Iron”, gives a wonderful overview of Tiamat, the terraformed asteroid in Alpha Centauri’s Serpent Swarm. In fact “Iron” is a wonderful overview of Known Space, with characters from all over that universe. Other writers have found Tiamat and Wunderland to be wonderful settings for their stories.
Dean Ing’s “Cathouse” introduced archaic, sapient Kzinti females. Other writers have taken up that thread, which I had somewhat neglected.
Donald Kingsbury invented the Jotoki slaves, and several of us have added to their history. It wasn’t my idea to write that the Kzinti stole their ship technology from the Jotoki.
Several authors have written of the Kzinti telepaths, which I had neglected. I added Shasht (or Burrowing Murder, or Fafnir) to the canon, a human-acquired world where Kzinti stayed behind to become the fishing industry and the police.
I haven’t had to interfere very often.
Jean Lamb’s “Galley Slave” went hand to hand with a Kzin; I made her give her a better weapon.
Hal Colebatch wrote many stories in the series, including one whole volume. In his second story he made a mistake I’ve made too: he started with an ending and stuck to it after the story had veered. I told him to throw away the last half, and then I outlined a different finish. He could have told me to jump off a cliff. But he wrote it—and wrapped up the tale of the Angel’s Pencil (in “the Warriors”) and left me a slot for Sheathclaws, a world of Kzinti and human telepaths cut off from human space by an arm of the Patriarchy.
Matthew Joseph Harrington writes of a human woman turned protector, Peace, whose brilliant banditry has seriously affected Man-Kzin history. Peace’s manipulations seem to have created the Kdaptist Heresy (first seen during Ringworld).
So here’s the first volume of the Man-Kzin War series, which currently number thirteen volumes. I hope you’ll enjoy the stories and go on to read many more.