The Man-Kzin Wars is the name of a series of military science fiction anthologies as well as the name of the first book in the series.[1] The short stories detail the eponymous conflicts between mankind and the Kzinti, set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. However, Niven himself has written only a small number of the stories; most were written by other science fiction writers, as Niven opened this part of the Known Space to collaboration in the form of a shared universe. The cover art for the books in the series is created by Stephen Hickman.
The first story set in the Man-Kzin Wars, "The Warriors" (1966), was one of Niven's earliest published stories and one of the first of what would become his Known Space series. Niven did not consider himself qualified to write war stories; therefore, although a number of his later stories referenced the Man-Kzin Wars, he never actually showed them. However, there was a large fan demand for stories covering the conflict, and a number of his author friends had shown interest in writing tales set in the time frame. Niven, therefore, allowed the Man-Kzin Wars to become a shared universe, starting with the 1988 release of The Man-Kzin Wars. Starting with volume three, Niven himself has composed several additional stories in the series, although the majority of content has been written by other authors.[2]:508[3]:333[4]:179[5]:197[6][7][8] The resulting series has also been described as a "franchise".[9]
Initially, there were only plans for two volumes. Niven, along with John Hewitt (one of the main writers for the Ringworld RPG) composed a "Bible" for aspiring writers, including several pages of notes composed between the two of them and photocopied pages of the RPG. The Bible included corrections for some of the inconsistencies in Niven's work. Jerry Pournelle and Poul Anderson were among the first authors approached, and both ended up writing stories.[10]
The series has continued to the current day (volume XV was released in 2019).[11]
The stories
Title
Published
Collected in
Written by
"The Warriors"
1966
Worlds of If; Tales of Known Space; The Man-Kzin Wars; Three Books of Known Space; The Best of All Possible Wars†
"Iron" and "Inconstant Star" were combined as a single collection, Inconstant Star, in 1991.
"Cathouse" and "Briar Patch" were combined as a single collection, Cathouse, in 1990.
"The Children's Hour" and "The Asteroid Queen" were combined as a single collection, The Children's Hour, in 1991.
"A Darker Geometry" was expanded (an extra segment added to the end) and republished as a novel in 1996.
"The Warriors", "Madness Has its Place", "The Man Who Would Be Kzin", and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" were collected as The Best of All Possible Wars: The Best of the Man-Kzin Wars in 1998.
"Cathouse", "Briar Patch", and "The Children's Hour" were collected as The Houses of the Kzinti in 2002.
"Jotok" was originally titled "The Chosen One".
In 2001, Annals of the Man-Kzin-Wars: An Unofficial Companion Guide was released. Written by Alan Michaud, it includes illustrations, maps, histories of the Kzinti and humans, character biographies, and story descriptions. It covers the first eight volumes.
The Man-Kzin Wars: 25th Anniversary Edition is a reissue of the first volume, The Man-Kzin Wars, with a "Memoir" by Niven about the publishing of the series.
Plot summary
There are a total of four Man-Kzin Wars, as well as major and minor "Kzinti incidents". The First War began circa 2367. By this time, Human space was in the middle of the "Long Peace". ARM, the United Nations security forces, has completely suppressed all "dangerous" technologies, histories, mental illnesses, and media, leading to not only an end of the war and almost all violent crimes, but a change in society so vast that most people have a difficulty even conceptualizing such things.
The U.N.'s reach was limited to Earth, however. There were a number of other colonies in space, the most important being the Asteroid Belt, Wunderland, We Made It, Jinx, and Plateau.
First Man-Kzin War
The Kzinti, with vast technical superiority (including gravity drives, telepaths, and a large military empire), detected a human colonization ship in deep space, the Angel's Pencil. After the Kzin telepath learned that the humans were unarmed and did not even understand the concept of weapons, they attempted to kill the human crew in a slow, painful manner using an inductive heating weapon hoping to capture their ship intact for intelligence purposes. However, one of the humans used the ship's powerful drive system (which doubled as an interstellar communications laser) as a weapon and destroyed the Kzin ship, beginning the First Man-Kzin War. The crew then warned Earth of the warlike aliens, although the transmissions were initially dismissed as an outbreak of psychosis. Then a similar encounter between another human ship and the Kzin vessel led to the destruction of the more primitive human ship. However, one of the human prisoners, with the aid of a rogue telepath, was able to escape to the Angel's Pencil and warn them of the danger of their increasing penetration into Kzinti space.
In the course of the First Man-Kzin War, the Kzinti invaded and occupied the human colony of Wunderland, in the Alpha Centauri system, as a staging point for an attack on Earth. Human ships attempting to escape back to Earth were shot down, but a single vessel managed to carry some refugees to the sister colony We Made It. The Kzinti fleet moved on to Earth, but in a replay of first contact, the peaceful humans used communications lasers, fusion drives, and mass drivers to cut the first invasion fleet to ribbons. Over the next several decades, three more fleets were launched against Earth, and all were beaten back. However, after near defeat by the fourth fleet, it was becoming clear to Earth's military leaders that the Kzinti were learning to wage war more effectively than their traditional "scream and leap" tactics, and that the Solar System's defenses would quickly succumb to the Kzinti's superior numbers, firepower, and technology, were it only wielded with a modicum of tactical and strategic sense. In order to delay the next attack, a Terran Bussard ramjet starship was utilized to transport and deploy several relativistic kill vehicles in the Wunderland system. Using iron slugs accelerated to 99% of the speed of light, it devastated a portion of the planet, killing humans and Kzinti alike and delaying the launch of yet another Kzin fleet against Earth. A number of specialists traveled aboard this ship, using Slaver stasis fields for lithobraking, and successfully assassinated the Kzin military leader on Wunderland, Chuut-Riit. Despite this setback for the Kzin cause, preparations for a fifth and decisive assault fleet were nearing completion.
At this point, a passing Outsider ship sold the colony of We Made It the manual for a hyperdrive, a technology unknown to the Kzinti. Dimity Carmody, an escapee from Wunderland and a genius who had toyed with FTL drive concepts before the occupation, managed to construct a working prototype drive using the manual. Hyperdrive ships were dispatched to Earth, where the faster-than-light drive was installed on several ships for a preemptive attack on the Fifth Invasion fleet. The attack hit the Kzin amidst internal struggles following the death of their leader. Due to the huge success, Wunderland was quickly liberated, freeing the fleet to attack other Kzinti worlds. The FTL drive allowed the human fleets to coordinate and concentrate their forces beyond anything the Kzinti could manage, even letting them outrun and jam the news of each successive Kzin defeat. The first indication the Kzinti Patriarchy had that much of the Kzin empire was gone and that a significant percentage of all Kzinti had died was when human warships appeared in the skies above their homeworld.
Meanwhile, however, on Wunderland, now liberated by humans, several surviving Kzin, led by Vaemar-Riit, the last surviving kitten of Chuut-Riit, and with the cooperation of Dimity Carmody, Nils Rykermann, Leonie Rykermann, and other humans began to cautiously cooperate with humans and try to learn human ways. Vaemar-Riit even enrolled at a human university and obtained a reserve officer's commission. These became known as the Wunderkzin, and some later proved to be human allies. This slowly growing Man-Kzin cooperation was bitterly opposed both by many other Kzin and by many revanchist humans on Wunderland, while others among the human and kzin communities on Wunderland sought to manipulate the situation for their own ends. There were also ongoing human situations – for example, Nils Rykermann, a Wunderland academic, in love with Dimity Carmody, married Leonie Rykermann, one of his students, during the occupation, believing Dimity to be dead. This situation has not been resolved. There was also a somewhat ambiguous growing relationship between Dimity and Vaemar-Riit; the two are depicted together on the cover of Man-Kzin Wars XI.
The war ends in 2433 with the signing of the MacDonald-Rishaii Peace Treaty. The vast majority of the Man-Kzin Wars stories are set around the First War.
"The Peace"
Following the end of hostilities, the Human forces use their hyperdrive ships to initiate a blockade of all Kzinti worlds within range of Human space. The Kzinti of both their homeworld and the prominent colony of W'kkai begin researching hyperdrive technology in an attempt to break the blockade, with the High Admiral of W'kkai also hoping to overthrow the Patriarch. Due to the treachery of Ulf Reichstein Markham, the Kzinti of Kzin gain access to hyperdrive designs and an engineer familiar with them in 2438. During this time, the Kdaptist religion spreads among the Kzinti.
On Wunderland, an attempt is made to form a stable, democratic government. On Earth, although no one seriously believes the Kzin will stay away, the ARM returns to its old habits of trying to eliminate all knowledge and technology of war. We Made It continues to create hyperdrives, as the Human military forces attempt to reverse-engineer Kzinti gravity technology. They also attempt to locate and form an anti-Kzin alliance with the Pierin aliens (although according to the Ringworld RPG, the Pierin may already be enslaved at this point).
A troika of unconventional officers – Belter General Lucas Fry, flatlander Major Yankee Clandeboye, and Wunderlander Admiral Blumenhandler – establish a semi-covert training center on Barnard's Starbase. There the troika develops plans for fighting the hyperdrive-equipped Kzinti in a coming second war. The new plans are needed since the (mostly successful) human tactics in the first were restricted by their own ignorance, and by the ARM's structure: the only successful other planetary assaults the liberation of Wunderland, only two, on Down and Hssin.
The group devises two ways to help prepare the rest of the human military: A war game called Trolls and Bridges, and a book, The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine. Written by Clandeboye, they are a fictionalized account of the diary of his cousin, Nora Argamentine. She was a U.N. officer caught by Kzinti, who later rebelled against them before being gradually lobotomized. The book becomes extremely popular and helps raise morale, as well as cultivating the belief that the Kzin will attack again.
Second Man-Kzin War
All information on the second war comes from the Ringworld RPG guidebook. It begins in 2449 when the Kzinti launch "diversionary raids" on Sigma Draconis and Barnard's Star (which can probably be retconned to be due to Barnard's Starbase from The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine) and ends in 2475 with the liberation of the Kdatlyno from Kzin rule.
Third Man-Kzin War
The Third War is mentioned in the Ringworld RPG and The Ringworld Engineers. According to the Known Space novel Juggler of Worlds, it started in 2490.
Towards the start of the war, the Wunderland Treatymaker weapon is used on the Kzinti fortress-world of Warhead, creating a huge, habitable canyon on the otherwise Mars-like world. Warhead is annexed by the humans and renamed Canyon, where Louis Wu lives as of the start of The Ringworld Engineers. This war is chronicled in considerable detail in the novel Destiny's Forge.
Fourth Man-Kzin War
The war begins on an unknown date, with Kzinti suicide attacks on Epsilon Eridani. During the war, human adventurers engage in similar suicide attacks on Kzinti harems. The war ends in 2505 with the signing of the Covenants of Shasht, named after a Kzinti world which is annexed by Humans and later renamed Fafnir. The Kzinti are disarmed and restricted to police weapons only. This restriction was still in effect as late as 2657, as specified in The Soft Weapon.
Aftermath
Over the next decades and centuries, some Kzinti dream of another war, and go to great lengths (such as piracy, seeking Slaver stasis boxes, and going to the Ringworld) in an attempt to gain enough of an upper hand to begin one. There is at least one "major incident" after the Fourth War, which some humans describe as another "war" (see Flatlander). However, each Man-Kzin War ends with the death of 2⁄3 of all Kzin then alive, and the confiscation of two Kzinti worlds. The surviving Kzinti finally face the reality that another all-out war would bring no benefit. At the time of Ringworld, Kzinti numbers are still less than 1⁄8 of what they were when they first encountered humans.
In the events of Ringworld, Nessus inadvertently reveals to Wu and Speaker-to-Animals that the Man-Kzin Wars were engineered by the Puppeteers. The Puppeteers viewed the Kzin as too dangerous and hoped a series of wars in which successive generations of the most aggressive Kzinti males were selectively killed off by humans would help breed reason into the Kzinti as the preferred alternative over outright extermination. To that end, the Puppeteers used a starseed lure on Procyon to ensure that the Outsiders would equip mankind with hyperdrives, knowing that it would be the tool that would allow victory for humans.
Recurring characters
Chuut-Riit – Leader of the Kzinti conquest forces occupying Wunderland.
Buford Early – ARM general known for unorthodox tactics.
Larry Niven has never specifically addressed whether or not these stories are part of the canon of Known Space stories. He has ruled "A Darker Geometry" as definitely non-canonical,[19] and the story is incompatible with Juggler of Worlds, which is co-authored by Niven and Edward M. Lerner. Conversely, Niven's story "Fly-By-Night" refers directly to, and summarizes, the events of "Telepath's Dance", so it appears he considers that story canonical. The canonicity of other stories in the series is undetermined.
Many of the stories in the series have added details to Known Space and its history, details which may be incompatible with older stories in the canon (in particular, those written by Niven long before the Man-Kzin Wars series was published). The protagonist in Matthew Joseph Harrington's "Teacher's Pet" from Man-Kzin Wars XI, who has become a Protector after landing on Home while fleeing from Kzinti, deduces several things that (at least at first glance) seem to be at odds with accepted canon – for example, that Puppeteers had been manipulating both humanity and the Kzin far more than anyone had previously thought.
In other cases, stories clearly contradict established canon. For example, various MKW stories state that Kzinti did not establish their own interstellar empire nor invent their own spacefaring technology. Instead, primitive Kzinti warriors were hired as mercenaries by the Jotoki, a species of interstellar traders, whom the Kzinti later overthrew and enslaved.
There had been a time, between the discoveries of atomic power and the gravity polarizer, when it seemed the Kzinti species would destroy itself in wars. Now the Kzinti held many worlds, and the danger was past.
However, "Jotok" suggests a possible compromise scenario. In that story, primitive Kzinti clans on the Kzin homeworld are being marginalized by advanced Kzinti who use atomic power and gravity polarizer-driven spacecraft. It is the primitives who are hired by the Jotoki, to use as mercenaries against the more advanced Kzinti.
Related Research Articles
Laurence van Cott Niven is an American science fiction writer. His 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. With Jerry Pournelle he wrote The Mote in God's Eye (1974) and Lucifer's Hammer (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him the 2015 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories by American writer Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off Man-Kzin Wars anthologies. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) catalogs all works set in the fictional universe that includes Known Space under the series name Tales of Known Space, which was the title of a 1975 collection of Niven's short stories. The first-published work in the series, which was Niven's first published piece, was "The Coldest Place", in the December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl. This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection.
Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. Ringworld tells the story of Louis Wu and his companions on a mission to the Ringworld, an enormous rotating ring, an alien construct in space 186 million miles in diameter. Niven later wrote three sequel novels and then cowrote, with Edward M. Lerner, four prequels and a final sequel; the five latter novels constitute the Fleet of Worlds series. All the novels in the Ringworld series tie into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.
The Ringworld science fiction role-playing game was published by Chaosium in 1984, using the Basic Role-Playing system for its rules and Larry Niven's Ringworld novels as a setting.
The Kzinti are an alien cat-like species developed by Larry Niven in his Known Space series.
Pierson's Puppeteers, often known just as Puppeteers, are a fictional alien race from American author Larry Niven's Known Space books. The race first appeared in Niven’s novella Neutron Star.
Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two developmental stages of fictional life in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The Pak first appeared in "The Adults", which appeared in Galaxy in 1967; this story was expanded into the novel Protector by Larry Niven (1973). The Pak also appear in several of Niven's later novels, notably those set in the Ringworld.
Louis Gridley Wu, a fictional character, is the protagonist in the Ringworld series of books, written by Larry Niven.
The Ringworld Engineers is a 1979 science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven. It is the first sequel to Niven's Ringworld and was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1981.
"The Slaver Weapon" is the fourteenth episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series Star Trek: The Animated Series. It first aired on NBC on December 8, 1973, and was written by Larry Niven. It was based on his original short story "The Soft Weapon". This episode was expanded to become the first half of a full-length novel by science-fiction author Alan Dean Foster as Star Trek Log Ten.
"At the Core" is an English language science fiction short story by American writer Larry Niven, published in 1966. It is the second in the series of Known Space stories featuring crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer. The short story was originally published in Worlds of If, November 1966, and reprinted in Neutron Star (1968) and Crashlander (1994).
Inconstant Star is a science fiction fix-up novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It is formed by the novellas Iron and Inconstant Star, first published in The Man-Kzin Wars (1988) and Man-Kzin Wars III (1990), respectively. The title is from the tumbling alien artifact that sends out radiation. Due to the tumbling effect, the output can only be seen briefly from a given point in space, looking like a star, but then disappearing as the artifact moves.
"The Borderland of Sol" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Larry Niven. It is the fifth in the Known Space series of stories about crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer.
"Procrustes" is an English-language science fiction short story written in 1993 by Larry Niven. It is the sixth in the series of stories about crashlander Beowulf Shaeffer. The short story was originally published in Bridging the Galaxies (1993).
Fleet of Worlds is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner, part of Niven's Known Space series. Fleet of Worlds can also refer to the series consisting of this book and its four sequels.
"The Soft Weapon" is a science fiction short story by the American writer Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. It was first published in the February 1967 issue of If.
Scatterbrain is a 2003 collection of short stories, novel excerpts, and essays by American writer Larry Niven. It was a sequel to N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind.
A list of works by, or about, the American science fiction author Larry Niven.
Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch is a 1993 video game by Tsunami Games for DOS. It is based on Larry Niven's Ringworld novel series. A sequel, Return to Ringworld, was released in 1994.
References
↑ Bould, Mark (2011). The Routledge concise history of science fiction. Sherryl Vint. London: Routledge. p.150. ISBN978-0-415-43570-3. OCLC277195989.
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