2023 - 10/2023 Meeting

Page Created: 09/15/23. Last Updated: 11/25/23.

LARRY NIVEN

ONLINE

Website: https://larryniven.net/

Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven

SELECTED WORKS, KNOWN SPACE SERIES

.....A Gift from Earth

.....Ringworld

SELECTED WORKS, OTHER

.....The Integral Trees

.....Rainbow Mars (collection)

.....Neutron Star -- Short Story, Hugo Award Winner

.....Inconstant Moon -- Short Story, Hugo Award Winner

.....The Hole Man -- Short Story, Hugo Award Winner

.....The Borderland of Sol -- Novelette, Hugo Award Winner

.....The Magic Goes Away

SELECTED COLLABORATIONS

.....Fallen Angels (with Michael Flynn & Jerry Pournelle)

.....The Legacy of Heorot (with Steven Barnes & Jerry Pournelle)

.....Footfall (with Jerry Pournelle)

.....Inferno (with Jerry Pournelle)

.....Lucifer's Hammer (with Jerry Pournelle)

.....The Mote in God's Eye (with Jerry Pournelle)

.....The Flying Sorcerers (with David Gerrold)

.....Bowl of Heaven (with Gregory Benford)

.....Fleet of Worlds (with Edward M Lerner)

Notes:

Ten people joined us at the Virtual Diner Run.

Meeting Date: October 14, 2023

Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference

Attendance: 44.

Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with Science Fiction Author.

Newsletter Account:

The Saturday, October 14, 2023 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held via zoom video conference. Conducting the meeting online permitted us to have award-winning California science fiction writer Larry Niven as our speaker.

Our speaker is best known for his Hugo Award winning novel, RINGWORLD. He has also won the award for the short stories NEUTRON STAR, INCONSTANT MOON, and THE HOLE MAN; and the novelette, THE BORDERLAND OF SOL. Much of his early work fits into his Known Space future history. More at 10/2023 Meeting at the SFABC Website.

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Meeting Notes:

FOOTFALL

.....How do you invent a beatable alien race?

.....Invaders inherited their technology from other aliens

.....Herd beasts

.....Had a surrender option from the beginning

INFERNO

.....Read Dante's Inferno in college

.....Idea came to him while he was working on OATH OF FEALTY

LUCIFER'S HAMMER

.....Interrupted working with Jerry Pournelle on Mote in God's Eye to work on Hammer

.....Had been thinking of doing an alien invasion novel (which became Footfall) when he switched to the idea of a comet disaster novel

MOTE IN GOD's EYE
.....Jerry Pournelle already had a future empire 1000 year timeline that he could slip the Moties into

.....Evolving a vertibrae is a mistake (at least one audience member agreed with this)

.....As life evolves it becomes less symmetrical

.....Birth control could have solved all the Moties' problems

SVETZ STORIES

.....Based on a dream

..........Jotted notes in the morning

..........Outlined story in the afternoon

..........Told the story without boring people at a party in the evening

KNOWN SPACE

.....Mount Lookitthat was in response to Poul Anderson's belief writers should use common, typical features of alien worlds.

.....The Expanse uses a lot of Known Space concepts and extrapolates them well

.....Known Space in part developed from dialogues and speculations with Randal Garrett

CONTEMPORARY WRITERS HE READS

.....Neal Stephenson

.....Andy Weir

CLASSIC WRITERS HE LIKED

.....Fritz Lieber

.....Robert Heinlein

BOOKS HE'S MOST PLEASED ABOUT WRITING

.....Ringworld

.....Lucifer's Hammer

.....The Burning City

.....Rainbow Mars, including the Svetz stories

SCIENCE FICTION COMMUNITY

.....Friends with Robert Heinlein

MISCELLANEOUS

.....Was on the Citizen's Advisory Council for Space

.....They designed a spacecraft

ALIENS

.....The Pak were inspired by his aging parents

.....The Puppeteers were in response to author Chad Oliver's position that intelligent life would be bipedal

CURRENT STATE OF WRITING

.....Inspiration is flagging

.....Has slowed way down

.....Puttering away on a collaborative novel

ON COLLABORATIONS

.....There are some people who should never collaborate with

.....He liked Heinlein the man and his work, but he knew they could never work together

.....There must be an advance agreement about who is in charge

.....When the manuscript was done, Jerry Pournelle would go back and chop 15 words per page

LIVING IN A SCIENCE FICTION FUTURE

.....Underestimated the use of computers

.....Robots are doing exploring for us

.....Organ legging problems are real but not talked about - China

STAR TREK, THE ANIMATED SERIES

.....Niven was friends with D C Fontana

.....He pitched two ideas which were rejected

.....Gene Roddenberry suggested adapting Niven's The Soft Weapon which became The Slaver Weapon

COSTUMES

.....John Upton displayed (and later mailed) Niven a photo of Known Space group costume including a Puppeteer. Niven was part on the stage with the costumers.