Ringworld: the most stunning artifact in known space, an articficial world with three million times Earth's surface area. Who built it? And where are they? In this stunning sequel to Larry Niven's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, Louis Wu (now a near-hopeless lirehead hooked on electrical ecstasy), the aged Kzin warrior, Speaker-to-Animals, and the Hindmost, puppeteer mate of mad Nessus, return to Ringworld. Their aim is to prevent cataclysm. IN the process, they find themselves learning Ringworld's incredible secrets...

The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival--a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known....@lt;br@gt;"Massively entertaining."@lt;br@gt;CLEVELAND PLAIN-DEALER

The Ringworld is dying. And this time even Louis Wu - captive of the hyper-intelligent alien Tunesmith - may be unable to save it. Even if Louis can escape he will then have to survive in a galaxy ravaged by interstellar war and deadly political intrigue. For the Ringworld is no longer a secret and entire civilisations now battle to control its power. The victorious race that conquers the Ringworld will conquer the galaxy ... and no one will be able to stop them. But Louis Wu is going to try.

A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

"This rousing sequel to the classic Ringworld continues the adventures of Louis Wu and Speaker-to-Animals on that fantastic planet."--School Library Journal An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Writing separately, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are responsible for a number of science fiction classics, such as the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ringworld, Debt of Honor, and The Integral Trees. Together they have written the critically acclaimed bestsellers Inferno, Footfall, and The Legacy of Heorot, among others.

The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre.

Larry Niven is the "New York Times" bestselling author of such classic science fiction novels as Ringworld and Destiny's Road. One of his previous collections, "N-Space," was lauded by the "Houston Post" as "Outstanding . . . hours of entertainment," while "Publishers Weekly" called it "A must for science fiction fans." A follow-up volume, "Playgrounds of the Mind," was praised by "Kirkus Reviews" as "Grand Entertainment." Niven returns with the sequel to his most recent collection, "Scatterbrain," which gathers an equally engaging assortment of Niven's latest work, all in one captivating volume. Here are choice excerpts from his most recent novels, including "Ringworld's Child," as well as short stories, non-fiction, interviews, editorials, collaborations, and correspondence. "Stars and Gods "roams all over a wide variety of fascinating topics, from space stations to conventional etiquette.
Give yourself a treat, and feel free to pick the brain of one of modern science fiction's most fascinating thinkers.

Come back to the Ringworld . . . the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered.  A place of untold technological wonders, home to a myriad humanoid races, and world of some of the most beloved science fiction stories ever written!

The human, Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee . . . legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. Something is going on with the Protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld.  Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda--if anyone dares approach them to learn.

Each race on the Ringworld has always had its own Protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a Protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld Throne?

"Niven's work has been an intriguing and consistent universe, and this book is the keystone of the arch. . . . [His] technique is wonderfully polished, his characters and their situations are nicely drawn . . . wraps up (maybe) a corner of a very interesting universe."
--San Diego Union-Tribune

A modern science fiction classic, Larry Niven's "Ringworld" won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel in 1970. Now this SF classic is adapted into a thrilling manga adventure

In "Ringworld," two-hundred-year-old human Louis Wu is recruited by a two-headed alien named Nessus to join him, a catlike warrior alien named Speaker, and the infinitely lucky human Teela Brown to explore an alien artifact.

They find a Ringworld, a ribbon millions of miles long built around a distant sun. The civilization has fallen into savagery, though, and after crashing into the Ringworld, Louis must come up with a clever plan to get back to known space, hundreds of light years away.

For decades, the spacefaring species of Known Space have battled over the largest artifact--and grandest prize--in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. But without warning the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets.
"Something" must justify the blood and treasure that have been spent. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the Puppeteers will be forced to surrender theirs. Everyone knows that the Puppeteers are cowards.
But the crises converging upon the trillion Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds go far beyond even the onrushing armadas:
Adventurer Louis Wu and the exiled Puppeteer known only as Hindmost, marooned together for more than a decade, escaped from the Ringworld before it disappeared. And throughout those years, as he studied Ringworld technology, Hindmost has plotted to reclaim his power ...
Ol't'ro, the Gw'oth ensemble mind--and the Fleet of World's unsuspected puppet master for a century--is deviously brilliant. And, increasingly unbalanced ...
Proteus, the artificial intelligence on which--in desperation--the Puppeteers rely to manage their defenses, is outgrowing its programming. And the supposed constraints on its initiative ...
Sigmund Ausfaller, paranoid and disgraced hero of the lost human colony of New Terra, knows that "something" threatens his adopted home world. And that it must be stopped ...
Achilles, the megalomaniac Puppeteer, twice banished--and twice rehabilitated--sees the Fleet of World's existential crisis as a new opportunity to reclaim supreme power. Whatever the risks ...
One way or another, the fabled race of Puppeteers may have come to the end of their days in "Fate of Worlds, "the final installment to Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner's "Fleet of Worlds "series.

Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." "The San Francisco Chronicle" declared that "as science fiction, "The Mote in God's Eye" is one of the most important novels ever published." Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award winning authors of such bestsellers as "Footfall "and "The Legacy of Heorot, " return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler. There, 25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered-- a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function. Master, Mediator, Engineer. Warrior. Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For the Moties must breed-- or die. And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.

Here is an extraordinary mix of fantasy and science fiction from one of the masters of science fiction, Larry Niven. *** The stories in this collection include some collaborations with authors such as Jerry Pournelle (Spirals) and Steven Barnes (The Locusts), as well as stories written by Niven himself. *** Larry Niven's credits include the award-winning Ringworld series, his "Known Space" novels and the Man-Kzin anthologies. His collaborations with Jerry Pournelle include such titles as Lucifer's Hammer, Inferno and The Mote in God's Eye.