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69-404: In a break from his usual ARM duties, Hamilton is an acting U.N. Delegate on the moon, attending a conference on Lunar Law. The Belt Delegate, Chris Penzler, is shot by a laser in an apparent murder attempt. The shot came from outside of the window of his personal quarters, which looks out onto the lunar surface. The only person known to be outside on the lunar surface at the time of the attempt

138-463: 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

207-401: A certain date—the combination of factors made it tricky to produce any kind of creditable threat/problem without complex contrivances. Niven demonstrated this, to his own satisfaction, with "Safe at Any Speed" (1967). He used the setting for much less short fiction after 1968 and much less for novels after two published in 1980. Late in that decade, Niven invited other authors to participate in

276-467: A co-producer. Tor/Seven Seas (same joint venture of Macmillan 's Tor Books and Seven Seas Entertainment who also published the English-language translation of Afro Samurai ) published a two-part original English-language manga adaptation of Ringworld , with the script written by Robert Mandell and the artwork by Sean Lam . Ringworld: The Graphic Novel, Part One , covering the events of

345-520: A first paperback edition of Ringworld , it's the one with the mistakes in it. It's worth money." After the publication of Ringworld , many fans identified numerous engineering problems in the Ringworld as described in the novel. One major one was that the Ringworld, being a rigid structure, was not actually in orbit around the star it encircled and would eventually drift, ultimately colliding with its sun and disintegrating. This led MIT students attending

414-476: A hidden, abandoned ringworld and determine what happened to its inhabitants. There have been many aborted attempts to adapt the novel to the screen. In 2001, Larry Niven reported that a movie deal had been signed and was in the early planning stages. In 2004, the Sci-Fi Channel reported that it was developing a Ringworld miniseries. The series never came to fruition. In 2013, it was again announced by

483-456: A huge mountain, which is called "Fist-of-God" by the first natives they speak with. The fusion drive is destroyed, so they set out to find a way to get the Lying Bastard off the Ringworld and use the undamaged hyperdrive to return home. Using their flycycles, they set out for the rim of the ring, searching for technology to help them get home. They encounter primitive human natives who live in

552-425: A limitation based on the laws of physics. In Niven's novel Ringworld's Children the Ringworld itself is converted into a gigantic Quantum II hyperdrive and launched into hyperspace while within its star's gravity well. Ringworld's Children reveals that there is life in hyperspace around gravity wells and that hyperspace predators eat spaceships which appear in hyperspace close to large masses, thus explaining why

621-571: A mirrored artifact known as the Sea Statue must be actually an alien in a stasis field. They place it with a human envoy, who is a telepath, and envelop both in field. By doing this, they unleash the last living member of the Slaver species on the world. Stepping disks are a teleportation technology. They were invented by the Pierson's Puppeteers , and their existence is not generally known to other races until

690-588: A mission to the Ringworld, an enormous rotating ring, an alien construct in space 186 million miles (299 million kilometres) 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

759-494: A part of the Known Space universe: "One Face" (1965) and "Bordered in Black" (1966) —both in the 1979 collection Convergent Series —and possibly "The Color of Sunfire", published online and listed here. In the Known Space stories, Niven had created a number of technological devices ( GP hull, stasis field , Ringworld material ) which, combined with the " Teela Brown gene", made it very difficult to construct engaging stories beyond

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828-439: A pretty smooth pace." While praising the novel generally, he faulted Niven for relying on inconsistencies regarding evolution in his extrapolations to support his fictional premises. Sam Jordison described Ringworld as "arguably one of the most influential science fiction novels of the past 50 years." In addition to the two aliens, Niven includes a number of concepts from his other Known Space stories: The opening chapter of

897-515: A series of shared-universe novels, with the Man–Kzin Wars as their setting. The first volume was published in 1988. Ringworld (1970) won the annual Nebula, Hugo, and Locus best novel awards. Protector (1973) and The Ringworld Engineers (1980) were nominated for the Hugo and Locus Awards. Niven has described his fiction as "playground equipment", encouraging fans to speculate and extrapolate on

966-420: A ship that had brought back goods from worlds abandoned by the Ringworld builders. Nessus, using a tasp (a remote pleasure-giving device), conditions Prill into helping and joining them. When her ship returned to the Ringworld the last time, they discovered that civilization had collapsed. Louis surmises that a mold inadvertently brought back by a ship like Prill's mutated and broke down the superconductors vital to

1035-459: A small region in the Milky Way galaxy , one centered on Earth. In the future that the series depicts, spanning roughly the third millennium , humans have explored this region and colonized many of its worlds. Contact has been made with other species, such as the two-headed Pierson's Puppeteers and the aggressive felinoid Kzinti . Stories in the Known Space series include events and places outside of

1104-493: A stasis field ( Ringworld ) or a gravity compensating field. In Fleet of Worlds , the characters tour a General Products factory and receive clues that allow them to destroy a General Products hull from the inside using only a high-powered interstellar communications laser. In Juggler of Worlds , the Puppeteers, attempting to surmise how this was done without antimatter, identify another technique which can be used to destroy

1173-482: A structure as large as the Ringworld can safely engage the hyperdrive in a star's gravity well. One phenomenon travelers in hyperspace can experience is the so-called 'blind spot' should they look through a porthole or camera screen, giving the impression that the walls around the porthole or sides of the camera view screen are expanding to 'cover up the outside'. The phenomenon is the result of hyperspace being so fundamentally different from normal/'Einsteinian' space that

1242-548: A traveler's senses cannot truly comprehend it, and instead the observer 'sees' a form of nothingness that can be hypnotic and dangerous. Staring too long into the 'blind spot' can be insanity-inducing, so as a precaution all view ports on ships are blinded when a ship enters hyperspace. The Puppeteer firm, General Products , produces a series of invulnerable starship hulls, known simply as the General Products hull . The hulls are impervious to any type of matter or energy, with

1311-416: A young human woman who becomes Louis's lover, for the rest of the ship's crew. On the puppeteer home world (which is fleeing deadly radiation which will arrive in 20,000 years), they are told that their goal is to determine if the Ringworld, a gigantic artificial ring near the puppeteers' path, poses any threat to their migration. The Ringworld is about one million miles (1.6 million km) wide and approximately

1380-412: Is Naomi Mitchison, a tourist and old flame of Gil's. Gil believes Naomi to be innocent of shooting Penzler, but suspects that she may be lying in order to hide an equally serious crime. The legal process on Luna acts quickly, and Naomi is condemned to be "broken up" for spare parts, a process which involves her being put in a coma and used as a source of organs for transplant. In stories set in this era,

1449-403: Is Triton. "Ringworld" has become a generic term for such a structure, which is an example of what science fiction fans call a " Big Dumb Object ", or more formally a megastructure . Other science fiction authors have devised their own variants of Niven's Ringworld, notably Iain M. Banks ' Culture Orbitals , best described as miniature Ringworlds, and the titular ring-shaped Halo structures of

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1518-556: Is immediately deposited in a corresponding booth at the destination. Longer-range booths operate similarly, but are housed in former airports due to requiring "equipment to compensate for the difference in rotational velocity between different points on the Earth". They are inexpensive: a trip anywhere on Earth costs only a "tenth-star" (presumably equivalent to a dime). Introduced by one of Gregory Pelton's ancestors, apparently bought from, and based on, Puppeteer technology. "A displacement booth

1587-456: Is invulnerable to anything occurring outside the field, as well as being preserved indefinitely. A stasis field may be recognized by its perfectly reflecting surface, so perfect that it reflects 100% of all radiation and particles, including neutrinos . However one stasis field cannot exist inside another. This is used in World of Ptavvs where humans develop a stasis field technology and realize that

1656-579: Is not a term in current usage by the time of the Known Space novels. An agent of the ARM, Gil Hamilton , is the protagonist of Niven's science fictional detective stories, a series-within-a-series gathered in the collection Flatlander . (Confusingly, "Flatlander" is also the name of an unrelated Known Space story.) Their basic function is to enforce mandatory birth control on overcrowded Earth, and restrict research which might lead to dangerous weapons. In short,

1725-676: The Ringworld novels. If there is a difference in velocity between two disks, any matter transferred between them must be accelerated by the disk accordingly. If there is not enough energy to do so, the transfer cannot take place. This becomes a problem with disks that are a significant distance apart on the Ringworld 's surface, as they will have different velocities: same speed, different direction. Transfer booths or displacement booths are an inexpensive form of teleportation. Short-range booths are similar in appearance to an old style telephone booth : one enters, "dials" one's desired destination, and

1794-601: The Nebula Award in 1970, as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971. On Earth in 2850 AD, a bored Louis Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday. Despite his age, Louis is in perfect physical condition due to the longevity drug boosterspice . Nessus , a Pierson's puppeteer , offers him a mysterious job. Intrigued, Louis accepts. Nessus also recruits the Kzin Speaker-to-Animals and Teela Brown ,

1863-507: The Wayback Machine . Although the article is written as though Niven intended to write the story, he later wrote that the article was only an elaborate joke, and he never intended to write such a novel. The article itself notes that the outline was made obsolete by the publication of Ringworld . "Down in Flames" was a result of a conversation between Norman Spinrad and Niven in 1968, but at

1932-441: The pleasure centers of the brain), and explore how organ transplantation technology enables the new crime of organlegging (as well as the general sociological effects of widespread transplant technology), while later stories feature hyperdrive, invulnerable starship hulls , stasis fields , molecular monofilaments , transfer booths ( teleporters used only on planetary surfaces), the lifespan-extending drug boosterspice, and

2001-493: The tasp which is an extension of the droud which works without direct contact. "Boosterspice" is a compound that increases the longevity and reverses aging of human beings. With the use of boosterspice, humans can easily live hundreds of years and, theoretically, indefinitely. Developed by the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx, it is said to be made from genetically engineered ragweed (although early stories have it ingested in

2070-415: The 1971 Worldcon to chant, "The Ringworld is unstable!" Niven wrote the 1980 sequel The Ringworld Engineers in part to address these engineering issues. The second chapter refers to standard Earth gravity as 9.98 m/s (or even gives the unit as m/s [ sic ]), while standard Earth gravity is 9.81 m/s . The fifth chapter refers to Nereid as Neptune's largest moon; the planet's largest moon

2139-609: The ARM hunts down women who have illegal pregnancies and suppresses all new technologies. They also hunt organleggers, especially in the era of the "organ bank problem". Among the many technologies they control and outlaw are all trained forms of armed and unarmed combat. By the 25th century, ARM agents were kept in an artificially induced state of paranoid schizophrenia to enhance their usefulness as law enforcement officials, which led to them sometimes being referred to as " Schizes ". Agents with natural tendencies toward paranoia were medicated into docility during their off duty hours, through

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2208-549: The December 1964 issue of If magazine, edited by Frederik Pohl . This was the first-published work in the 1975 collection. The stories span approximately one thousand years of future history , from the first human explorations of the Solar System to the colonization of dozens of nearby systems . Late in the series, Known Space is an irregularly shaped "bubble" about 60 light-years across. The epithet "Known Space" refers to

2277-521: The First Man–Kzin War. In addition to winning the war for humanity, it allowed the re-integration of all the human colonies, which were previously separated by distance. Standard (Quantum I) hyperdrive covers a distance of one light-year every three days (121.75  c ). A more advanced Quantum II hyperdrive introduced later is able to cover the same distance in one and a quarter minutes (420,768  c ). In Niven's first novel, World of Ptavvs ,

2346-677: The Man-Kzin Wars and the introduction of hyperdrive, presumably as part of a general re-integration of human societies. The Tales of Known Space were first published primarily as short stories or serials in science fiction magazines. Generally the short fiction was subsequently released in one or more collections and the serial novels as books. Some of the shorter novels (novellas) published in magazines were expanded as, or incorporated in, book-length novels. There are also two or three short stories which share common themes and some background elements with Known Space stories, but which are not considered

2415-556: The RPG, along with notes composed by RPG author John Hewitt with Niven, was later used to form the "Bible" given to authors writing in the Man-Kzin Wars series. Niven himself recommended that Hewitt write one of the stories for the original two MKW books, although this never came to pass. Tsunami Games released two adventure games based on Ringworld . Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch

2484-499: The Ringworld civilization, causing its fall. Teela rejoins them, accompanied by her new lover, a traveling warrior named Seeker who protected her. Based on an insight gained from studying a Ringworld map, Louis comes up with a plan to get home. Teela chooses to remain on the Ringworld with Seeker. Louis, formerly skeptical about breeding for luck, now wonders if the entire mission was caused by Teela's luck, to unite her with her true love and help her mature. The party collects one end of

2553-656: The aforementioned science of psychistry (see Madness Has Its Place and Juggler of Worlds ). Their jurisdiction is limited to the Earth-Moon system; other human colonies have their own militia . Nevertheless, in many Known Space stories, ARM agents operate or exert influence in other human star systems through the "Bureau of Alien Affairs" (see "In the Hall of the Mountain King", " Procrustes ", " The Borderland of Sol ", and " Neutron Star "). These interventions begin following

2622-413: The arm replaced from an organ bank on Earth, the ability persisted. "Plateau Eyes" (introduced in A Gift From Earth ) is an ability on the part of some to hide in plain sight, by causing others not to notice them. Population control is tight on Earth, but these abilities can gain the possessor a license to have more children. The Pierson's Puppeteers engineer a lottery for child licenses on Earth to increase

2691-412: The channel, now rebranded as Syfy , that a miniseries of the novel was in development. This proposed 4-hour miniseries was being written by Michael R. Perry and would have been a co-production between MGM Television and Universal Cable Productions . In 2017, Amazon announced that Ringworld was one of three science fiction series it was developing for its streaming service. MGM were again listed as

2760-596: The character Halrloprillalar died when in ARM custody after leaving the Ringworld, as a result of having taken boosterspice after having used the Ringworld equivalent. Boosterspice only works on Homo sapiens , whereas the Tree-of-Life compound will work on any hominid descended from the Pak. Faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion, or hyperdrive, was obtained from the Outsiders at the end of

2829-431: The crew completes their mission, as payment they will be given the starship they used to travel to the puppeteer world; it is about 1000 times faster than any human or Kzinti ship. When they reach the vicinity of the Ringworld, they are unable to contact anyone. Their ship, the Lying Bastard , is disabled by an automated meteoroid -defense system. The vessel collides with a strand of shadow-square wire and crash-lands near

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2898-425: The diameter of Earth's orbit, encircling a sunlike star. It rotates to provide artificial gravity 99% as strong as Earth's from centrifugal force . It has a habitable inner surface (equivalent in area to approximately three million Earths), a breathable atmosphere, and a temperature optimal for humans. Night is provided by an inner ring of shadow squares which are connected to each other by thin, ultra-strong wire. When

2967-520: The events described. Debates have been made, for example, on who built the Ringworld (Pak Protectors and the Outsiders being the traditional favorites, but see Ringworld's Children for a possibly definitive answer), and what happened to the Tnuctipun. Niven also states that this is not an invitation to violate his copyrights, warning potential publishers and editors not to proceed without permission. Niven

3036-467: The events of The Ringworld Engineers . The stepping disks are an outgrowth and improvement of the transfer booth technology used by humans and other Known Space races. Unlike the booths, the disks do not require an enclosed chamber, and somehow can differentiate between solid masses and air, for example. They also have a far greater range than transfer booths, extending several astronomical units . Several limitations to stepping disks are mentioned in

3105-477: The exception of antimatter (which destroys the hull, as demonstrated in "Flatlander"), gravitation (demonstrated in "Neutron Star"), and visible light (which passes through the hull). While invulnerable themselves, this is no guarantee that the contents are likewise protected. For example, though a high speed impact with the surface of a planet or star may cause no harm to the hull, the occupants will be crushed if they are not protected by additional measures such as

3174-667: The form of edible seeds). In Ringworld's Children , it is suggested boosterspice may actually be adapted from Tree-of-Life , without the symbiotic virus that enabled hominids to metamorphose from Pak Breeder stage to Pak Protector stage (mutated Pak breeders were the ancestors of both Homo sapiens and the hominids of the Ringworld). On the Ringworld , there is an analogous (and apparently more potent) compound developed from Tree-of-Life, but they are mutually incompatible; in The Ringworld Engineers , Louis Wu learns that

3243-403: The former forces Nessus to flee from the group and then follow from a safe distance. While flying through a giant storm, Teela becomes separated from the others. When Louis and Speaker search for her, their flycycles are caught by an automated trap designed to catch speeders. They are brought to a floating police station. There, they meet Halrloprillalar Hotrufan ("Prill"), a former crew member of

3312-462: The hyperdrive used by the Thrintun required a ship to be going faster than 93% of the speed of light. However, this is the only time that hyperdrive is described this way. In the vast majority of Known Space material, hyperdrive requires that a ship be outside a star's gravity well to use. Ships which activate hyperdrive close to a star are likely to disappear without a trace. This effect is regarded as

3381-482: The lunar surface. Feeling around the projection, he is able to detect a clue left out on the surface by the actual criminal. When he finally solves the mystery, Naomi is revived, but with her beauty destroyed by having body parts removed and then replaced. Her real crime is revealed as one that violates the strict population laws of Earth, and she has to leave and live elsewhere in the Solar System. " Naomi Mitchison "

3450-459: The need for spare parts is so great that even minor crimes carry this sentence. Gil uses his ARM authority to investigate, taking advantage of his "phantom arm", his ability to sense things remotely that he gained after losing one arm in an accident when he lived among the Belters. Although the sense is limited by his perception of his arm's reach, he discovers it can be amplified by a 3-D projection of

3519-410: The new organs, allowing transplants to "take" for life. It also enabled the crime of " organlegging " which lasted well into the 24th century. A Slaver stasis field creates a bubble of spacetime disconnected from the entropy gradient of the rest of the universe. Time slows effectively to a stop for an object in stasis, at a ratio of some billions of years outside to a second inside. An object in stasis

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3588-458: The numerous Man-Kzin wars—which the Kzinti always lost—had greatly reduced their aggression: a very high percentage of Kzinti males were killed in each conflict, leaving more prudent and cautious survivors to breed. The puppeteers had also used Birthright Lotteries to try to breed humans for luck: all of Teela's ancestors for six generations are lottery winners. Speaker's outrage at learning

3657-499: The occurrence of "luck", which they think is a paranormal ability humans have that has enabled them to defeat races such as the Kzinti. In Ringworld , the character Teela Brown is said to have this ability (although possibly not to the same extent as others who avoided being included in the expedition). The ARM is the police force of the United Nations. ARM originated as an acronym for "Amalgamation of Regional Militia", though this

3726-491: The original paperback edition of Ringworld featured Louis Wu teleporting eastward around the Earth in order to extend his birthday. Moving in this direction would, in fact, make local time later rather than earlier, so that Wu would soon arrive in the early morning of the next calendar day. Niven was "endlessly teased" about this error, which he corrected in subsequent printings to show Wu teleporting westward. In his dedication to The Ringworld Engineers , Niven wrote, "If you own

3795-517: The otherwise invulnerable hulls, one which does suggest some potential defense options. The strength of the hulls was revealed to be based on the fact that they were essentially one giant molecule. On Earth in the mid-21st century, it became possible to transplant any organ from any person to another, with the exception of brain and central nervous system tissue. Individuals were categorized according to their so-called " rejection spectrum" which allowed doctors to counter any immune system responses to

3864-723: The region called "Known Space" such as the Ringworld , the Pierson's Puppeteers ' Fleet of Worlds and the Pak homeworld. The Tales were originally conceived as two separate series, the Belter stories set roughly from 2000 to 2350 CE and the Neutron Star / Ringworld stories set in 2651 CE and later. The earlier, Belter period features solar-system colonization and slower-than-light travel with fusion -powered and Bussard ramjet ships. The later, Neutron Star , period features faster-than-light ships using "hyperdrive". Niven implicitly joined

3933-502: The ring's floor up and finally breaking through. The top of the mountain, above the atmosphere, is therefore just a hole. Louis uses the police station to drag the Lying Bastard up and into the hole. Once the ship falls through and clears the ring, they can use its hyperdrive to get home. The book concludes with Louis and Speaker discussing returning to the Ringworld. Algis Budrys found Ringworld to be "excellent and entertaining ... woven together very skillfully and proceed[ing] at

4002-433: The ruins of a once-advanced city. The natives think that Louis is one of the engineers who created the ring, whom they revere as gods. The crew is attacked when Louis accidentally commits what the natives consider a blasphemy, but extricate themselves. During their journey, Nessus reveals several puppeteer secrets. They initiated research into rendering the Kzinti extinct, considering them dangerous and useless, but found that

4071-406: The shadow-square wire that snapped after the collision with their ship and fell near their path, and drag it behind them. Louis threads it through the Lying Bastard to tether it to the floating police station. "Fist-of-God", the enormous mountain near their crash site, was not on the Ringworld map, leading Louis to guess that it is the result of a meteoroid striking the underside of the ring, pushing

4140-464: The star, instead orbiting stars or planets. The open source video game Endless Sky features an alien species that creates ringworlds. In 2017 Paradox Interactive added a DLC called "Utopia" to their game Stellaris , allowing the player to restore or build ringworlds. In 2021 Mobius Digital added a DLC called "Echoes of the Eye" to their game Outer Wilds , which allows the player to explore

4209-493: The stories of the Man-Kzin Wars volumes fill in that history, bridging the two settings. One aspect of the Known Space universe is that most of the early human colonies are on planets suboptimal for Homo sapiens . During the first phase of human interstellar colonization (i.e. before humanity acquired FTL), simple robotic probes were sent to nearby stars to assess their planets for habitation. The programming of these probes

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4278-488: The time of its first publication in 1977 some of the concepts were invalidated by Niven's writings between 1968 and 1977. (A further edited version of the outline was published in N-Space in 1990.) Ringworld 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

4347-566: The two settings as a single fictional universe in the short story "A Relic of the Empire" ( If , December 1966), by using background elements of the Slaver civilization from the Belter series as a plot element in the faster-than-light setting. In the late 1980s—having written almost no Tales of Known Space in more than a decade —Niven opened the 300-year gap in the Known Space timeline as a shared universe , and

4416-576: The video game series Halo . Such a mini-Ringworld appears in Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett , season 1, episode 5. . In the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 3, "In the Cradle of Vexilon", A Ringworld-like world is prominently featured. In 1984, a role-playing game based on this setting was produced by Chaosium named The Ringworld Roleplaying Game . Information from

4485-460: Was a glass cylinder with a rounded top. The machinery that made the magic work was invisible, buried beneath the booth. Coin slots and a telephone dial were set into the glass at sternum level" (from Flash Crowd ). Some individuals in the stories display limited paranormal or "psionic" abilities. Gil Hamilton can move objects with his mind using his phantom arm, which he gained after losing an arm in an asteroid mining accident. When he finally had

4554-472: Was also reported to have said that "Known Space should be seen as a possible future history told by people that may or may not have all their facts right." The author also published an "outline" for a story which would "destroy" the Known Space Series (or more precisely, reveal much of the Known Space background to be an in-universe hoax), in an article entitled "Down in Flames" Archived 2013-09-17 at

4623-498: Was flawed: they sent back a "good for colonization" message if they found a habitable point , rather than a habitable planet . Sleeper ships containing human colonists were sent to the indicated star systems. Too often, those colonists had to make the best of a bad situation. The series features a number of "superscience" inventions which figure as plot devices. Stories earlier in the timeline feature technology such as Bussard ramjets and drouds (wires capable of directly stimulating

4692-414: Was released in 1992 and Return to Ringworld in 1994. A third game, Ringworld: Within ARM's Reach , was also planned, but never completed. The video game franchise Halo , created by Bungie , took inspiration from the book in the creation and development of its story around the eponymous rings, called Halos. These are physically similar to the Ringworld, however they are much smaller and do not encircle

4761-521: Was the name of a Scottish writer and poet. It is not known if Niven chose the name knowing this. This article about a 1980s science fiction novel is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Known Space#ARM 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

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