Special Guest: Larry Niven

The NIVEN File

Born April 30, 1938, in Los Angeles, California, USA, to Waldemar Van Cott Niven and Lucy Estelle Niven (later Washington.)

Raised in Beverly Hills, California. Hawthorne Public School (Beverly Hills,) Cate School (Carpinteria.)

California Institute of Technology, September 1956 to February 1958. Flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines.

Honest employment: gas station attendant, summer 1960.

Graduated Washburn University, Kansas, June 1962: BA in Mathematics with a Minor in Psychology. Half the university was scattered to the winds by a tornado a month after I left. They later gave me a D. Litt., an honorary doctorate in Letters.

First story publication: "The Coldest Place", Worlds of If, December 1964.

Met Marilyn Joyce (Fuzzy Pink) Wisowaty at the Nycon World Science Fiction Convention, 1967. Married September 6, 1969. No children. Marilyn passed on December, 2023, in Tarzana, California.

I have written fiction at every length, and speculative articles, speeches for high schools and colleges and conventions, television scripts, political action in support of the conquest of space, graphic novels, and a couple of comic book universes. I’ve collaborated with a wide variety of writers.

My Interests

Science fiction conventions. AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edges of science. Comics. Filk singing. Hiking and pilates and other approaches to longevity. Racquetball and yoga may be part of my past.

Saving civilization and making a little money. The defense of Earth against incoming giant meteoroid impacts. Moving mankind into space by any means, but particularly by making space endeavors attractive to commercial interests.

In 1980 Jerry Pournelle talked me and Marilyn into hosting a gathering of the top minds in the space industry in an attempt to write a space program for the Reagan government, with goals, timetables, and costs. The Citizens Advisory Council for a National Space Policy met four times during the Reagan Administration, and twice since, for harrowing three day weekends. Attendees have included spacecraft designers, businessmen, NASA personnel, astronauts, lawyers. Adding science fiction writers turns out to be stunningly effective. We can translate! We can force these guys to speak English.

We’ve had some effect on the space program. SDI (Space Defense Initiative, or Star Wars) was drafted at our house in Tarzana. In ’93 we watched the DC-X fly. It was a toy version of a single-stage ground-to-orbit spacecraft, and the Council generated it. Our design lost out to the Skunk Works’ X-33, but the Council caused the revival of the X Program itself.

I grew up with dogs: Keeshonds, the breed my mother raised and shaped for sixty years. I lived with cats, and borrow dogs to hike with. I have passing acquaintance with raccoons and ferrets. Associating with nonhumans has certainly gained me insight into alien intelligences.

I’ve written on computers since 1978.

Awards

Hugos (or Science Fiction Achievement Awards) for "Neutron Star", 1966; RINGWORLD, 1970; "Inconstant Moon", 1971; "The Hole Man", 1974; and "The Borderland of Sol", 1975. Nebula for Best Novel: RINGWORLD, 1970. Ditmars (Best International Science Fiction, Australian) for RINGWORLD, 1972, and PROTECTOR, 1974. Japanese awards for RINGWORLD and "Inconstant Moon", both 1979. Inkpot, 1979, shared with Jerry Pournelle, from the San Diego Comic Convention. Heinlein Award for Career Achievement in the Field of Science Fiction. Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination Award for Service to Society. SFWA Grand Master. Writers of the Future Lifetime Achievement.

In the Pipeline

RINGWORLD, a high-end edition from Jerad Walters, with old and new material added.

UNDERTOLD STORIES, my stuff never yet collected, now being shaped by David Sooby (Lensman) and Carol Philips.

ASSASSIN, with Steven Barnes, awaiting publication.

"Potlatch" awaiting publication in Analog magazine.