Barbara R. (Crop4Fun) reviewed on + 1217 more book reviews
Travelling to the stars can be a particularly dangerous affair - especially if you reach a planet low on food and high on hungry people...
Murray Simpson believed that the perfect crime (especially murder) demanded the perfect rehearsal. But on the Santa Monica Freeway, nothing is ever perfect...
Larry Niven's Convergent Series is an astounding collection of 21 stories ranging from science fiction and fantasy to almost everyday stories of Los Angeles. Aside from the handful of "short shorts" involving the chirpsithtra, Niven's yarn-spinning aliens, these stories have no real connection to any of his other works. Generally, the long stories are the more satisfying, as with the space mutiny in "One Face", and especially the hard-nosed Private Investigator fiction of "The Meddler. Perhaps the best stories are those that deal with the complexities of time travel, where Niven lets his logical gifts wrestle with the standard paradoxes of cause and effect with interesting, and believable, results.
Hans Rebka intends to solve the galaxy's most persistent mystery. He is going to penetrate Paradox. Many have entered Paradox before Hans Rebka, but no one has ever left, at least not with mind intact. But as a troubleshooter, Hans Rebka is in a class by himself, though he doesn't know it, he's about to uncover the secret of the Artifacts--and loose the most hideous menace ever encountered.
Includes:
Assimilating Our Culture, Thats What Theyre Doing
Bordered in Black
Cautionary Tales
CONVERGENT SERIES
Cruel and Unusual
The Deadlier Weapon
Dry Run
Grammar Lesson
Like Banquo's Ghost
The Meddler
Mistake
Night on Mispec Moor
The Nonesuch
Plaything
Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality
The Schumann Computer
Singularities Make Me Nervous
The Subject Is Closed
Transfer of Power
Wrong Way Street
One Face
Murray Simpson believed that the perfect crime (especially murder) demanded the perfect rehearsal. But on the Santa Monica Freeway, nothing is ever perfect...
Larry Niven's Convergent Series is an astounding collection of 21 stories ranging from science fiction and fantasy to almost everyday stories of Los Angeles. Aside from the handful of "short shorts" involving the chirpsithtra, Niven's yarn-spinning aliens, these stories have no real connection to any of his other works. Generally, the long stories are the more satisfying, as with the space mutiny in "One Face", and especially the hard-nosed Private Investigator fiction of "The Meddler. Perhaps the best stories are those that deal with the complexities of time travel, where Niven lets his logical gifts wrestle with the standard paradoxes of cause and effect with interesting, and believable, results.
Hans Rebka intends to solve the galaxy's most persistent mystery. He is going to penetrate Paradox. Many have entered Paradox before Hans Rebka, but no one has ever left, at least not with mind intact. But as a troubleshooter, Hans Rebka is in a class by himself, though he doesn't know it, he's about to uncover the secret of the Artifacts--and loose the most hideous menace ever encountered.
Includes:
Assimilating Our Culture, Thats What Theyre Doing
Bordered in Black
Cautionary Tales
CONVERGENT SERIES
Cruel and Unusual
The Deadlier Weapon
Dry Run
Grammar Lesson
Like Banquo's Ghost
The Meddler
Mistake
Night on Mispec Moor
The Nonesuch
Plaything
Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality
The Schumann Computer
Singularities Make Me Nervous
The Subject Is Closed
Transfer of Power
Wrong Way Street
One Face
