As I just saw a great movie “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake, I thought I’d write about a great Science fiction author that I felt deserved some recognition. Larry Niven has been writing for more than 50 years and his adaptations, short stories and novels are highly awarded. Not just that, they are also a common mans book, as they are easily read and engaging.
Reading Niven’s, ‘A World Out of Time’, is like learning the easy way. It intrigues, excites the imagination of a world far in the future and millenniums farther into the future. Larry Niven’s concepts of writing, in general, causes one to imagine, how things can work, function and be logical. Its teaching of imaginative concepts that are not yet possible and not seemly probable in the near future, although complicated, progressively taugh to be progressively engaging.
I read this book the first time, in 1973, before it was published, when I attended Columbine High school in Littleton, Colorado, the first year the school opened. I then thought at the age of 48, I had to read it again but couldn’t remember the title or author. After searching Robert Heinlein books and reading quite a few; searching the internet for Ramjet, cat-snakes and corpse-sickles, I gave up for a year or two.
Finally, I lucked out, by coming across it when reading a book sells coupon in the back of another of Larry Niven books. I’ve since read it twice and at the age of 53, still applaud its futuristic concepts, that I don’t feel, will ever be developed in my lifetime. It is truly thought provoking.
It has all the characteristics of the perfect science fiction novel, space travel, time travel, new worlds and old world histories, along with the factual science to make them believable. One of the most exciting concepts, to me, was the device that transmitted the bad matter from ones body and deposited it into a containment cylinder. I imagine that it was like Cholesterol or Fat in general, but the idea is, it reversed the aging process. How cool would that be? The fact of the matter is, that it is plausible. An idea of such a mechanism is not out of the realm of imagination and only makes perfect scientific sense. Like Dr. McCoy would say “A child could do it.”
A chronicle continuation, Ring World, a concept of an earth less, dirt less, weightless existence in something of a tree like existence, a concept that only begins to ferment in your own imagination of how such an existence could or would exist. Festering in your mind, ideas and concepts of living life in the most primitive of fashion, after reading this novel. I really felt cheated by this novel and the one to follow because they only had a vague reference to ‘A world Out of Time’ and I really wanted to know more about the concepts and ingenuity from that book.
I keep reading and as I do, I’m learning more of the great scientific thinkers, imaginers, animators that develop in this genre, like “The Accidental Time Machine” by Joe Haldeman or “Beyond the Horizon”, by Robert Heinlein. Don’t forget the great book “Play It Again” by Ted Allen Off (That be me)https://sites.google.com/site/playitagainbytedllenoff/