Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven (/ˈnɪvən/; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer.[2] His 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. With Jerry Pournelle he wrote The Mote in God's Eye (1974) and Lucifer's Hammer (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him the 2015 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.[3]
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven
April 30, 1938
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Novelist
1964–present
- Ringworld (1970)
- The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
- Lucifer's Hammer (1977)
- The Ringworld Engineers (1980)
- Dream Park (1981)
Inkpot Award (1979)[1]
His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series The Magic Goes Away, works of rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource.
Biography[edit]
Niven was born in Los Angeles.[2] He is a great-grandson of Edward L. Doheny, an oil tycoon who drilled the first successful well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field in 1892, and also was subsequently implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal.[4] Niven briefly attended the California Institute of Technology[5] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas in 1962. He also completed a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. On September 6, 1969, he married Marilyn Wisowaty, a science fiction and Regency literature fan.
Politics[edit]
According to author Michael Moorcock, in 1967, Niven, despite being a staunch conservative, voiced opposition to the Vietnam War.[14] In 1968 Niven signed an advertisement in Galaxy Science Fiction in support for continued US involvement in the Vietnam War.[15][16]
Niven was an adviser to Ronald Reagan on the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative antimissile policy, as part of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy—as covered in the BBC documentary Pandora's Box by Adam Curtis.[17]
In 2007, Niven, in conjunction with a think tank of science fiction writers known as SIGMA, founded and led by Arlan Andrews, began advising the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as to future trends affecting terror policy and other topics.[18] Among those topics was reducing costs for hospitals to which Niven offered the solution to spread rumors in Latino communities that organs were being harvested illegally in hospitals.[19]
