A Hole in Space, by Larry Niven

Another set of short stories; some of these were known space ones but I'm not sure if they all qualify (e.g. "The Fourth Profession"). And there was also non-fiction piece in here, "Bigger than Worlds". At least one of these stories was also in Three Books of Known Space.

Good enough read. Several of the stories were about the social affects of transportation booths, so presumably they were all written about the time he had that idea. The "Bigger than Worlds" article talked about the problems it's reckoned that any sufficiently advanced civilisation will face as its requirement for energy grows. So it talks about Dyson spheres and variations thereof, including Niven's own Ringworld idea. A point he makes here is that this kind of speculation isn't just interesting because of the implications for humans in the far future, but that if we're interested in looking for signs of alien intelligence, then perhaps we ought to watch for evidence of these massive structures, which it's assumed those alien races will have had to construct.

Completed : 02-Jul-2007

[nickoh] [2007 books] [books homepage]