'Somebody's daydream'

 

“Treat your life like something to be sculpted.” – Larry Niven

 

Born in Los Angeles in April of 1938, Laurence van Cott Niven has been a full-time writer since the early 1960s, starting with a well-received short story “The Coldest Place.”   He’s built a reputation as the world’s leading “Hard Sci-Fi” writer, especially for his worldwide bestselling series Ringworld, winner of the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards.   Not welded to one genre, Niven also is known for including elements of Detective Fiction and Adventure into his stories.  

 

Niven’s is credited with “creating” several alien species, one of the best-known being The Kzin, featured in a series of 15 books collectively called “The Man-Kzin Wars.”

 

The author of 54 novels (the most recent being Starborn & Godsons), he’s also written several screenplays and television scripts, and dozens of short stories, novellas and comic book stories.  Legendary Sci-Fi writer Arthur C Clarke called Niven his favorite author – a key accolade in its own right.

 

“In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature,” Niven said.  “Everything starts as somebody’s daydream.”