A review by robertrivasplata
Neutron Star by Larry Niven

4.0

Re-reading this splendid specimen of 1970s hard SF. Neutron star is probably my favorite Larry Niven short story collection. I wanted to pick this up to re-read "the Soft Weapon" and "the Handicapped", which I guess means that I'm partial to the stories with the Thint (I also really liked World of Ptaavs). I really enjoyed the Beowulf Shaeffer stories, even though "Neutron Star" & "Flatlander" are clearly intended as vehicles for thought experiments about how a human would experience exotic space phenomena such as neutron stars. "Ethics of Madness" is probably the darkest of the stories in this collection. This collection, along with many of Niven's known space stories, are more space western than space opera (with the accompanying libertarian & colonialist world view of westerns); e.g. Beowulf S. wanders from world to world, sometimes reluctantly cleaning up the town, sometimes just escaping by the skin of his teeth; a lone prospector is beset by (space) bandits; space stage coach is held up by space desperadoes, etc, etc. Niven's depiction of life extension technology is used to speculate on the cultural and psychological effects of having lots of very long-lived people, rather than just being a plot device to have the same characters around for all of the events in a narrative. Niven can in many ways be compared to a more serious Harry Harrison & a less serious Heinlein (& without the militarism).