Larry Niven - Other Works

Other Works

One of Niven's best known humorous works is "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", in which he uses real-world physics to underline the difficulties of Superman and a human woman (Lois Lane or Lana Lang) mating.

Larry Niven's novels frequently make use of the stasis field concept, which he also popularized.

In several titles and elsewhere Niven employs terms that are double entendre in that they are apparently metaphorical, but are in fact, meant to be taken literally, or sometimes vice versa. A few examples of this are:

• The novel Destiny's Road is in fact about a road on a planet called Destiny.
• In the Ringworld's past there was an event known as "The Fall of the Cities", in which floating cities literally fell out of the sky and crashed to the ground.
• The short story "There is a Tide" begins by speaking of a metaphorical tide of fate which guides one's destiny, but the existence of literal tides on a planet in the story is a key to the plot.
• The novel The Integral Trees features long straight floating trees which are curved at each end in opposite directions, giving them the shape of the mathematical integral sign, but are themselves integral to the life cycle of the inhabitants.
• The novel Footfall at first seems to refer to the elephantine Fithp invaders striding across the Earth, but is actually revealed to be the aliens dropping an asteroid nicknamed the Foot onto the Earth.
• He also appeared in the science documentary film Target...Earth? (1980).