Larry Niven has 27 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 15 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 403 ratings. The most-rated is Ringworld.
Ringworld
Summary
Welcome to Ringworld, an intermediate step between Dyson Spheres and planets. Ninety-three million miles in radius - the equivalent of one Earth orbit or 600 miles long - 1,000 meters thick, and much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. What other advantages are there to this world? The gravitational force created by a rotation on its axis of 770 miles per second means no need for a roof. Walls 1,000 miles high at each rim will let in the sun and prevent much air from escaping. Larry Niven's novel, Ringworld, is the winner of the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.
©1970 Larry Niven (P)1996 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Mote in God's Eye
Summary
Writing separately, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are responsible for a number of science fiction classics, such as the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ringworld, Debt of Honor, and The Integral Trees. Together they have written the critically acclaimed best-sellers Inferno, Footfall, and The Legacy of Heorot, among others. The Mote In God's Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind's first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".
©1991 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
Lucifer's Hammer
Summary
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival - a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known....
©1985 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
The Ringworld Engineers
Summary
It’s been 20 years since the quixotic and worldsweary Louis Wu discovered the Ringworld. Now he and SpeakertoAnimals are going back, captives of the Hindmost, a deposed puppeteer leader. With Louis’ help, the Hindmost intends to regain his status by bringing back such extraordinary treasures from the Ringworld that his fellow puppeteers will have to be impressed. But when they arrive, Louis discovers that the Ringworld is no longer stable - and will destroy itself within months. To survive, he must locate the control center of the legendary engineers who built the planet. His quest becomes a wild and gripping venture blended with the mysteries and spectacular technologies that only Larry Niven can conjure.
©1980 Larry Niven (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Footfall
Summary
They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods. Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender - or death for all humans.
©1986 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
The Gripping Hand
Summary
Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read". The San Francisco Chronicle declared that "as science fiction, The Mote in God's Eye is one of the most important novels ever published". Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award-winning authors of such best sellers as Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot, return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler. There, 25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered - a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function: Master, Mediator, Engineer, Warrior. Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For the Moties must breed - or die. And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.
©1993 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
A World Out of Time
Summary
After more than two hundred years as a corpsicle, Jaybee Corbell awoke in someone else’s body and under threat of instant annihilation if he made a wrong move while they were training him for a one-way mission to the stars. But Corbell bided his time and made his own move. Once he was outbound, where the society that ruled Earth could not reach him, he headed his starship toward the galactic core, where the unimaginable energies of the universe wrenched the fabric of time and space and promised final escape from his captors. Then he returned to an Earth eons older than the one he’d left, a planet that had had three million years to develop perils he had never dreamed of - perils that became nightmares that he had to escape... somehow. Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula award–winning author of the Ringworld series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf’s Children, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times best seller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.
©1976 Larry Niven (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Legacy of Heorot
Summary
Best-selling science fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind’s first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. Light years from Earth, colonists land on a planet they name Avalon. It seems like a paradise - until native creatures savagely attack. It will take every bit of intelligence, courage, and military-style discipline to survive.
©1987 Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Destroyer of Worlds
Summary
200 Years before the Discovery of Ringworld The newly liberated humans of the Fleet of Worlds and Sigmund Ausfaller, who had been transported by the Puppeteers from Earth to the Fleet, must contend not only with the sly Puppeteers but also the threat of the Pak, a very smart and utterly ruthless species who are fleeing the exploding galactic core in an armada of ships at near light speed. The Pak are headed towards the Fleet of Worlds, having destroyed entire planets in their wake. Sigmund and his human allies are sent by the Puppeteers to reconnoiter and divert the Pak. A Pak is captured, but even a well-guarded Pak prisoner can be lethal. Sigmund and the human colonists must cope with many unpleasant surprises, between the manipulative Puppeteers, the brilliant, violent Pak and a new species called the Gw'oth who, while seeming to be allies, have own agenda.
©2009 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Fleet of Worlds
Summary
Fleet of Worlds marks Larry Niven's first full novel-length collaboration within his Known Space universe, the playground he created for his best-selling Ringworld series. Teaming up with fellow SF writer Edward M. Lerner, Fleet of Worlds takes a closer look at Human-Puppeteer (Citizen) relations and the events leading up to Niven's first Ringworld novel. Kirsten Quinn-Kovacks is among the best and brightest of her people. She gratefully serves the gentle race that rescued her ancestors from a dying starship, gave them a world, and nurtures them still. If only the Citizens knew where Kirsten's people came from. A chain reaction of supernovae at the galaxy's core has unleashed a wave of lethal radiation that will sterilize the galaxy. The Citizens flee, taking their planets, the Fleet of Worlds, with them. Someone must scout ahead, and Kirsten and her crew eagerly volunteer. Under the guiding eye of Nessus, their Citizen mentor, they explore for any possible dangers in the Fleet's path - and uncover long-hidden truths that will shake the foundations of worlds.
©2007 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2007 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Juggler of Worlds
Summary
Covert agent Sigmund Ausfaller is Earth's secret weapon, humanity's best defense against all conspiracies, real and imaginary, and all foes both human and alien. Who better than a brilliant paranoid to expose the devious plots of others? But Sigmund may finally have met his match in Nessus, representative of the secretive Puppeteers, the elder race who wield vastly superior technologies. Even after the Puppeteers abruptly vanish from Known Space, Nessus schemes in the shadows with Earth's traitors and adversaries. As a paranoid, Sigmund has always known things would end horribly for him; only the when, where, how, why, and by whom of it all eluded him. But even Sigmund never imagined that his destiny would be entwined with the fates of worlds...
©2008 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Fate of Worlds
Summary
The explosive finale to the Ringworld and the Fleet of Worlds series... For decades, the spacefaring species of known space have battled over the largest artifact - and grandest prize - in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. Now, without warning, the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the puppeteers will be forced to surrender theirs - everyone knows that they are cowards. But the crises converging upon the trillion puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds go far beyond even the onrushing armadas. Adventurer Louis Wu and the exiled puppeteer known only as Hindmost, marooned together for more than a decade, escaped from the Ringworld before it disappeared. And throughout those years, as he studied Ringworld technology, Hindmost has plotted to reclaim his power. One way or another, the fabled puppeteer race may have come to the end of its days. Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, as well as many other science fiction masterpieces. His Footfall, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle, was a New York Times best seller. He lives in Chatsworth, California. Edward M. Lerner has degrees in physics and computer science, a background that kept him mostly out of trouble until he began writing science fiction full time. His books include Probe, Moonstruck, and the collection Creative Destruction. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Ruth.
©2012 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Ringworld's Children
Summary
The Ringworld is a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band 3-million-times the surface area of Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of which are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe. Explorer Louis Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threatens to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now, the future of Ringworld lies in the actions of its children: Tunesmith, the Ghould protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous role in order to save Ringworld's population, and the stability of Ringworld itself. Blending awe-inspiring science with non-stop action and fun, Ringworld's Children, the fourth installment of the multiple-award-winning saga, is the perfect introduction for readers new to this New York Times best-selling series and for long-time fans of Larry Niven's Ringworld.
©2004 Larry Niven (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks
The Ringworld Throne
Summary
Come back to the Ringworld - the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered. A place of untold technological wonders, home to myriad humanoid races, and world of some of the most beloved science fiction stories ever written. The human Louis Wu; the puppeteer known as the Hindmost; Acolyte, son of the Kzin called Chmeee: legendary beings brought together once again in the defense of the Ringworld. Something is going on with the protectors. Incoming spacecraft are being destroyed before they can reach the Ringworld. Vampires are massing. And the Ghouls have their own agenda - if anyone dares approach them to learn. Each race on the Ringworld has always had its own protector. Now it looks as if the Ringworld itself needs a protector. But who will sit on the Ringworld throne? Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula award–winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. His Beowulf’s Children, coauthored with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes, was a New York Times best seller. He lives in Chatsworth, California.
©1996 Larry Niven (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Protector
Summary
This Hugo-nominated work is a classic of Niven's Known Space saga. Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission was to save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before. Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days, and Brennan figured to meet that ship first. He was never seen again - at least not by those alive at the time.
©1973 Larry Niven (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Betrayer of Worlds
Summary
Since fleeing the supernova chain reaction at the galactic core, the cowardly Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds have - just barely - survived one crisis after another: the rebellion of their human slaves, the relentless questing of the species of Known Space, the spectacular rise of the starfishlike Gw'oth, the onslaught of the genocidal Pak. Now fresh disaster looms, as though past crises have returned and converged. Who can possibly save the Fleet this time? Larry Niven is the multiple Hugo and Nebula award–winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. Edward M. Lerner has degrees in physics and computer science, a background that kept him mostly out of trouble until he began writing science fiction full-time.
©2010 Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Inferno
Summary
After being thrown out of the window of his luxury apartment, science-fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of Hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the nine circles of Hell, led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures. As he struggles to escape, he's taken through new, puzzling, and outlandish versions of sin recast for the present day.
©1976 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Integral Trees
Summary
Leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline were prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided - and secretly spied upon - by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. What they weren’t prepared for, however, was the Smoke Ring - an immense, gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free fall. When Disciplineencountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis. Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.
©2003 Larry Niven (P)2013 Blackstone Audio
Burning Tower
Summary
Return to the “vivid and unusual” (Kirkus Reviews) world of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Burning City, where the fire god has retreated into myth, leaving the residents of Tep’s Town unprotected for the first time in their history. Unfortunately, a fiery fate isn’t the only danger Tep’s Town is facing. Monsters are coming forth from the desert - great birds with blades instead of wings, driven by some unknown force. Although they can be killed, the threat these “terror birds” pose is worse than death. Danger on the roads means no trade; no trade means the extinction of Tep’s Town. Sent to discover the source of the terror birds, Lord Sandry and his beloved, Burning Tower, must travel into a world where magic is still strong - and where someone or something waits to destroy them. Filled with the sweeping adventure, memorable characters, and imaginative world-building that have defined the novels of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Burning Tower is another triumph.
©2005 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Starborn and Godsons
Summary
The long-awaited conclusion of the Heorot series from genre legends Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes Avalon was thriving. The cold sleep colonists from Earth had settled on a verdant, livable world. The fast and cunning predators humans named “grendels” were under control, and the mainland outposts well established. Avalon’s new mainland hydroelectric power station was nearly complete, and when on-line would compensate for the nuclear power systems lost in the Grendel Wars. Humans would have power, and with power came the ability to make all the necessities for life. They would survive. They would not survive as a spacefaring people. What they were losing faster than they knew was the ability to get to space. But unbeknownst to the planet-bound humans, something was moving out there in the stars, decelerating at a rate impossible for a natural object. And its destination was Avalon. The most probable origin was Earth’s solar system. This is a novel of first contact - between the human Starborn and the self-named Godsons who followed on, between the first generation of Avalon-born humans and their descendants, and between humans and the almost ineffably alien species native to their new world....
©2020 Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. Introduction © 2020 by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing