Larry Niven has written a lot more stories, and I've read a lot more of them than I've listed here, in part because I cannot remember them all, and in part because he is a marvellous short story writer. Some of them were collected in books like Neutron Star and N-Space. His Man-Kzin wars concept series, from which I haven't read many books, appears to be quite popular among some people, probably in a large part because of the comic relief afforded by the constant one-up-manship between humans and an alien race of humanoid tigers that, according to one reviewer, is so stupid it's hard to imagine how they ever made it into space. (There's this theory that aliens who are combative and aggressive would not survive acquiring advanced technologies like nuclear power. Many sf authors whose stories feature such aliens try to explain how that's possible by having the mean aliens steal the technology. The Kzinti are one such example.)

In any case, Niven has quite a following, much of which can probably be found on this webring.

  • Protector (1973) - Humans really evolved on another planetary system, and are malnourished castaways on Earth. If certain plants had been able to grow here, then instead of growing old and decrepit, we would metamorphose into superwarriors, with incredibly powerful bodies and genius level minds. This story describes how Earth humans deal with the threat posed by such an individual.
  • The Mote series: The Mote in God's Eye (1974) - With Jerry Pournelle. Human contact with incomprehensible aliens. I read this story quite a long time ago, and mostly remember that the aliens were considered to be a great danger to humanity. I suspect that the aliens, with their peculiar life cycles, and their evolutionary history, are entirely Niven's invention.
  • The Gripping Hand (1993) - With Jerry Pournelle. Sequel to Mote, which I found unsatisfying...
  • The Ringworld series: Ringworld (1977) - An expedition lead by a strange cowardly alien and including a woman bred for luck sets out to explore an artificial world in the shape of a gigantic ring around its sun. Of course, the woman's luck interferes with the exploration in unexpected ways. The concept of the ringworld has captured many people's imagination. You can even view a series of pictures that use computer graphics to model the ringworld. Pretty nifty stuff!
  • The Ringworld Engineers (1980) - Sequel to Ringworld. The earlier exploration caused serious problems with the physical structure of the ringworld, and now the damage must be fixed before the ring drifts into its sun. Niven says that it wasn't until after writing Ringworld that someone explained to him that the system would have been dynamically unstable. In part, the sequel was intended to describe these flaws, and methods by which such a structure might exist anyway.
  • The Ringworld Throne (1996) - Sequel to The Ringworld Engineers. Lots of loose ends were left to be tied up, so this book concerns itself with the aftermath of the choices that had to be made at the end of the previous book. In some sense this seems to be more a book that was published because ringworld fans asked for it, than one that just had to be written.
  • Oath of Fealty (1981) - With Jerry Pournelle. Life in an arcology, a building the size of a city. Great political yarn set in a near future, considering one possible solution to urban sprawl. Can people learn to live in these conditions and remain human? Niven seems to think so.
  • The Integral Trees series: The Integral Trees (1984) - A human exploratory mission finds a curious white dwarf star, orbited by a ring of gas and other loose material, that is kept from accreting into a planet because of its proximity to its primary, similar to the way that Saturn's rings cannot form moons because they are too close to the planet. Life has evolved in the smoke ring, and the story describes how the explorers, trying to free themselves of an oppressive tyranny, scuttle their mission to find freedom in this bizarre environment.
  • The Smoke Ring (1987) - Sequel to The Integral Trees. Great story, describing the adventures of humans that are the descendents of the castaways that found the smoke ring.
  • Footfall (1985) - With Jerry Pournelle. Invasion of the elephants! Pournelle and Niven contrive a fairly believable vision of Earth's first contact with hostile visitors from another star. They look like elephants, and, in keeping with Niven's peculiar vision of Darwinism, act like elephants, too. In the end the humans kick Dumbo's butt, in a triumphant scene of techno derring-do and machismo. Fun read! Michael Whelan, the artist who did the cover art, has some comments about his work.
  • The California Voodoo Game (1992) - With Steven Barnes. Intrigue and virtual reality.