Niven at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, 2007 Laurence van Cott Niven (/ˈnɪvən/; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer.[2] His 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. With Jerry Pournelle he wrote The Mote in God's Eye (1974) and Lucifer's Hammer (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him the 2015 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.[3] His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series The Magic Goes Away, works of rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource. Biography Niven was born in Los Angeles.[2] He is a great-grandson of Edward L. Doheny, an oil tycoon who drilled the first successful well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field in 1892, and also was subsequently implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal.[4] Niven briefly attended the California Institute of Technology[5] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas in 1962. He also completed a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. On September 6, 1969, he married Marilyn Wisowaty, a science fiction and Regency literature fan. Work Niven is the author of numerous science fiction short stories and novels, beginning with his 1964 story "The Coldest Place". In this story, the coldest place concerned is the dark side of Mercury, which at the time the story was written was thought to be tidally locked with the Sun (it was found to rotate in a 2:3 resonance after Niven received payment for the story, but before it was published).[6] Algis Budrys said in 1968 that Niven becoming a top writer despite the New Wave was evidence that "trends are for second-raters".[7] In addition to the Nebula Award in 1970[8] and the Hugo and Locus awards in 1971[9] for Ringworld, Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Neutron Star" in 1967.[5] He won the same award in 1972, for "Inconstant Moon", and in 1975 for "The Hole Man". In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "The Borderland of Sol". Niven frequently collaborated with Jerry Pournelle; they wrote nine novels together, including The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall. Niven at Stanford University in 2006 Niven has written scripts for two science fiction television series: the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early story "The Soft Weapon." For The Outer Limits, his story "Inconstant Moon" was adapted into an episode of the same name by Brad Wright. Niven has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern, including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect. Several of his stories predicted the black market in transplant organs ("organlegging"). Many of Niven's stories—sometimes called the Tales of Known Space[10]—take place in his Known Space universe, in which humanity shares the several habitable star systems nearest to the Sun with over a dozen alien species, including the aggressive feline Kzinti and the very intelligent but cowardly Pierson's Puppeteers, which are frequently central characters. The Ringworld series is part of the Tales of Known Space, and Niven has shared the setting with other writers since a 1988 anthology, The Man-Kzin Wars (Baen Books, jointly edited with Jerry Pournelle and Dean Ing).[10] There have been several volumes of short stories and novellas. Niven has also written a logical fantasy series The Magic Goes Away, which utilizes an exhaustible resource called mana to power a rule-based "technological" magic. The Draco Tavern series of short stories take place in a more light-hearted science fiction universe, and are told from the point of view of the p