A comprehensive guide to one of science fiction's most exciting created universes.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel Four travelers come to the ringworld. . . Louis Wu: human and old; bored with having lived too fully for far too many years. Seeking a challenge, and all too capable of handling it. Nessus: a trembling coward, a puppeteer with a built-in survival pattern of nonviolence. Except that this particular puppeteer is insane. Teela Brown: human; a wide-eyed youngster with no allegiances, no experience, no abilities. And all the luck in the world. Speaker-To-Animals: kzin; large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. And one of the most savage life-forms known in the galaxy. Why did these disparate individuals come together? How could they possibly function together? And where, in the name of anything sane, were they headed?

Come back to the Ringworld . . . the most astonishing feat of engineering ever encountered. A place of untold technological wonders, home to a 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? “Niven’s work has been an intriguing and consistent universe, and this book is the keystone of the arch. . . . [His] technique is wonderfully polished, his characters and their situations are nicely drawn . . . wraps up (maybe) a corner of a very interesting universe.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

A brand-new novel set in Niven's Known Space, two hundred years before the discovery of the Ringworld.

Howl Down the Galaxy! The plan: wipe out and enslave those weed-eating, monkey-spawn humans and march on toward galactic domination! Easy, right Not quite. Now the smarter Kzin see the writing on the wall and form alliances of convenience with humans. But the battle rage on! A strange OLD world seemingly settled by pre-Romans is about to have the honor of Kzin enslavement¾unless a human and mercenary-Kzin team can stop it. A human secret agent with wiped memories must evade a Kzin assassin until he can rediscover his mission and save himself. And a Kzin horde is racing toward a huge anti-matter cache in deep space as one reluctant human protector stands against this ultimate threat! A hard-hitting, spellbinding addition to the 'Man-Kzin Wars' shared universe created by multiple New York Times best-seller, incomparable tale-spinner, and Nebula- and five-time Hugo-Award-winner, Larry Niven! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "[The Man-Kzin Wars series is] excellent . . .gripping . . .and expands well on Larry Niven's universe . . . ." ¾Locus

"A Tor/Seven Seas paperbpack"--Colophon.