Kaethe

Fair warning: one really nasty tale of homophobia.

 

Classic stories from the 60s and 70s, one out-of-date (as science) practically before it was published. What works: the tech and the mystery format that many of the stories fall into. What doesn't work: well, despite being able to imagine that each off-world culture would distinguish itself from home-earth culture, the nevertheless manage to be pretty white and patriarchal. For once the large-scale erasure of female characters is a relief, because when women are included they aren't as human as the space ships.

The stories themselves are zippy, mostly plot, and entertaining. It's funny to see what the future was supposed to look like (kudos for managing to hang on to the cigarette smoking habit in increasingly challenging ways, and also, wow, fears about overpopulation ran rampant, didn't they?).

Not a future I can imagine appealing to women or any minority, filled as it is with manly white dudes being mavericks. It's also kind of astounding that Niven didn't include results of any of the social justice movements publicly underway while he was writing these. I get that sociology isn't his thing, but, wow.

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