Known Space Chronological Ordering

This is a listing of all the Known Space fiction by Larry Niven I know of in what I believe to be correct chronological order. Estimated dates for (the start of) each story are given where possible. For a more detailed chronology of events in the Known Space universe, see Larry King's Known Space Chronology page. Larry's page is based on a chronology by I. Marc Carlson supplemented with other information. (Note that there are some minor diasagreements on dates between Larry's page and mine.)

I have not included the non-Niven Known Space stories in the Man-Kzin Wars books, most of which I haven't read. Spike R. MacPhee had a chronological ordering, with a few specific dates, in his Man-Kzin Wars page, but that seems to have gone the Way of All Pages. Larry King's page also includes entries based on the Man-Kzin War stories.

"Down in Flames" is not included here for a couple of reasons; (1) it was never completed -- what has been published (in N-Space) is an outline for a proposed novel; and (2) it was written before Ringworld and is badly inconsistent with many of the later stories.

I also have not made use of the Ringworld game or the book Larry Niven's Guide to Known Space or whatever it was called, since I don't have either.

I've found it easiest to treat Protector as two stories, "The Adults" (the first part, which was first published separately under that name) and "Vandervecken".

Up to three dates are given for each story:

• A "TOKS" date, the date given in the timeline in Tales of Known Space. (I haven't put all these dates in yet.)
• An "explicit" date, the date given specifically in the text of that story
• A "best" date, my best estimate of the date based on weighing evidence from story data as well as any explicit date. In some cases, examination of the evidence turns up inconsistencies; see below. In these cases the "best" date is marked with an asterisk. Dates as given in the TOKS timeline are not accepted uncritically; as noted below, most such dates are not confirmed by the story, and some are inconsistent with data in the story. However, with few exceptions the TOKS timeline's grouping of stories into centuries is not inconsistent with the evidence, nor is its order for the stories. The exceptions are A Gift From Earth and "The Ethics of Madness", and I have rearranged the positions of these stories in the chronology accordingly. Further input on this is solicited.

Dates are for the start of each story, with the obvious exception of World of Ptaavs. (Date given for The Ringworld Throne is for the start of the main action, exclusive of the prologue).

Stories are listed along with the title of a book in which the story is collected; not necessarily the only such book, nor the first nor latest. Titles are abbreviated:

• [CL] = Crashlander
• [FL] = Flatlander
• [NS] = Neutron Star
• [N-SP] = N-Space
• [P] = Protector
• [TOKS] = Tales of Known Space

NOTES ON IMPLIED DATES:

• "How the Heroes Die": 2040 according to TOKS timeline, but I see no evidence in the story. In "The Adults", which takes place in 2125, murder by martians of the colony is described as happening "over a century ago".
• "The Jigsaw Man": 2099 according to TOKS timeline, but again, this specific date does not appear in the story. Lew Knowles is said to have been arrested for drunk driving in 2082; this story must take place later, but not many decades later.
• Luke Garner stories:
  • Garner was born in 1939 (conversation with Brenner near end of "The Adults").
  • "World of Ptaavs": Garner is "Hundred and seventy next April" suggesting a date of 2108. TOKS timeline gives 2106; I don't see this date specifically given in the book.
  • "At the Bottom of a Hole": Date of 2112 specifically given. Garner is "seventeen decades old".
  • "Intent to Deceive": Garner is telling a story that took place "around 2025". Masney says Garner is 174 years old and Garner doesn't deny it. This suggests a date of 2113.
  • "The Adults": Garner is 185, suggesting a date of 2124. Date is given explicitly as 2125 in "Vandervecken".
• Gil Hamilton stories:
  • "Death by Ecstasy": Date of 2123 specifically given. I see no other data in the story. Hamilton says he became a Belter at 20 and returned to Earth about 6 years later, becoming an ARM soon after.
  • "The Defenseless Dead": Time period of the story includes passage of Second Freezer Bill by Security Council on Feb. 3, 2125. Garner is "180-odd" years old, which is consistent. First Freezer bill passed in 2122 and Chamberses were kidnapped March 21, 2123; these are loosely described as "two years ago"; again, consistent.
  • "ARM": Date of murder is specifically given as June 4, 2124. Events of "The Defenseless Dead" are in the past, specifically "early last year" (see introduction of Jackson Bera). Above date is therefore inconsistent. Note Hamilton says he became an ARM about 3 years earlier, so this is about 10 years after he left for the Belt.
  • "Patchwork Girl": No date specifically given. However, (1) Naomi Mitchison's daughter Miranda was born January 4, 2117 and was killed at age 4 1/2, around mid-2121. Soon after, Mitchison visited the moon, and she applied for Belt citizenship on Sept. 6, 2121. Events of the story take place about 4 years later, suggesting a date around 2125. These dates are consistent with the date given in "ARM". (2) April 13 falls on a Wednesday. Assuming the Gregorian calendar, the most likely year would be 2129. (The next earlier candidate year is 2118; the next later is 2135). (3) Hamilton says it was 14 years ago that he became a Belter. He also says he and Taffy had been roommates for 3 years, up to about 2 1/2 months ago.
  • "The Woman in Del Rey Crater": Garner is 188, suggesting a date of 2127. Shreve retired in 2125, "Two years ago". Hence 2127. Events of "Patchwork Girl" take place earlier.
  There must be an error somewhere. I can see no room for doubt about the order of the stories. There are no internal inconsistencies within the first two stories. There is one internal inconsistency within the later three -- the Wednesday, April 13 problem. There are gross inconsistencies between the two sets of stories. Not only do the explicit dates conflict, but Hamilton's biographical data do not add up: If "Patchwork Girl" takes place fourteen years after Hamilton became a belter, and ("Death by Ecstasy") he became an ARM about 7 years after leaving for the Belt, and "ARM" takes place about 3 years after that, then "Patchwork Girl" takes place about four years after "ARM" -- which conflicts with the dates given, and with the statement that he and Taffy had been living together for three years (apparently. Unless, contrary to appearances, Taffy was not living with Hamilton until after ARM.)

  Pick one. I choose, fairly arbitrarily, to believe the dates in the later stories and to assume that the first two stories take place two years earlier than stated (and that "Wed. April 13" is either a mistake or the result of some unmentioned calendar reform).

• The following four stories are linked:
  • "The Warriors": (1) 2360 according to TOKS timeline. "The last murder occurred in twenty-one something, just a hundred and sixty years ago." If this is accurate, the date is later than about 2125+160=2285 and earlier than 2200+160=2360. Given that there is no indication in the Gil Hamilton stories that murder is becoming rare, a date closer to the latter is the more likely.
  • "Madness Has Its Place": (1) Message from Angel's Pencil received ten years ago. Presumably roughly halfway to Procyon, hence message was roughly ten years in transit. Therefore about 20 years since "The Warriors". But according to story, Angel's Pencil was launched 20 years ago. (2) Events of "The Ethics of Madness" are alluded to. (Or, possibly, events extremely similar to "The Ethics of Madness".)
  • A Gift From Earth: 2410 according to TOKS timeline.
  • "The Ethics of Madness": 2425 according to TOKS timeline, which also says, "Dates as given in The Ethics of Madness must be considered erroneous". (1) Action takes place over many decades (even aside from the last section). Action on Plateau must be substantially later than A Gift From Earth (judging from changes in society). (2) Skyhook's ramjet is described as the first "safe" ramjet. But a "safe" ramjet is in use in "The Warriors".
  An ordering that seems to be consistent with the information in the stories is: (1) A Gift From Earth; (2) "The Ethics of Madness"; (3) "The Warriors" (circa 2350); (4) "Madness Has Its Place". But this puts A Gift From Earth and "The Ethics of Madness" about a century earlier than TOKS timeline.
• Beowulf Shaeffer and Louis Wu stories:
  Only two of these stories contain an explicit mention of the date. Start with one of them as a baseline:
  • "There Is a Tide": Date of 2830 is specifically given, and Louis Wu is 180 years old.
  • "The Borderland of Sol": Louis Wu has just been born, hence the year is about 2650. It is stated that two years have passed since the events of:
  • "Grendel": Hence the year is about 2648. It is stated that four years have elapsed since:
  • "Flatlander": Hence the year is about 2644. Appears to take place very soon after:
  • "At the Core": Hence the year is about 2644. It is stated that four years have passed since the events of:
  • "Neutron Star": Hence the year is about 2640. According to TOKS timeline, this is in fact correct. Working forward from Louis Wu's birth:
  • "Procrustes": At the time the plot was hatched, Tanya was five and Louis was four. Not clear how much time lapsed before Fafnir. Main action of story begins four months and eleven days later. If we assume about two months to get off Earth and that Louis was born soon before "The Borderland of Sol", then "Procrustes" is about 4 1/2 years later, hence the year is about 2655.
  • "Ghost": In several places a time lapse of a year and a half is mentioned; apparently since Shaeffer arrived at Pacifica (i.e. since the time of "Procrustes"), but possibly since Shaeffer and Janss arrived on Fafnir. Assuming the former, the year is about 2656.
  • Ringworld: Begins on Louis Wu's 200th birthday, hence the year is 2850. The puppeteer migration began 204 years earlier, in 2646. This is two years after "At the Core", when the puppeteers "disappeared". According to The Ringworld Throne, Lying Bastard impacted the Ringworld in 2851.
  • The Ringworld Engineers: "Twenty-three years have passed" (since the end of Ringworld), so the year is about 2874. It takes two years to get to the Ringworld, after which the Hindmost refers to a passage of 23 years, which suggests that the story begins in 2872, contrary to what one might infer from the introduction.
  • The Ringworld Throne: Prologue takes place in 2882; main action begins in 2892.
  However, there are complications:
  • "Neutron Star": Shaeffer is looking at "the new 2603 Sinclair intrasystem yacht". This would seem to refer to a model year and not a model number (which would have been "the new Sinclair 2603...").
  • "Flatlander": Shaeffer says Beta Lyrae I is named Cue Ball; if this refers to the discovery and naming of that planet in "The Soft Weapon", then this is an inconsistency in the chronology, since "The Soft Weapon" apparently happens about twelve years later. However, perhaps he knows, and the Papandreous don't, that an earlier explorer found Beta Lyrae I and also named it Cue Ball. The other possibility is that "Flatlander" actually takes place more than twelve years after "At the Core", but this seems unlikely.
  • "The Borderland of Sol": (1) Ausfaller says it has been "eight years or thereabouts" since he last saw Shaeffer, and Shaeffer echoes this later. It is strongly implied but not stated that this last meeting was their first, at the time of "Neutron Star", which according to the above chronology was more like ten years earlier. (2) Shaeffer says, "The [1908 Tunguska] meteorite must have been weird enough, to be remembered for nine hundred years" -- a serious slip in either chronology or arithmetic! (3) Forward refers to "more than seven hundred years" of searching for quantum black holes, implying a date after about 2675.
  • "Procrustes": "A capital crime committed during a period of madness has carried the death penalty for seven hundred years", suggesting a date later than about 2700 (or that Shaeffer once again is having trouble with either history or arithmetic).
  • The Ringworld Engineers: The Ringworld Throne says Hot Needle of Inquiry departed Canyon in 2878. Huh?
• "The Handicapped": They drink "Blue Fire 2728", but is that a vintage date and hence a lower limit on the date of the story? In "Ghost", Shaeffer regards the Grogs as dangerous, and he has no reason to do so unless "The Handicapped" happened earlier.
• "The Soft Weapon": Twelve years after "At the Core", suggesting around the same time as "Ghost".
• "Safe at Any Speed": No specific date given, but later than 3100.