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	The Man Kzin Wars (Man Kzin Wars, Book 1)
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Average Customer Rating:

(17 reviews)

Reviews from Amazon customers:

Review by: Josehf Murchison
Rating:

Good book
I read this book in collage. It is the first in the series I read and I enjoyed it. Josehf Lloyd Murchison author of "Tails of a Gay Incubus" sold at Amazon.Tails of a Gay Incubus: The Memoirs of Divine Turin

Review by: SahbumnimG, New York
Rating:

Good start to a great series
There are now 11 volumes of Kzin stories; some of the stories are much better than others, but most are just good satisfying SF.

Review by: Richard Schneider, Catonsville, MD USA
Rating:

Revisiting the First Chapter
This is a reissue of the first short-story incursion into this world by Larry Niven, complete with a retrospective introduction, in which Larry reflects on how much his "universe" has grown in detail and characterization since that story first saw the light of day. Still thoroughly enjoyable, with believable characters on both sides of the species divide. Coupled with the original Niven story are two more stories, contrubutions to the genre by Poul Anderson and Dean Ing, two master craftsmen of the Sci-Fi art. A thoroughly enjoyable trip to alternate reality.

Review by: Lord Douglias, Chicago
Rating:

Sexual tension between different species.
A collection of short stories by three authors, the first by Larry Niven, creator of the series, is very short, written early in his Known Space chronicles. Although this story is not a great example, Niven has a special knack for SciFi, if you have not yet read him. In a genre of fiction over-crowed with tripe, Niven's writing has a sly wit and a subtle edge, evoking a strange but very plausible future for mankind among the stars. The second and longest story by Poul Anderson is somewhat tedious. Poul's emphasis on putting the "Science" back in Science Fiction is impressive but a bit heavy-handed in this context. The third novelette is great fun and the best of the three. The author Dean Ing writes enough like Niven that you hardly notice the difference, but I do have a couple quibbles. One is that he sort of plagiarizes Niven's "Ringworld". I will give you a brief synopsis, trying not to be a spoiler: Locklear, a human scientist is captured by Kzanti, the cat-like aliens who walk on two feet towering eight foot tall. He figures out a clever way to get himself dropped off on an unknown planet. It turns out to be terra-formed with patches of small scale models of actual homeworlds in Known Space, Earth and the Kzinhome among them (a rip-off of Ringworld). So Locklear becomes a Robinson Crusoe type castaway. Eventually he stumbles across a number of creatures in stasis; one who he releases, with some trepidation, being a Kzin female. To his surprise she is not a mindless breeder. She speaks an arcane dialect of Kzin and in fact she is a Kzin rebel feminist from an era 40, 000 years earlier before Kzin breed their females to be non-sentient. I quibble with the 40.000 years, because could we speak English to 40,000 year old human? Anyway, those sexist Kzin warriors are in for a big surprise! The most interesting and strangest part of the story is the sexual tension between male and female of different species.

Review by: Raider
Rating:

Painful
I entitled this review as "painful" for a reason, that's exactly what this book is to read. It's hard to say which is worse of the book if it is more poorly written than it is boring, but in either case it is a bad thing for the reader. Much of the book consists of the characters prattling on with meaningless conversations as the authors try to establish the universe, culture and politics of the Humans who live in it. Unfortunately, this prattle rarely goes anywhere and has so little coherence at times that you don't know what they are trying to get at. They attempt to use a bunch of different nicknames for people from a certain locations, but they never explain them well so you are still left wondering what the difference between the people are. The fact they all talk and act the same doesn't help differentiate them either. Speaking of culture, the Kzin culture is pretty lame. Their violent and proud warrior ideals set them apart the most from humans, but its not enough, and it isn't anything we haven't seen a hundred times over in scifi already. There is nothing special about this race at all, they're a watered down Kilrathi from the Wing Commander saga. The writing is also weak. Short sentences, trying to explain every little detail, and description after description that lasts so long you forget what the first things described were. They leave nothing to the imagination of the reader yet don't even paint a good picture while they're at it. The characters are mundane. Nothing really sticks out about them and they all talk the same. If it weren't for the writers saying who spoke you would have no idea there is so little difference in the dialogue from character to character. You constantly roll your eyes and ask yourself "where is this going?" only to find it leads nowhere in particular. Everything seems mashed together, transition during conversations and paragraphs is terrible. And the ironic part of the book? Despite being billed about a war, there is very little of it in the book. They tell you about the incident that started the war then jump forward an unknown many decades after the war ended, giving some scraps here and there. If you bill a book about war, at least have the material related to the war, much of which this book did not do. Even at $3.99 I cannot suggest this book. I had to constantly force myself to read it and after fifty pages it started to become a chore. I know this review sounds very biased and hate filled, but it is just that I honestly have nothing positive to say about it. I don't like bashing a work, but this book was just bad. Avoid this novel; it is worth neither your time nor money.