{"id":1573,"date":"2020-04-30T22:39:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T03:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1573"},"modified":"2020-04-30T22:39:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T03:39:00","slug":"happy-birthday-larry-niven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/happy-birthday-larry-niven\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Larry Niven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Larry-Niven.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1574 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Larry-Niven-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Larry-Niven-214x300.jpg 214w, http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Larry-Niven.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/a>Larry Niven was born on this date, April 30, in 1938.\u00a0 I&#8217;m doing it again, breaking my pattern of focusing on dead writers to do a birthday post on one who is still alive.<\/p>\n<p>Niven has written some of the milestones of the field, particularly <em>Ringworld<\/em>. Today I want to take a quick look at a short story that takes place early in the Known Space series, a future history of which <em>Ringworld<\/em> is a part.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things Niven focused on in his early writings was organlegging, the illegal harvesting and transplanting of human organs. In Niven&#8217;s future, the death penalty is expanded to encompass all manner of trivial crimes, in the interest of saving a life.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/overruled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1575 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/overruled-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/overruled-198x300.jpg 198w, http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/overruled.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;The Jigsaw Man&#8221; concerns a man who has been arrested and knows\u00a0 he&#8217;s going to get the death penalty.\u00a0 We aren&#8217;t told until the end of the story what his crime is, just that it isn&#8217;t deserving of death. In the next cell is an organ legger who\u00a0 has had a bomb planted in his femur. When he detonates it, the main character manages to escape.\u00a0 At least for a while.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Jigsaw Man&#8221; is a tight little story that makes for an entertaining read. It&#8217;s currently available in <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Overruled-Hank-Davis\/dp\/1982124504\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1588304089&amp;sr=1-1\"><em>Overruled!<\/em><\/a>, edited by Hank Davis and Christopher Ruocchio.\u00a0 These guys put together some great anthologies, so pick this one up.<\/p>\n<p>And Happy Birthday, Mr. Niven!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Larry Niven was born on this date, April 30, in 1938.\u00a0 I&#8217;m doing it again, breaking my pattern of focusing on dead writers to do a birthday post on one who is still alive. Niven has written some of the milestones of the field, particularly Ringworld. Today I want to take a quick look at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[296,703],"tags":[775,785],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthday","category-larry-niven","tag-birthday","tag-larry-niven"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-pn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}