"Niven, Larry - Limits (SS Coll)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

But my patience is legendary-read: half imaginary-and I don't write stories to be read only by an editor. "Flare Time" must be ten years old by now. I managed to get Harlan's reluctant permission to publish
"Flare Time" in a British anthology, Andromeda, and, some years later, in Amazing Stories. I took the right to publish it here.


I like bars. Gavagan's Bar, Jorkens and the Billiards Club, the White Hart, Callahan's Saloon: I like the ambience, the decor, the funny chemicals. I wanted one for my own.

I wanted a vehicle for dealing with philosophical questions.

I wanted to write vignettes. How else would I find time to write anything but novels?

I found it all in the Draco Tavern. The chirpsithra In particular claim to own the galaxy (though they only use tidally locked worlds of red dwarf stars) and to have been civilized for billions of years. It may be so. If confronted with any easily described, sufficiently universal philosophical question, the chirps may certainly claim to have solved it. Best yet, the Draco Tavern reminds me of those wonderful multispecies gatherings on the old Galaxy covers.~


On the subject of limits:

We are the creators. A writer accepts what limits he chooses, and no others. Often enough, it's the limits that make the story.

And we know it. In historical fiction the author may torture probability and even move dates around if it moves his main character into the most interesting event-points; but he would prefer not to, because events form the limits he has chosen. In fantasy he makes the rules, and is bound only by internal consistency. In science fiction he accepts limits set by the universe; and these are the most stringent of all; but only if he so chooses.

One penalty for so choosing is this: the readers may catch him in mistakes. I've been caught repeatedly. It's part of the game, and I'm willing to risk it.

I've also been known to give up a law or two for the sake of a story. I've broken the lightspeed barrier to move my characters about. I gave up conservation of rotation for a series of tales on teleportation.

You'll find fantasy here too; but observe how the stories are shaped by
the limits I've set. Most of my stories have puzzles in them, and puzzles require rules. I seem to be happiest with science fiction, "the literature of the possible," where an army of scientists is busily defining my rules for me.


Other tales in the Draco Tavern series may be found in my Convergent Series, published by Del Rey Books in 1979.

What have we here?

Long stories, short stories, very short stories, new and old. Collaborations. Science fiction and fantasy and economic theory.

Have fun.


THE LION IN HIS ATIIC

Before the quake it had been called Castle Minterl; but few outside Minterl remembered that. Small events drown in large ones. Atlantis itself, an entire continent, had drowned in the tectonic event that sank this small
peninsula.

For seventy years the seat of government had been at Beesh, and that place was called Castle Minter!. Outsiders called this drowned place Nihilil's Castle, for its last lord, if they remembered at all. Three and a fraction stories of what had been the south tower still stood above the waves. They bore a third name now: Rordray's Attic.

The sea was choppy today. Durily squinted against bright sunlight glinting off waves. Nothing of Nihilil's Castle showed beneath the froth.

The lovely golden-haired woman ceased peering over the side of the boat. She lifted her eyes to watch the south tower come toward them. She murmured into Karskon's ear, "And that's all that's left."

Thone was out of earshot, busy lowering the sails; but he might glance back. The boy was not likely to have seen a lovelier woman in his life; and as far as Thone was concerned, his passengers were seeing this place for the first time. Karskon turned to look at Durily, and was relieved. She looked interested, eager, even charmed.

But she sounded shaken. "It's all gone! Tapestries and banquet hail and bedrooms and the big ballroom . . . the gardens . . all down there with the fishes, and not even merpeople to enjoy them . . . that little knob of rock must have been Crown Hill . . . Oh, Karskon, I wish you could have seen it." She shuddered, though her face still wore the mask of eager interest. "Maybe the riding-birds survived. Nihilil kept them on the roof."