Just Finished Reading: Choosing Names – Man-Kzin Wars VIII created by Larry Niven.

This was basically a collection of 5 short to medium stories around the common theme of the Man-Kzin Wars. Taking place in Niven’s ‘Known Space’ they cover the earliest encounters between the peaceful (after all this is SF) Humans and the warlike Kzin. Now the Kzin are one of my favourite alien species from SF. They’re basically evolved tigers who learnt to walk upright and became the dominant species on their homeworld. Unfortunately for the rest of the galaxy a species known as the Jotok trained them as mercenaries before realising their mistake when the Kzin turned their guns on their erstwhile masters. The rest as they say is future history.

Despite being the eighth book in the series (I understand that there are four more – so far) it wasn’t half bad. Nothing really exceptional but entertaining enough. I did actually find it a bit bloodier than usual but maybe I’m just getting sensitive with age? Anyway, it was a fine addition to the (many) books based in Known Space and kept me turning pages – which when it boils down to it is what counts. Strangely though its probably the only book in the series without a cover available on Google images so no cover art this time. The stories were by Niven himself, Hal Colebatch, Jean Lamb, Paul Chafe and Warren W James. Unusually for any collection there’s not a duff one that needed skimming over. Basically for fans of the Kzin and Combat SF.