A Time of War - Toni Weisskopf

The theatre of the mind can conjure anything you like within the shared imagination-space of writer and reader. In science fiction, those are likely to be big imaginations. Science Fiction, more than any other literary genre, is about the exploration of ideas. Within science fiction there are few ideas that have taken hold more tenaciously in the readers' minds than Larry Niven's kzinti, the catlike warrior aliens who come within a whisker of conquering all of his Known Space universe. As a result the Man-Kzin Wars is one of the most successful, and certainly among the longest running literary science fiction series in history.

Starting in 1966 with Niven's short story The Warriors, the kzinti have evolved into a fully realized alien species with a recognizably distinct culture and way of being. They are arguably the best defined alien species in science fiction history. Partly this success is due to the rich background that Niven's Known Space provides for stories set within it, partly it is Larry's stringent editing of the Man-Kzin Wars series, which ensures that only the best stories make it into the anthologies. In the process, he has showcased both household names like Poul Anderson and Dean Ing and developed writers new to the genre. Paul Chafe started his career as a writer with this second group with his first published story, Prisoner of War in Man-Kzin Wars VII. With the full length novel Destiny's Forge, I hope you will agree he has shown he is well on his way to joining the first.
And the Man-Kzin Wars? We have it from Niven himself that as long as there are humans and kzinti, they will continue....

Toni Weisskopf
Athens, GA