Kzinti

[Wolf72]

I just picked up Ringworld from my brother and have started reading it ... so far so good.

oh the Kzin make an appearence! ... my previous Kzinti knowledge is knowing about the books (Man/Kzin wars, never read them) and knowing they were a viable faction in SFB (appeared in the ST cartoon as well).

I'm still in the beginning, but I just read something really really interesting (to me at least).

the females are not sentient? huh? ... Can someone tell me more about the Kzin culture (other than kill, conquer, eat)

 

[DanMcS]

I just picked up Ringworld from my brother and have started reading it ... so far so good.

oh the Kzin make an appearence! ... my previous Kzinti knowledge is knowing about the books (Man/Kzin wars, never read them) and knowing they were a viable faction in SFB (appeared in the ST cartoon as well).

I'm still in the beginning, but I just read something really really interesting (to me at least).

the females are not sentient? huh? ... Can someone tell me more about the Kzin culture (other than kill, conquer, eat)

Read all the books first. They have quite a few details about the Kzin, but telling you some of them would spoil stuff that gets revealed as the ringworld story advances.

 

[Wolf72]

Read all the books first. They have quite a few details about the Kzin, but telling you some of them would spoil stuff that gets revealed as the ringworld story advances.

ARGH!!!

*time to use the good 'ol interlibrary loan!*

 

[Squire James]

Let it suffice to say that losing to the humans repeatedly has given some of the Kzinti something of a complex...

 

[Rackhir]

Niven's short stories are where most of the Kzinti information is, "The Soft" Weapon" is a good one from "Neutron Star". There is also one called I think "The Warriors", about the first contact between the Kzin and humanity which at the time had become essentially pacifistic. I think it may be in "Tales of Known Space". Both should be able to be found in the collected short story volumes "N-Space" and "Playgrounds of the Mind".

There is a series "The Man-Kzinti Wars", which has a bunch of short stories and novella, but only one or two are written by Niven's and many of them change significant things. One story that particularly irritated me was where they dug up an old female Kzin and she was sentient. I can accept differing characteristics for the sexes, sexual dimorphisim is pretty common. But you don't breed half your population for non-sentience without genetic engineering and that sort of thing was never the kzin's strong point.