I reviewed Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War a while back. This is the sequel. My friend Hal Colebatch, who wrote all the stories of the previous volume, contributes the bulk of Man-Kzin Wars XI too, but the other authors’ stories are also excellent.
The background (these books are set in Larry Niven’s Ringworld universe) is that the warlike Kzin race, large creatures very much like intelligent lions (with a sort of Roman/Samurai ethic) were raging across the universe, subduing one intelligent species after another, until they ran into the apparently helpless humans, who’d lived in peace so long they’d forgotten how to fight. But humans, it turned out, are born killers, and once they got their footing again they stopped the Kzin cold. The stories of this volume, except for some flashbacks, involve the time after the Kzin surrender, when a few humans and Kzin on the planet Wunderland are tentatively learning to cooperate. Members of both species are coming to believe the unthinkable—that their clash was actually good for both sides, teaching them new ideas and new sensibilities. Continue reading Man-Kzin Wars XI, by Hal Colebatch, Matthew Joseph Harrington, and Larry Niven →