Around this time, Niven had begun to conceive an overarching shared world, similar to what Robert Heinlein and Poul Anderson had done before him, a sort of “labor saving move” for future stories. Another Galaxy story, “One Face,” appeared a couple of months later in June. The story would earn Niven his first Nebula nomination in 1966. His next story, “World of Ptavvs,” appeared in the March 1965 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, and was followed a month later by “Wrong-Way Street,” a time travel story, in Galaxy. Under Pohl, Niven’s career was off to a bright start, and throughout the 1960s he wrote at a furious pace. Campbell’s Astounding/ Analog magazines, given his harder science edge, influences from Astounding veterans, and plot-driven stories, but Campbell’s 3-month turnaround times discouraged him from submitting. In earlier years, Niven’s fiction might have appeared in John W.

Niven joined Pohl’s publications and became a prominent author for Pohl’s magazines over the coming years, bringing his own particular brand of harder science fiction to the pages. Between the two magazines, he used If as a springboard for other new authors joining the field, often reserving space for authors making their first sale. If Magazine had fallen under Pohl’s editorial skills at the same time he helmed Galaxy Science Fiction, taking the reins from H.L. Niven noted that his story was obsolete before it hit the market. Shortly before If published the story, scientists discovered that the planet closest to the sun did in fact rotate, shattering the assumption that the far side of Mercury was the coldest place in the solar system. In it, a pair of explorers set out to the planet Mercury to search for life. His first published short story, “The Coldest Place,” appeared in Frederic Pohl’s If Magazine in December 1964. He dropped out of college in California in February, 1958, and worked odd jobs before enrolling at Washburn University in Kansas, where he graduated with a degree in Mathematics.įollowing college, Niven turned to writing, supporting himself on a trust fund left to him by his family’s wealth. Frank Baum’s Oz stories and Robert Heinlein’s Juvenile novels, but it wasn’t until he discovered a bookstore packed with science-fiction novels and magazines in 1957 while he attended the California Institute of Technology that he fell in love with the genre, becoming enamored of authors such as Jack Vance, Arthur C. Throughout his early years, Niven picked up science-fiction stories, such as L. Niven spent much of his childhood in Beverly Hills, where he attended the Hawthorne Public School and later the Cate School in Carpinteria, California. Doheny, known for his part in the Teapot Dome scandal during the early part of the 1900s. He was a great-grandson of oil tycoon Edward L. Laurence van Cott Niven was born to Waldemar van Cott Niven and Lucy Estelle Dohenyborn on April 30 th, 1938, in Los Angles, California.

Larry nivens ringworld