The House of the Kzinti

I think it's great. The adventures on the Zoo planet is the best of the Man-Kzin Wars. If you read nothing else, read that. I wish for more of it. I read the Ing stories and then read all the rest, hoping for more and every other author came short of his level, in my humble opinion. Although "The Man Who Would Be Kzin" was pretty decent. But one would expect no less from Greg Bear, for certain. I almost gave up after getting bogged down in the awful Poul Anderson story, "Iron", and only by dumb luck did I happen to give the series as a whole another shot and skip ahead to 'Cathouse' (and am I ever glad I DID). But I don't agree with the people who disliked the cover. I can't find anything in it that contradicts the descriptions of the Kzinti in the text except that the kzintosh tail is supposed to be hairless (they're RATcats after all), while the Ing story indicated the Kzinrett's tails are bushier. The Tosh's on the cover looks like a lion tale. And of course the Rett's is supposed to be bushy. What I THINK is that it didn't match with the image you people created of them in your minds when you read it, and that's your major complaint. What I REALLY find fault with, however, are the covers of the Man-Kzin wars 4 and 7. Notice anything funny about them? Count the number of fingers on the kzin on the covers. Notice anything now? They're supposed to have 4 on each hand, not 5. Unless they are rare polydactlys or something. More likely it's just a bad artist who's been trained to draw people and can't break the habit. Or who didn't read the book. At least this cover has the ears right. They're always described as 'batwing' or 'umbrella'-like ears. Most of the others have them look pretty much like Bengel Tigers with more like earthborn feline ears, but that walk on hind legs and have hands, which I think is wrong. THESE kzin look nothing like any species native to earth, and at least that's the way I think it should be.

It's unclear why this book has a different ISBN from that of the same name which was issued in 2002. But anyway... Both books are a rebundling of 3 short stories that were from the Man-Kzin series pioneered by Larry Niven. The stories originally came out around 1990-92.Of these, perhaps my favourite is the Children's novella, by Pournelle and Stirling. From the entire 10 volume Man-Kzin series, this seems the most ingenious and intricate of the plots. Has a nice combination of battle scenes and social jostling and computer hacking. Given that 2 authors wrote this, it is amusing to speculate as to who wrote which passages. The battle scenes could equally well have been done by either; they are both known as military-SF authors. The hacking may have been done by Pournelle; as per his real life experience writing computer columns.

This is an exciting and imaginative story - the inventiveness and sense of wonder which good SF should have, with touches of irony and humor. Exciting and realistic battles. The Kzinti are not all bad - paving the way, perhaps, for the human-kzin interfaces of Man-Kzin IX and X. The idea of the "Zoo" planet is full of possibilities. But the thing on the cover is not a Kzintosh! The artist should be drafted as a wiper on a Kzin battle-cruiser with a zzrou in his back until he learns better. The female Kzinrett is OK, I guess. Nice legs, anyway.

This book contains two novels originally published (in two parts each) in the "Man-Kzin Wars" series, which by now has run into 9 books. I consider these two among the best of the series' offerings, describing psychology and family life of kzinti in great detail. The reason I am giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is the cover. It is obvious that the artist never read the book - the two aliens are not kzinti, they are oversized humans in tiger masks! Kzinti anatomy and proportions are quite different from those of humans, and sufficiently described in the book.