Recent reads

Convergent Series, by Larry Niven. A collection of short stories including selections from Niven's earlier collection The Shape of Space. Several of the later ones not included in that collection seem to be linked to a fictional futuristic bar called the Draco Tavern in which humans and aliens meet, sometimes amicably, sometimes not so much so.

I looked into this collection because B./ Yam recently referred to the story "One Face". Although Niven is considered to be the godfather of hard SF, many of the stories are fantastical or satirical in nature. The title story, for example, describes the dilemma of a modern-day amateur warlock who summons a demon as part of an experiment, and then must find some safe and logical way to un-summon it without being carried off to the nether realms. Some, like the short little anti-crime revenge-fantasy "The Deadlier Weapon", are set in the unadorned modern world with no SFnal trappings whatsoever.

On the whole, a fair selection of light reading.

I couldn't help but notice that Niven re-used distinctive terms and concepts. Why the repeated references to people dying of ruptured pancreases, for example?