A "hard-science-fiction" writer, Niven insists that time-travel stories are fantasy for the simple reason that time-travel is impossible. His time-travelers mostly journey to alternate time lines without realizing it, rather than to their own pasts. Even stories set in the Age of Atlantis follow a formula which explains the existence of magic and why magic no longer works; they thus tie the fantasy time lines to the science-fiction ones. Fourth, Niven investigates the consequences of technological change in an optimistic vein.
In fact, much of Larry Niven's fiction reveals a love affair with technology. Niven's protechnology heroes take the positive position that the problems raised by technology can be solved and are, in any case, a small price to pay for the benefits of technological advance. His antitechnology characters are certainly not heroes; they range from the small-minded losers who show up in the Dantean hell of Inferno (1976), which Niven wrote with Jerry Pournelle, to the insane cannibals of Lucifer's Hammer (1977), also written with Pournelle. Yet notwithstanding his basically protechnology stance, Niven is not afraid to investigate difficulties in his scientifically advanced fictional societies--such as the ethical dilemma in the Known Space series of filling organ banks, which provide the transplants to extend life, with the organs of traffic violators.
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