Synopsis

The starship, Hogan’s Goat, comes out of it’s ftl drive around a moving rock that damages both the drive and the computer. Then the crew finds out that it brought them out to normal space billions of years in the future.

History

First publication: Galaxy, June 1965

While this story seems to be a Known Space story, including references to Jinx and We Made It, an officer of ARM, and even Pierson’s Puppeteers, Niven says this is outside the series, a formative work when he was getting his ideas for Known Space together.

Review

A very good story. Reminiscent of Golden Age SF by the likes of Hal Clement. Niven’s writing is fairly simple with just enough characterization but not deep. The story is focused on the problem and the idea of how to solve it, just like older thought-variant stories. Strange it wasn’t sold to Campbell. If you like clasic science fiction of the Golden Age variety and like science in your SF, then this story is for you. Classic Niven also. I have always loved his far-flung ideas.