Laurence Van Cott Niven (Larry Niven) was born in Los Angeles on April 30, 1938, to a lawyer, Waldemar Van Cott Niven and Lucy Estelle (nee Doheny) Niven. He was educated near Beverly Hills and attended Cal Tech from 1956-1958. He says he discovered a bookstore full of used science fiction magazines and then flunked out. He finished his degree in mathematics at Washburn University in Topeka in 1962.

After attending graduate school from 19621963 at UCLA, Niven lived off of a trust fund set up by his great-grandfather while he worked at becoming a professional writer, selling his first story "The Coldest Place" to Worlds of If, then one of the leading science fiction magazines. He later revised a science fiction story into his first novel, World of Ptavvs, published in 1966.

Niven married Marilyn Joyce Wisowaty on September 6, 1969. By then, he was already a well-known writer. In...