World of Ptavvs is the first novel in Niven's future history, the Known Space series. It is also the first in terms of the series' internal chronology and therefore is a good introduction to the series which includes much of Niven's best work, including Ringworld (1970).

Although each individual work can stand on its own, some background information is useful, especially in the later works like Ringworld and Neutron Star (1966). Several of the stories are built around the discovery of other relics of the Slaver Empire and indeed the exploration of other worlds and contact with aliens is one of the principal plot structures of the series as a whole as Niven works on variations of the themes of World of Ptavvs.