The Ringworld Engineers (Ringworld)

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(by) Anne McCaffey

From back cover Del Ray paperback June 1979: After the first human contact with the Siwannese, that entire race committed mass suicide. So the Terran government made a law -- no further contact would be allowed with sentient creatures anywhere in the galaxy. Therefore Doona could be colonized only if an official survey established that the planet was both habitable and uninhabited. But Spacedep had made a mistake -- Doona was inhabited. Now the colonists choice was limited. Leave Doona and return to the teeming hell of an overpopulated Terra. Or kill the catlike Hrrubans. Or learn, for the first time in history, how to coexist with an alien race...

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A. E. van Vogt

Although thirty light years distant, Mittend was Earth's nearest habitable planet. So the bored young heir, Steven Masters, contrived to join the first manned expedition just for a bit of excitement. When he found himself suddenly back on Earth in another man's body, it was more than he had expected. What then followed was a veritable kaleidoscope of events that was to involve him in multiple personalities, in more expeditions to Mittend, and in the affairs of the entity called Mother for whom Mittend itself was just a means to an end -- and Steven Masters the handy next step in a galactic program.

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Piers Anthony

Arlo is the son of Aton, conqueror and victim of a dreaded Minionette. Arlo has known no world but the cavern-world. When war comes to the caverns he is a confused spectator. Men, women, and other creatures bearing exotic weapons invade. The women fascinate Arlo—they seem disturbingly familiar to him. Well they might. For these beautiful, identical, fiery-haired and smokey-eyed savage warriors are minionettes—figures of terror and dread on all civilized worlds. And they are his kin. Arlo's fate is to battle them and the superintelligence of Chthon at once, to work out a destiny shaped by a god more ancient than mankind—the destiny of the galaxy as well as his own.

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Larry Niven

The Patchwork Girl is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven. Part of his Known Space series, it is the fourth of five Gil Hamilton detective stories and the first to be published as a stand-alone novel in 1980. It was later included in the Gil Hamilton anthology Flatlander. In a break from his usual ARM duties, Hamilton is an acting U.N. Delegate on the moon, attending a conference on Lunar Law. The Belt Delegate, Chris Penzler, is shot by a laser in an apparent murder attempt. The shot came from outside of the window of his personal quarters, which looks out onto the lunar surface. The only person known to be outside on the lunar surface at the time of the attempt is Naomi Mitchison, a tourist and old flame of Gil's. Gil believes Naomi to be innocent of shooting Penzler, but suspects that she may be lying in order to hide an equally serious crime. The legal process on Luna acts quickly, and Naomi is condemned to be "broken up" for spare parts, a process which involves her being put in a coma and used as a source of organs for transplant. In stories set in this era, the need for spare parts is so great that even minor crimes carry this sentence. Gil uses his ARM authority to investigate, taking advantage of his "phantom arm", his ability to sense things remotely that he gained after losing one arm in an accident when he lived among the Belters. Although the sense is limited by his perception of his arm's reach, he discovers it can be amplified by a 3-D projection of the lunar surface. Feeling around the projection, he is able to detect a clue left out on the surface by the actual criminal. When he finally solves the mystery, Naomi is revived, but with her beauty destroyed by having body parts removed and then replaced. Her real crime is revealed as one that violates the strict population laws of Earth, and she has to leave and live elsewhere in the Solar System.