A World Out of Time
- 243
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“A World Out of Time” is a bold, idea-driven piece of 1970s hard science fiction from Larry Niven. Built from a magazine serial and an earlier short story, it stands apart from his Known Space books. Some readers feel its parts read like separate stories around a weaker middle, while others find it has aged. Its sweeping speculation remains the main draw for Niven’s readers.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A World Out of Time is a science fiction novel by Larry Niven published in 1976. It is set outside the Known Space universe of many of Niven's stories, but is otherwise fairly representative of his 1970s hard science fiction novels. The main part of the novel was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine as The Children of the State; another part was originally published as the short story "Rammer". A World Out of Time placed fifth in the annual Locus Poll in 1977.
Reading order · The State
Full order & progress →- A World Out of TimeThis book
7.67.6 / 10 - The Integral Trees
7.67.6 / 10 - The Smoke Ring
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.2 across 51 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 26% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.7 | 12 | 24% |
| Hardcover | 7.0 | 39 | 77% |
Frequently asked
How long is A World Out of Time?
It has 243 pages — shorter than 87% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.6, the closest to this book.
