Playgrounds of the Mind

First edition (publ. Tor Books)
Cover artist Dave Archer

Playgrounds of the Mind is a collection of short stories by Larry Niven, published in 1991. It is the sequel to N-Space.

Many of the stories are set in Niven's Known Space universe. There are also excerpts from his The Magic Goes Away novel series, as well as several stories from his The Draco Tavern setting (an alien bar) and other sources.

Contents

1. Thraxisp: A Memoir
2. A Teardrop Falls
3. From INFERNO (with Jerry Pournelle)
4. From A World Out of Time
5. Rammer
6. From "The Ethics of Madness"
7. Becalmed in Hell
8. Wait It Out
9. A Relic of the Empire
10. From Lucifer's Hammer (with Jerry Pournelle)
11. The Soft Weapon
12. The Borderland of Sol
13. From The Ringworld Engineers
14. What Good Is a Glass Dagger?
15. From The Magic Goes Away
16. The Defenseless Dead
17. From "The Patchwork Girl"
18. Leviathan!
19. From Oath of Fealty (with Jerry Pournelle)
20. Unfinished Story
21. Cautionary Tales
22. The Dreadful White Page
23. From Dream Park (with Steven Barnes)
24. Retrospective
25. The Green Marauder
26. Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!
27. War Movie
28. Limits
29. The Lost Ideas
30. Bigger Than Worlds
31. Ghetto? But I Thought...
32. Adrienne and Irish Coffee
33. One Night at the Draco Tavern
34. TrantorCon Report
35. Why Men Fight Wars, and What You Can Do About It!
36. Comics
37. From Green Lantern Bible
38. Criticism
39. From The Legacy of Heorot (with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes)
40. The Portrait of Daryanree the King
41. The Wishing Game
42. The Lion In His Attic
43. From Footfall (with Jerry Pournelle)
44. Works in Progress
45. From The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye
46. From Fallen Angels
47. Wanted Fan
48. [from] The California Voodoo Game
49. Letter

Notes

• A Teardrop Falls is set in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe.
• The Soft Weapon was adapted into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series called "The Slaver Weapon".
• TrantorCon Report is a humorous article about planning a science fiction convention 20,000 years from now on the planet Trantor (from Isaac Asimov's Empire series), with guests from every fictional universe. Tickets must be reserved in advance.
• The Portrait of Daryanree the King is loosely based on The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.