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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-10-05 06:56 pm (UTC)"Brenda" is the story of a solitary Sauron Master-class survivor of the fall of the Saurons. It's not very good. You recently posted on FB a quote about how many male writers have trouble writing convincing female characters. I'd say this is an excellent example, except that one never read Niven for the characters anyway. As with a lot of later Niven, there's a strong Heinlein influence here -- Brenda is basically Friday without the hangups.
"The Tale of the Jinni and the Sisters" is Niven and someone else writing an epilogue and backstory to the Thousand and One Nights in an attempt to make that work's bloody first chapter make more sense. I remember thinking that this was a worthwhile thing to try, and that Niven and whoever almost pulled it off but failed.
"Madness Has Its Place" is an extended riff on the idea that certain types of insanity -- in this case, paranoia -- existed for a reason; in intergroup conflicts, the one with a paranoid or two around has an edge. The explication of this is not very convincing IMO. Of interest to Niven completists as the story that launched the Man-Kzin Wars anthologies.
Doug M.