The Borderland of Sol, (1975): A Beowulf Shaffer story, and one of the early stories where Niven deals with FTL travel. In Known Space just prior to this story the Outsiders had only recently sold FTL technology to humans. Humans had also encountered Pierson's Puppeteers, who had sold us the indestructible General Products hulls. Shaffer, who raised Carlos Wu's child, Louis, met Carlos when stuck on Jinx waiting for transport back to Earth. Carlos has been sent to figure out why ships are disappearing in hyperspace near Earth. They travel there in a GP hull and are captured by a bad guy who had figured out how to manipulate and use neutronium, which is the material of neutron stars, or less massive stars that have not exploded as they end their life-cycle. This piece uses a lot of scientific concepts and has a lot of technical jargon, I think is one of the best examples of hard SF available.
Copyright © 2008, Gregory Tidwell