Larry Niven himself was somewhat like an imagination burst in the SF field, back in the 1970s. There was all this gloomy, word perfect "new wave" prose mopping

Larry Niven himself was somewhat like an imagination burst in the SF field, back in the 1970s. There was all this gloomy, word perfect "new wave" prose mopping up the critical praise, and there was Niven pitching hard SF idea balls. Flash crowds, tides around neutron stars, Bussard ramjets, organ transplants gone wild, direct brain stimulation as a drug, ring worlds ...