High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Kzinti are a fictional, very warlike and bloodthirsty race of cat-like aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space series. The kzin were initially introduced in Niven's story "The Warriors" and "The Soft Weapon," (1967), both collected in Neutron Star (1968). A Kzin character, Speaker-to-Animals, subsequently played a major role in Niven's Hugo and Nebula award-winning Ringworld (1970), giving considerably more background of the Kzinti and their interactions with human civilizations. Following this, Niven gave permission to several friends to write stories taking place in the time following were collected in a number of volumes of The Man-Kzin Wars, which eventually reached twelve volumes, the first published June 1988.