The Desert Mermaid

God DAMMIT, Larry Niven.

So I’m really barreling along on this Doctors! story, which explores among other things my genius idea about a species of fragile little critters for whom cowardice is a survival tactic, and bravery is considered a form of insanity, and whose only contact with the Galactic Union is through these Insane Ones (who are still remarkable wimps, but not as much as the Sane Ones) who are willing to space travel and more importantly to break their routine—

And then I go and read Ringworld and find out that Larry Niven already bloody did that.

Right down to the whole “No other species has ever met a sane member of this species.” God dammit.

Granted, the story is different—no exploding galaxy in mine, for one thing, and for another, his “insane” aliens—the brave ones—actually do have traits humans would consider mentally unstable, like bipolarity and schizophrenia. My idea was to mess with the definition of insanity on a broad level—sanity for the qazhus was supposed to be something along the lines of what we’d find unhealthy, like separation anxiety, obsessive-compulsive personality and even outright OCD, agoraphobia, hypochondria, paranoia—all the things that in our world seem counterproductive are the very things that keep them from getting eaten.

Also, the plot is much different.

But still.

DAMN YOU, LARRY NIVEN.