Larry Niven's short story Neutron Star, published in 1966, is widely considered to be the literary cornerstone of his "Known Space" collection. Starring Beowulf Shaeffer as a ne'er do well ex-pilot of a now-defunct interstellar cruise line, this story shows all the brilliance that Niven demonstrates throughout the next decade and a half. Given the choice between debtor's prison and the "opportunity" to research a neutron star at close range (while simultaneously determining the cause of death of the last poor souls who tried this stunt), the intrepid Beowulf suffers egregiously en route to a satisfying, albeit scientifically flawed, solution to the problem. Niven essentially launched Known Space from this story, which won him a deserved Hugo award, and his greatest works (including Ringworld) stem from it.
