More like The Alien Explorer's Love

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Known SpaceUniverse
universe142 books1964
Set in space.
“Give a clever species a few centuries and a working fusion drive, and it will fill the sky with problems.”
from the catalogue
Start with Ringworld →
includes Ringworld, Fleet of Worlds, Man-Kzin Wars
Starman JonesNovel
Robert A. Heinleinstandalone novel1953
Space opera, about coming of age, set in space.
“Starman Jones, a 1953 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, features a farm boy who wants to go to the stars.”
from the catalogue
HeecheeSeries
series19 books1972
completed
Space opera, set in space.
“The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously disappeared.”
from the catalogue
Start with Gateway →
Humanx CommonwealthUniverse
universe39 books1972
Set in space.
“Two species that ought, by every buried instinct, to recoil from one another instead clasp hand to truhand and build a galaxy together.”
from the catalogue
Start with For Love of Mother-Not →
includes Pip & Flinx, Icerigger Trilogy, The Founding of the Commonwealth
UpliftUniverse
universe13 books1980
Space opera, about uplift, set in space.
“No species, the Galactics insist, ever climbs to sapience alone.”
from the catalogue
Start with Sundiver →
includes Uplift, Uplift Storm
CoDominiumUniverse
universe98 books1971
Military science fiction.
“The body of work runs along a few hard threads rather than one line.”
from the catalogue
Start with The Mote in God's Eye →
includes Moties, Falkenberg's Legion, War World, Laurie Jo Hansen