I've had problems with Niven — his scope is grand and majestic, but I've often found his narrative a little bit clunky and paint by numbers, if that makes any sense?
I've jotted down your other suggestions for further reading, thanks!
Niven's short story characters always seemed to be celibate men with no friends who owned a spaceship for some reason, vs. a high school physics problem. (see Neutron Star)
Did have a pretty good run around Ringworld or Integral Trees, which could be good with rewrites, though I think he went on to become such an "I'm so smart" skeptic type he turned into a global warming denialist?
It would be difficult to do Wolfe justice in a film? Maybe something self-contained like Pirate Freedom or The Fifth Head of Cerberus, but everything in the "Solar Cycle" has such bizarre complications and connections to everything else that a movie couldn't avoid making many cruel cuts.
I've jotted down your other suggestions for further reading, thanks!