Ringworld

Great read that holds up well. Ringworld is a classic of science fiction and some of it is a bit dated as it was written in 1970, it is still a tale well told of traveling to and exploring a hypothetical structure around a star.

I did not choose to read this book; a client is reading it, and I need to keep pace. I figured it won a Hugo so how bad could it be? I would never have guessed. Other posts have really said it all: the characters are cardboard and so is the dialogue. Often I could not tell (even after re-reading) who was speaking, but - honestly - it did not make the slightest difference. As for the plot - there was none. A "puppeteer" - a creature with two heads not seen by human in many years - chooses two humans and a semi-savage cat-like creature (by far the most interesting character, partly because of its schizoid presentation - sometimes chasing rabbits to guzzle them down leaving blood all over its face, sometimes perfectly reasonable.) The two humans are a 200 year old man of uncertain occupation and a 20 year old very beautiful (of course) girl. Their goal - to reach the Ringworld - an artificial star-circling construction millions of miles in diameter which the puppeteers have stumbled upon. They want more knowledge of it because it stands in the track of their inter-galactic migration to escape the effects of a sort of smaller Big Bang which will come their way (and Earth's) in 20,000 years. However, by nature puppeteers are extremely fearful, even though they have been completely manipulating both the human and kzin (cat-like) races for centuries. So to deal with this extremely important matter they rely on one of their species whom they regard as on the edge of madness, two humans - one bored out of his skull (Louis) and the other with the depth of a pot-hole (Teela - she has been chosen because she is "lucky" (no -really) butshe only comes along because she is in love with Louis although they have about as much in common as Queen Elizabeth and I) - and Speaker (the cat-like creature) who would half the time be ready to tear the throats out of his companions. (And I don't blame him; if I had to live with such boring creatures who do little but prattle about things that they understand (if at all) badly, I'd want to off them, too.) Anyway, they zoom off in a super spaceship that will be the reward provided by the puppeteer if the mission is successful (though at what is never quite clear.) At about page 250 or so, it occurs to Louis that their is a reason that the puppeteers are thus named - they are master manipulators. This was a question I asked myself on page 3, as would any normal person. Anyway, after a long and boring voyage, they more or less crash into Ringworld, and they have to find someone or something to help them get their ship moving again. (Heard this plot before?) So they travel hundreds of thousands of miles in little ships, at one point idiotically deciding to go straight through the most gigantic possible storm rather than going around it. They discover the inhabitants of Ringworld are humans - rather unlikely as they evolved thousands of light years from earth. They have regressed from being highly civilized and technologically advanced because (our foursome theorizes)some self-generating space neo-bacteria (which does not trouble the voyagers) made them sick, and their flying cities (no kidding - right out of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe) faw down and go boom, destroying the cities below them. Some of the civilized people who were away return much later, but all but one of them either become idiots (no kidding) or more or less die of boredom. The one who remains - a sort of cosmic super-whore (no kidding) named Prill - lives in a flying city/police station that was luckily self powered, pretends to be a god to the natives who provide her with food. The ships of our intrepid four out of all the millions of square miles available manage to fly into the police station's equivalent of a drunk drivers holding tank - their ships immobilized within an enormous space. Thus, they have accidentally found (presumably) the only civilized being left, Prill, who eventually allows the three of them (Teela has disappeared though her ship is still there, most likely dead - but we know better) into her city, just before they die of hunger and thirst. (Louis's main complaint since the crash of their ship is that he can't get any coffee. Deep, man.) Anyway, they continue to blather and prattle about how to get their ship going again. Louis figures out a way, though he does not explain it to anyone. It involves getting some wire that had been used by the civilized ringworlders to hold in place vast black plates far, far above the ringworld to provide day and night - a good thing since killer sunflowers that function like gigantic ray-guns (I do not joke) have evolved and overrun millions of square miles over which the four must fly, but only at night when the sunflowers don't see them. The wire was broken when the spaceship had flown into it, millions of miles of wire falling to the ground. So, to ground our party must go. Teela shows up with one of the uncivilized ringworlders, a muscle-bound hero with a large sword (get it?) He is called Seeker because he is on a quest to reach the giant arc - a kind of visual illusion. Teela who now loves Seeker, despite the fact that he is somewhat of a moron, does not disenchant him. She no longer has any feelings for Louis. Snap, just like that. Anyway, getting the wire involves a battle with the local groundling natives who attack them en masse because - because they do. The puppeteer loses one of his heads, but Teela makes a tourniquet and he is brought back to the flying police station, where his medical kit automatically takes over and keeps him alive until he can get back to the ship where he has a supply of other heads. (Cool. I liked the same idea in one of the OZ books I read when I was eight.) Teela and Seeker elect to return to the ground and stay on Ringworld - the author implies heavily that they will regenerate the civilization. Anyway, after a longish and tedious journey, they find the crashed ship. Louis uses the flying police station, one of the small individual ships held by it and the wire to drag their spaceship up to the top of an enormous, thousands of miles high mountain called the Fist of God (for no particular reason.) Louis has correctly surmised that it is a kind of vent into space, too high for the Ringworld to lose its atmosphere, and our heroes tumble out into space pulling the ship to which they will return with them. Anyway, the story just stops. Puppeteer will apparently go home and be allowed to mate with his leader, Prill and Louis have "the start of a beautiful friendship" and Speaker realizes that he does not want to bring his civilization either the truth about the puppeteer manipulation of their evolution or the plans for the supership because it will just cause his kind to become enraged and attack the puppeteers and be destroyed. What the puppeteers will do is unclear because the material out of which Ringworld is made is impervious to the radiations that are on the way. Humans will use the new supership to develop a mass migration to another part of space or they won't. Speaker will have to do some fast talking one would guess. Nothing is resolved. Anyway, many of the other reviews have spoken of the author's bad writing getting in the way of his interesting ideas. As far as I'm concerned, the ideas are even lamer than the writing. What I have not told you is that (I swear) it is Teela's "luck" that controls all that happens. You see, for five generations her ancestors have won the Earth lottery that allows people to have extra children. Thus, (I hate to tell you) she is genetically lucky, luck said to be a kind of power than an individual has or does not have. This makes about as much sense mathematically or in common sense as George Bush's foreign policy, well maybe a little bit more. The book is filled with "Big Ideas" that are "beyond"/in contradiction to anything we now know about physics, math, psychology or most anything else. It is filled with what Woody Allen once called "heaviosity." Anyway, most of science fiction has always been about a certain kind of wish fulfillment for power. Just think: you could have luck and control everything. Most of the good or great science fiction tamps down on this tendency or at least manages to write about it in exciting, vivid ways. Neither is true here. This is the bad stuff, popular but bad. Badly written, ill-conceived and just downright dull. (As Mr. Monk would say, "Of course I could be wrong, but I don't think so.")

I’ve read this book a few times over the years and it is still an awesome read.One of Nivens best

I read this in my teens. The book and some of science hold up. But most of the characters are the product of the time it was written in.

What does a puppeteer, a kzin, and two humans have in common? They are going to Ringworld! You thought I was going to say 'Disney World', didn't you? This is the premise of Larry Niven's epic novel about an artificial ring, one million miles wide, encircling a sun-like star. I haven't read a space exploratory novel this good, since I read Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rendezvous With Rama'. Niven's book was so good it won the 1970 Hugo, 1971 Nebula and Locus Awards; the trifecta of the sci-fi world. To this reader, Mr. Niven's salient point is in his ability to use specialized jargon that the reader easily understands, while still inventing new ingenious technology, such as the quantum II hyperdrive spaceship that speeds along at one light year every one and a quarter minutes! And can Niven describe alien life forms? Damn straight! How about a Garfield the cat look alike ( known as a kzin ) that is eight foot tall and 500 pounds with a nasty disposition? What about a puppeteer that has a tripod body with two heads, more intelligence than man and when frightened rolls himself into a ball? I also think that 'Star Trek' may have preempted the transporter idea from Niven's transfer booth. These are a few of the amazing concepts and characters in this recommended novel.A galactic core's suns explode in far off space, the blast will wipe out Earth and known space in 20,000 years. The frightened puppeteers have already left, heading towards the Lesser Clouds of Magellan looking for a new home. Our protagonist, Louis Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday ( he looks 20 ) party on earth. A large kzin, known as Speaker-to-Animals is there, sexy Teela Brown is there, and who pops out of a transfer booth? Nessus, a insane puppeteer who wants to talk deal with the preceding three party goers. Nessus wants Louis, Speaker, and Teela to join him on an exploratory mission 200 light years away. If they agree to go, their reward will be the quantum hyperdrive ship and the blueprints to make more. The puppeteer will not tell them where they are going until they are on the way. Louis wants to go because he is bored and ready for adventure, Teela wants to go because she is in love with Louis, and the Speaker wants to go because he wants to steal the ship for his people so they will have a spaceship advantage over the humans. The kzin have a long history of losing wars against the humans from Earth, and were anxious to get out of their submissive morbidity.So as they board spaceship Long Shot, Speaker makes a failed attempt to steal the ship, but the puppeteer has a secret weapon called a tasp, which is a device that induces a current in the pleasure center of the brain. Nessus, the two headed tripod says to the Speaker:"You understand that I will use the tasp every time you force me to. I will use it if you attempt to use violence too often, or if you startle me too much; you will soon become dependent upon the tasp; if you kill me, you will still be ignobly bound by the tasp itself." "Very astute," said Speaker. "Brilliantly unorthodox tactics. I will trouble you no more." Nessus, being a puppeteer, was inherently a coward, thus he needed every mental advantage to keep a vicious animal like Speaker from tearing him apart. After that, off they go to meet the puppeteer fleet in the Clouds of Magellan. This is where they find out what their mission is: Explore the mysterious ring to see if it will support life. After getting nebulous mission instructions ( relayed from the Hindmost, leader of the puppeteers ), the four board the Lying Bastard ( a smaller ship ) and head for the baffling ring. This is where Niven's story gets real astrological and unnerving. You know what this means, don't you? Well, I wet your whistle and now you have to grab a copy of this wondrous novel and find out what happens.I like Niven's mix of real science with his science and his use of neologistical words that seem like logical terms. He does a good job explaining Kemplerer rosette: a gravitational system of heavier and lighter bodies orbiting in a regular repeating pattern around a common barycenter. Got it? Starseeds seemed real, but it's not. They are space traveling creatures used by Outsiders to plant life on planets. Flying cycles and floating police stations are purely a figment of Mr. Niven's mind. What's to come on Ringworld is stated by Nessus to Louis:" This place is, is unsafe. Strange storms and badly programmed machinery and sunflower fields and unpredictable natives all threaten our lives." Really? Hang on to your seat belts and enjoy.

a very clever piece of Sci Fi in which members of 3 species including humans have to visit a planetary sized piece of engineering . I enjoyed reading it as a teen for the scope of its imagination however it hasn't really stood the test of time in terms of attitudes the female characters are limited to a 20 year old beauty irresistibly attracted to the 200 year old protagonist and a beautiful space prostitute irresistibly attracted to etc etc . If you cant create 3 dimensional characters for half the human race other than this kind of prurient nonsense then your work just doesn't cut it ….the same criticism also applies to his other classic The mote in Gods eye . If you can make a two headed Alien three dimensional then you really should have the ability to do that for human women. Disappointing and very dated.

Wow, what a book. This is the first piece of fiction I’ve read that has really made me stop and think about the physics – no in a bad way, but in a “wow, he’s really though this through and that’s probably correct – and AMAZING!”So, right off the bat, this is Hard Science Fiction. Be ready for that. It’s going to expand your mind in all the right ways.Louis Wu and some carefully selected companions are sent hurtling across space in a loaned super-advanced spaceship to investigate an astronomical phenomenon by a Puppeteer, part of a race of super-advanced but super-cowardly aliens. The story follows this group of intensely interesting and individual aliens (both of the humans on the crew have something of the alien in them, as we slowly discover), and the results of their exploration.But the book is much more than that. There is betrayal and there are lies. There is violence and loss that comes from the most unexpected directions. Just when you think you know where you are going, you find you are somewhere else.There is something mildly dissatisfying in the narrative arc. Niven is rooted in exploring his imaginary construct as if it were a physical reality, and does this incredibly successfully, but time spend wondering at this, erm, wonder, sometimes makes it feel like the character journey has been left behind.But then the narrative twists and turns, we discover some uncomfortable truths, and the ending is worth the journey – not forgetting how spectacular the journey is all on its own. This book needs to be part of any serious Sci Fi fans reading list.

Ringworld itself is a fantastic set piece but I struggled to connect with any of the characters.The aliens were almost one-dimensional, but perhaps I am judging them too quickly, but they didn't really surprise me at any point. The human characters, though, were just not very interesting. A flighty young woman with no sense of self preservation (okay she is ridiculously lucky, but that doesn't mean she has to be oblivious to danger). The protagonist seemed more like a lens to experience the story through, rather than a character with flaws or drives of his own. Then we meet a character who is literally just there to be a sex object. Nothing more than a bored space prostitute born, bred, and trained to be the perfect "romantic" partner for the protagonist.I think that super-science technology can be handled well in fiction but here it just mitigated all of the challenges the characters might have faced. Their ship was almost invulnerable, their hover bikes made perfect food for them out of mud, alien teleporters replace pavements to the point where you wonder why the aliens build cities at all if they can just teleport wherever they want.I recognist that Ringworld was probably one of the earliest science fiction novels to explore a Big Dumb Object like its namesake but while the Ringworld's mystery drove the plot, I felt that the drama, conflict, and characters let the story down.

The quintessential Niven novel, dated by today's standards, but treat it as nostalgic fun and it works still, on a level. Written I imagine a few years before it was published, as the borderline juvenile narrative is typical of his early efforts in the mid 1960s, put into print after he became a sci-fi "name", as often happens. A better read than much of today's tepid space opera, anyway.

An intriguing story about two humans and their alien companions exploring a world consisting of a constructed “ring” around a star. Who built it? Why? Where are they now? Can three very different species work together to find out?This is part of Larry Niven’s ‘Known Space’ universe, introducing us to such fascinating species as the kzin and the Pierson’s puppeteers. It’s a good read, but it loses one star for its sexist portrayal of women – the female characters are paper-thin and seem to exist solely to orbit around the males.