Customer Reviews

Ringworld (Sf Masterworks)

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(41)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

I picked this book up on a whim while serving with the Air Force in South Korea. Honestly, what attracted my attention was the idea of the ringworld itself. A ring with 6 million times the surface area of the Earth built by beings who have abandoned it just sounded so fantastic, I couldn't resist.

This book was anything but a dissapointment. It moved at a good pace and I hardly had to push through any of the chapters. The breadth of this collosal work of engineering is described with a good sense that leaves the reader in awe.

Having been the first of Niven's book I read, this was my first exposure to the Kzinti race which appear through Niven's "Known Space" works. And here is where my only problem with this work is. Honestly, the idea of gargantuan feline-like aliens just seemed a little cheesey to me. Although Niven works out nice background info for this race, I just thought he could have done better with the appearance.

Despite that, this book has some nice original ideas and even a few brilliant ones. It deserves the Hugo and Nebula badges that grace the cover. Very Highly Recommended.

Sure, this title is considered a classic of science fiction. Sure, it has one of the neatest landscapes of any story. The truth is, however, that this is a so-so book at best, and I LOVE hard science fiction.

In the far past, I had read one of the sequels to this book, but had somehow never read the original. Having finally thought to pick it up, I looked forward to the story, based on the great reputation the book has. Ick. The characters are very, very, very UN-interesting. The story starts out to be a rollicking adventure, but ends in a way that feels as though the author was ready to be finished and move on to other things. It's long, detailed, and interesting for a good portion of the book, then, suddenly, the characters just hop off the planet. No resolution, no wrap up, and it doesn't even leave you wanting any more.

The book is filled with sex...poorly written, rather juvenile sex. Hey, I have enormous respect for smut, but this is sex as it appears to a fifteen year old boy. It is NOT titillating, and it doesn't add squat to the story. It actually has the phrase "She impaled herself..." in it. I mean come on! Did the author have a hard time with imagery?

Read it for the book's value, but don't expect great things. Ringworld is interesting for its strengths, but its weaknesses will leave you gagging.

I first read this book back in the mid-70s when people still thought there'd be colonies on the moon and manned expeditions to Mars by the year 2000 (there, I've dated myself). I remember loving this book at the time. We were all giddy with dreams of star-trekking through the cosmos and of a benign humankind ruling a farflung galactic empire. That all seems so painfully quaint now. The truth is, we'll be lucky to feed ourselves, keep our planet from overheating and preventing a new round of wars of religion, much less ever get off this planet in any meaningful way.

Which brings me to the book. I happened to pick it up used and decided to reread it, after 30 years. The idea of an artificially created Ringworld explored by two humans and two aliens fit in nicely with our late 60s early 70s naivete. Niven does a great job setting up the story, introducing the characters, and injecting secondary story-lines that hold our attention. We wait in anticipation of the landing on the Ringworld. But we have to wait until halfway through the book for this to happen. And then when it does, we find that except for its huge size and amazing engineering, it is hardly an alien world at all. It's like a million earths stretched out on the inside of a spinning hula-hoop. It's more of a fairy tale realm than a functioning ecosystem. The story really flounders after touchdown and Niven gropes for a way out and off.

And then there is Niven's peculiar writing style. It's technically proficient and he does keep things moving by the use of short sentences and short paragraphs, but there are times (too many to count) when something significant happens and he roars through it and you find yourself going back half a page to figure out what just happened. It's good to let the reader fill in blanks -- it makes us feel smart -- but you get the feeling Niven isn't doing it for our benefit, but because he's in a hurry and can't be bothered with small things like internal consistency, real human emotion, or a crisis that actually reveals anything about the characters. And, dare I say it, Niven takes a paternalistic approach to women. Teela Brown is a dated stereotype: young, sexy, a little obtuse, a step behind everyone else, always ready for sex no matter how traumatized, but boy, is she the good luck rabbit's foot!

But, this is Sci-Fi. I know most of us don't read it to be enlightened. We want to be entertained. We'll allow for almost any degree of sloppiness, just like we do with our action movies and TV series. But, in the end, who can argue with success? The Hugo Award. Niven is now a demi-god.

It just goes to show that it isn't about the writing ability, it's about the story. And if the reader makes it through the first 50 pages, you've got him.

Louis Wu is 200 years old and bored of life. Not tired of life--he's definitely not self-destructive, but there's just nothing new in his world. Louis misses the differences between Earth cities, the actual unique cultures that existed before transfer booth technology melted all of Earth society into an oatmeal-bland sameness. Louis is ripe for a big adventure, and Nessus shows up at just the right time to offer him one. Nessus is a Pierson's puppeteer, a very strange alien life form, and he wants Louis to help him on a mysterious exploration mission. There's almost no room on the ship they'll be taking, so Nessus recruits only two other crew members: Speaker-To-Animals, a kzin (basically a warlike, intelligent tiger), and Teela Brown, an earth woman whose only skill is a supernatural amount of luck.

Reading this book reminds me of why I love science fiction. It's full of ideas, some fantastic, and some nearly plausible, and it's just so fun to explore the possibilities of different wild scenarios. My favorite SF stories drop the reader right into the middle of a new world and leave them to figure it out without a lot of exposition. Ringworld is one of these stories, and it's nice to read something that presupposes that you'll find your bearings quickly. I'm not really fond of any of the main characters, but this is a plot novel, not a character novel. It's all about surprises, discoveries and Really Big Stuff, like the Ringworld itself, an inhabitable structure equal to three million times the area of the Earth.

The aliens in this fictional place called the Known Space universe are very interesting. Socially, the Kzin are a bit like Klingons, honor-obsessed warriors who like to eat their meat very, very fresh. The historic Man-Kzin wars sounded so interesting, I hoped the author had written a book about them, and it turns out that he has. Six books, in fact, and innumerable short stories. Not sure if I'm up to reading them, but apparently, his fans adore them. Nessus the Pierson's puppeteer was also an intriguing alien. The puppeteers are very keen on their own safety, and are fleeing from the heat death of the universe, even though it's 20,000 years away. They have a fleet of mobile worlds, but they can't stop their migration to check out the Ringworld anomaly, which is why they need Louis, Nessus, and the others to spy it out.

The big downside to this novel is the attitude towards women. It's okay that Teela's the least experienced and most naïve member of the crew because somebody's got to be the rookie. But Teela's lacking in more than knowledge; she reacts to most events with either childlike delight or total boredom, her expressions throughout the novel are usually described as "puzzled" or "uncomprehending," and I lost track of how many times she giggles. One unintelligent female character does not make a book misogynistic, but when she's the only female representative on the mission and she's less of a crew member and more of a Space Babe conveniently around for the protagonist's benefit, it looks bad. And this whole girls-aren't-capable attitude is not limited to human women: Kzin females are said to be non-sentient, and the puppeteer equivalent of females are also non-sentient. At this point, I start to see a pattern, and I don't like the pattern.

Ringworld is a brilliantly creative book that introduces some really cool ideas. It's definitely earned all the SF awards it's won, but the way female characters are presented makes me reluctant to pick up the rest of the series.

I've been very much looking forward to finally reading Ringworld. I first spotted it some 20 years ago, but never actually got around to reading it. My hopes and expectations where high when I started reading it.

Partly I'm thrilled by the book. It containes some really amazing technical and sociological concepts. I cannot imagine how anybody can think that this book is based on just one concept: the ringworld itself. Sure, that's a magnificent imaginary leap into the unknown (and certainly was in 1970). But next to that there's this other subplot line, that turns out to be the mayor drive of the story: the actions and chances of a person breeded for luck. How that affects others and herself. And the magnitude of the idea that a cowardice alien race out of fear "improves" at least two whole races (two whole planets) genetically to better fit in their own plans. And how this wonderfully backfires on them. But also on the others. And then there are the nice technical gadgets in this book, ways of transportations, methods to immortallity, ways to build houses, cities and starships (yeah, yeah, and worlds). Enough to fancy hardcore SF-readers.

Partly I was disappointed by the book. I felt it's speed dropped considerably when they landed on the ringworld, and the book switched from SF to (almost) fantasy, with it's all to normal quest-structure. It stopped thrilling me then, though I kept with it, still interested. In part the lack of character depth and development was showing more profoundly in this quest. I didn't mind the sexual parts of the book. They are not arrousing (at least not in the 21th century). I see them as just a normal part in SF from this period (end 1960's, begin 70's. See f.i. Logan's run).

I see the critical notes about character depth, sex and the (in 2000) all to often used queste structures as anachronistical. But still, instead of the 5 star feeling I had about the book, before I ever opened it, I must give it 4 stars, reading it in this day and age. It's a classic SF-book. And that shows in both possitive and negative ways.

But read it anyway!! It's still very much alive. And you'll find out afterwards that a lot of present day writers use Nivens ideas as if they where their own. These ideas have been So influentual that they are now incorporated in SF as a genre.

A mysterious (and mad) stranger offers a rich prize to an apparently mismatched crew, if they will undertake a dangerous mission to a strange land - the Ringworld.

Far from a typical adventure yarn, Ringworld is a landmark science fiction story. The worlds and cultures, the future human history, and the technology conceived for this book (and for other related Known Space stories) are a major achievement of imagination. Larry Niven has a gift for making them all fit and work together into a cohesive and enjoyable whole.

The exploration of the Ringworld, a massive artifact of mysterious origins, forms the backdrop for a further exploration of the history and the cultures in Larry Niven's Known Space series.

Ringworld provides insights and intriguing clues about the two principal alien species of the novel, the Kzin and the Puppeteers, and the history of their interactions with the human race. The creation of alien viewpoints and personalities is exceptionally well handled here. Nessus and Speaker-to-Animals are credible characters with unique viewpoints.

I was particularly pleased with the handling of the warrior culture of the Kzin. Speaker-to-Animals is aggressive and proud, but also intelligent, articulate and judicious. Contrast this with the one dimensional, noble but simple minded Klingons of Star Trek NG.

Ringworld has my recommendation. Other Larry Niven books worth reading include Neutron Star and Protector.

I don't recommend Ringworld Engineers, the sequel to this book.

Having just finished reading Ringworld, I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about it. There's one thing that I can say for certain: it's totally different from any other science fiction novel that I've read recently. If I tried to describe the premise of this book, it would sound absurd. However, Ringworld is not an attempt at comedy. At the same time, it isn't really a typical work of hard science fiction. It's set in the far future, and takes place mostly among civilizations run by aliens who possess amazing technology. However, there's not much attempt to explain how the technology works. For instance, we learn that the aliens can move entire planets, but we never find out how they do it.

The story concerns a team of two humans and two aliens who crash-land on a gigantic ring in a distant star system. The ring is millions of times larger than the Earth, and was clearly built by some very advanced society. Most of the novel concerns their exploration of the ring itself. However, very little time is spent on action or fighting scenes. Instead, there is a great deal of description. The creativity that Niven uses in creating the Ringworld is probably the novel's biggest strength.

Another concept that makes this work an original is the explanation of the relationships between humans and different alien species. This isn't a stereotypical us vs them adventure story, but it isn't a feel good, everybody works together scenario like Star Trek either. As I said, the ideas would sound silly if I listed them here, but Niven takes them seriously and works them into the story quite well.

Ringworld is an easy read, and at 350 pages, it's shorter and flows better than many SF novels. Other have complained that the character development is poor, but characters aren't supposed to be the main focus of Ringworld. Finally, let me just add that you don't need to have read any of Niven's previous works to enjoy this one. I'd never even heard of him until I picked this book up.

As I'm a self-proclaimed nerd, so perhaps you can take this whole review with a grain of salt. But personally, I think Ringworld is some of the best SciFi out there.

Many points are raised in the other reviews here, and most of them are good. But I feel that far too many people missed the bigger message of it all. Yes, the 200-year-old main character (world-weary Louis Wu) winds up explaining technical jargon to a 20-year-old bimbo in a situation where characters obviously take a backseat to the great technical underpinnings of the universe... but a scene or two over, he also switches sides with a line something like: "The world's greatest lover was a friend of mine... we're going to need gravity for this."

The point of the novel isn't just to follow the typical drivel of who's starstruck for who or who's the best at splurting out technobabble WHILE you just happen to be in the future, it's to set back in awe of the setting and the world in which all of those little things happen. Truly, the Ringworld itself is the greatest and best character in this book, and everyone else (even Louis Wu) really is playing second fiddle to the main course- a structure so unimaginably complex that scientists will be (and have been) fueding over it for generations to come.

Marvel at the lasers and stasis fields. Wonder at the scenic vistas and the incredible settings. And maybe, just maybe, you'll get attached to the band of rogues caught up in all of this along the way. All in all, it's mostly about the journey and the setting, and just going along for the ride. Truly, this work is more about expanding your headspace to the massive complexity of all the universe's wonders than it is about babble (although there is a fair share of that as well), and it's about seeing how a merry band of adventurers deal with the all-too-human task of dealing with what they've been exposed to along the way.

Open your mind and just try to "get" where the ride is taking you, and it'll be a blast. Not to mention it provides excellent commentary into many aspects of both where humanity is and where it's headed. Solid SciFi in every sense. This is one of my favorite novels of all time, and I can't reccomend it highly enough.

I've heard a lot about Larry Niven and Ringworld so, wanting to see what all the fuss was about, I bought a copy. The front cover of the book describes itself as "THE LEGENDARY AWARD WINNING CLASSIC!" (all in caps, just as shown) and Niven as a "New York Times Bestselling Author." Well, I read it. And I really did not like it. It certainly didn't live up to the hype. The blurb on the back of Ringworld explains just what a "ringworld" is, which I found to be an interesting concept: a fancy artificial habitat built by a long-dead race, waiting for someone to explore it. But this seems to be the most interesting part of the book: an interesting setting, but a mediocre story.
Besides the concepts of a ringworld and the technical issues involved in the construction and maintenance of one, the other main device used in the story is the concept of 'genetic luck.' That is, that luck is a genetic property and, if breeding was determined by a lottery as was on a future Earth in this story, then only the lucky could breed and would thus create a race of extremely lucky people. Frankly, I found this entire concept to be absurd. Couple that with poor writing and mundane characters, and you get a book based on some interesting ideas, but nothing else. I don't understand why this book is hailed as a "legendary classic." That is certainly a misnomer. I regret having purchased it, and now I'm stuck with it. The cover has even started to detach from the binding so I can't resell it for very much. Maybe it's my genetic unluckiness.

"Ringworld" is an odd book, and a difficult one to review. On the one hand, the idea of the Ringworld itself is fascinating. A massive ring encircling a medium-sized star, with inner "shadow squares" that provide night and day, is a brilliant concept. The descriptions of the Ringworld, its "Fist of God" mountain (and how it came to be), the shadow squares, and the millions of miles of shadow square wire are all captivating. On the other hand, the characters and storyline are laughable. It feels like the Smurfs meet Sesame Street. The two-headed puppeteer and the fuzzy orange kzin are hard to take seriously. They travel with the ageless Louis Wu and their good luck charm, the sassy Teela Brown, to explore the Ringworld. This motley crew gets into big-time trouble once they arrive there, and then the story peters out as they try to escape the big ring late in the book.

Don't read "Ringworld" if you're looking for thoughful characters or an interesting story. You'll only be disappointed. But by all means read the book for the the sake of the creative world where Nevin takes you. In either case, it's a breezy 342 pages, so there's not much to lose if you that find that this flavor of sci-fi isn't to your liking.