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Ringworld (Mass Market Paperback)

by Larry Niven (Author) "In the nighttime heart of Beirut, in one of a row of general-address transfer booths, Louis Wu flicked into reality..." (more)
Key Phrases: stepping discs, hyperdrive shunt, sonic fold, Teela Brown, Long Shot, General Products (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
List Price: $7.99
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Ringworld + The Ringworld Engineers (Ringworld) + The Ringworld Throne
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!


From the Publisher
8 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
In the nighttime heart of Beirut, in one of a row of general-address transfer booths, Louis Wu flicked into reality. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
stepping discs, hyperdrive shunt, sonic fold, intercom image, kzin rumbled, puppeteer fleet, cabin gravity, crash balloons, sleeping plates, transfer booths, puppeteer world, electromagnetic cannon, galactic axis, fusion motors, shadow squares, rim wall, lifting motors, flashlight laser, crash couch, zap gun, stasis field, fusion drives, scope screen, floating building, square wire
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Teela Brown, Long Shot, General Products, Hero's Tongue, God Gambit, Blind Spot, Civic Center, Fall of the Cities, Clouds of Magellan, Fertility Board, Fertility Laws, Paula Cherenkov, Birthright Lotteries, Earth's Moon, Fist-of-God Mountain, Kzinti Lesson, Mount Lookitthat, Poor Nessus, Presently Speaker, Speaker To-Animals
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Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
 

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Customer Reviews

176 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (176 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Piece of Hard SciFi, January 1, 2003
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.

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33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars It won a Hugo, but not my heart, September 5, 2000
By Michael F. Maddox (Tallahassee, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
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.

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Imagination Tripped Up By Odd Writing Style, February 25, 2006
By Robert L. Foster (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun romp through space
The book does a great job of literally creating a unique world and throwing the characters into it. For imagination and creativity, it ranks pretty high. Read more
Published 5 days ago by kalbzayn

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
This is a great book for the science fiction lovers out there. In a class with Dune and Ender's Game.
Published 12 days ago by dc

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written epic
I see in this novel the same sort of thing I saw with Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series---an incredibly idea marred by amateurish writing. Read more
Published 25 days ago by Andariel Halo

4.0 out of 5 stars Great sci-fi, but some aspects are underdeveloped
I picked this up and read it because I was going through a list of "Best Sci-Fi books of all time." In most ways, I think the accolades are deserved. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jason

5.0 out of 5 stars Ring World
My Godson said this was a must read. I totally enyoyed it and could completely understand the way this book has been embraced by all who read it. I love it.
Published 2 months ago by J. M. Codina

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Premise, Mediocre Execution
In an effort to read all dual winners of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, I recently tackled 1971 winner Ringworld by Larry Niven. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Steven M. Anthony

4.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Big Dumb Object books
Better than Rama, Ring, Orbitsville, etc. Mostly a travelogue; a 200-year-old semi-immortal in the 29th century gets hired by a bizarre alien to go investigate a mysterious... Read more
Published 5 months ago by C. Stutts

4.0 out of 5 stars A very different type of story, but intriguing and fun
I had a hard time figuring out what kind of stars to put on this book. Some of the characters were lame, a lot of the dialogue was cheesy, the technology is ludricuous... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Kawika

2.0 out of 5 stars Two stars for the idea only
I should have known when the used copies were only a penny, but I persisted. Hey, this thing won a Hugo and a Nebula, right? Well the idea of the ringworld is interesting. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Steven F. Husted

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best novel that is pure Niven.
"Ringworld" certainly has a few very big subjects. I think it is probably the best novel that is pure Niven. Larry does a good job here. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Norman Strojny

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