Ringworld (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

by Larry Niven

Hardcover, 1985

Status

Available

Call number

PZ4.N734 R

Series

Known Space (8)

Ringworld (1)

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Turtleback Books (1985), Edition: Bound for Schools & Libraries ed., 352 pages

Description

The artifact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its center. Pierson's puppeteers--strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens--discovered this "Ringworld" in a hitherto unexplored part of the galaxy. Curious about the immense structure, but frightened by the prospect of meeting the builders, they set about assembling a team to explore it: Louis Wu, human--old and bored with having lived too fully for too many years, seeking an adventure, and all too capable of handling it. Nessus, puppeteer--a trembling coward from a species with an inbuilt survival pattern of nonviolence. This particular puppeteer, however, is insane. Speaker-to-Animals, kzin--large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. The kzin are one of the most savage life-forms known. The party's expedition, however, goes disastrously wrong when their ship crash-lands and its motley crew faces a daunting trek across thousands of miles of Ringworld territory.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member JoshyGwiz

This book is one of the greatest books I’ve read, with such a range of interesting things, from the characters to the ideas, the alien species, the level of technology, the inventions, and Ringworld itself. This book presents ideas that allow for hours of thought, and I enjoyed reading it

throughout. I am an avid reader of science fiction, and I always enjoy books of the sort, but I believe that Ringworld was a step above them all. The idea of Ringworld itself is something that is extraordinary to imagine. The sheer size of it is difficult to comprehend, and if you were to read the book, you may not understand the size of it at all. Millions of times the space of the earth, and sturdy enough to hold together for millennia. It took me most of the book to finally truly grasp the size of It, and I’m still not sure if I’ve truly understood it.
The characters are unique as well. The main character, Louis Wu, is the character that normal people can relate most to, though in honesty, none of the characters are easy to relate to. Louis is, simply, a normal human who has lived an extremely long life, almost more than twice that of any person alive today, thanks to a miracle drug that allows you to live for ages longer than normal. His experiences are many and varied, as seen throughout the book. He is the experienced one, the one who knows what he’s doing, the one who seems to lead the journey, despite two of the others constantly declaring themselves leader, and a third force actually being the leader. That idea in itself is complex, and unravels in unpredictable ways throughout the book, going from one hypothesis to the next.
The original supposed leader of the group, the ‘Mad’ puppeteer, Nessus, is also a rather complex character. The puppeteers themselves, who are very aptly named, and odd in the fact that they are supposedly cowards by instinct, are also an extraordinarily powerful race, who has attempted to govern the very lives of everyone and everything. And they did so with a great deal of success.
Speaker-To-Animals is a Kzinti, an alien species of warrior nature. Eight foot tall, orange furred, and, when furless, a rather comical sight. Speaker himself is always trying to take control of the mission, based on the fact that the near-constant dangers cause Nessus to panic and have speaker, the warrior, take over, whether or not Nessus is panicking.
Teela Brown is, at the beginning of the book, for all intents and purposes, normal. Beautiful and young, there isn’t anything that seems to be beneficial for the trip about her. Later on, her purpose is revealed, but, unfortunately for Nessus, the one who gathered the four together, her abilities don’t exactly help them in the way he expected.
While on Ringworld, the characters have to adjust to all of the new things. There isn’t really an east, west, north, or south, so they use ‘spinward’, ‘anti-spinward’, port, and starboard. The nights on Ringworld come on instantly, and the days just as fast.
Ringworld takes the mind to new, fantastic places, with fantastic ideas and a story that has bested most others I’ve read.

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LibraryThing member PhoebeReading

Clarke told us that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; from that, I'd like to postulate that, perhaps, any sufficiently hard science fiction is indistinguishable from fantasy. The internet seems to want me to believe that Larry Niven is a terrifically hard (like,

rock, like platinum) sci-fi writer, that his books are firmly ground in the theoretical physics of his time.But, at the risk of sounding like one of his bubble-headed heroines, I just didn't get most of the science in Ringworld. We're meat to marvel at the setting created by the Ringworld Engineers, which our ragtag team of aliens and humans set out to explore. But, while I think it's a rich setting in its own right, the science behind it didn't particularly thrill me. In most ways, Ringworld felt, to me, more like a fantasy adventure novel. What seemed to me to be (at least indistinguishable from) pseudo scientific motivations for exploration really just felt like excuses to set his characters down in an interesting place and watch them interact.And its in these interactions between characters that Niven's strengths really shine through. His aliens, particularly, are exceedingly well-drawn. I think it's just about impossible to read about Worf-like Kzin Speaker and Pierson's puppeteer Nessus and not feel some modicum of affection for them. The human characters are likewise endearing, if a little less well-fleshed out. Luck-afflicted human Teela Brown is intentionally empty, but this makes her attraction to Louis Wu less-than-convincing. Wu himself is an unremarkable everyman. Why all the women want him, I have no idea.I was less interested in the plot, even, than I was in the supposedly hard science. But Niven's characters were so great that I didn't really care. This felt like a more-serious Hitchhiker's Guide, or maybe Farscape at its best--adventurous characters with nuanced relationships thrust out against a mysterious setting. Even if I didn't get what was so important about Fist-of-God or really understand how they turned a floating building into a spaceship, I enjoyed my time spent on the Ringworld.

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LibraryThing member scottcholstad

For years, I have heard so much about Ringworld, the classic, the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best science fiction novel of 1971 and I’ve wanted to read it for a long time. I’ve finally gotten around to it. Don’t ask me why it took me so long. I have no excuses. I just never

made the time. However, now that I’ve gotten a look at it, I have to say that I’m disappointed. I don’t know what the big deal is. In fact, while it’s a “big idea” book, I think not only is it rather boring, but it’s sexist as hell and Niven definitely comes from the “old school” of mid-century male sci fi writers (read Asimov, etc) who use their female protagonists as complete idiots or total whores. And that’s about it. One would hope these men changed with the times as they aged. I think Asimov did, to some degree, as evidenced by his Foundation prequels.

It seems to me that the awards are given out for “big idea” novels, ie, Vernor Vinge, Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Ringworld, The Children of Time, etc. Yet, perhaps with the exception of Dick, I’d have to say I’m not overly impressed with any of them. The authors usually try to stuff a little too much philosophy in there for my liking, a little too much Ender. Don’t get me wrong. I liked Ender. But after awhile, there’s only so much Ender one can take. After awhile, the books become a little preachy and who buys sci fi novels to be preached to? Not me. Not a lot of people. And while this novel has a moderately respectable 3.96 Goodreads rating (which isn’t THAT respectable for such an award winning book), most of the reviews I’ve read have been one, two, and three star reviews because not much happens in this book. Just two humans and two aliens sitting around talking science, philosophy, and sexuality (it was the 1970s, after all) while on this amazing planetary body. Oh, and lots of misogyny and sexism. Yeah. And that about sums it up. And the awards for this? I don’t know. I’m obviously not the best person to determine who should get these awards. I like David Weber, Chris Bunch, Philip K. Dick, Alastair Reynolds, etc. These men generally don’t line up for awards like this, although before he’s done, I think Reynolds may have a chance. I think his books are brilliant. Warped, but brilliant.

Anyway, I’m not sure what rating to give this. Since it’s a classic, I’d like to give it a higher rating out of a sense of sci fi duty to my elders, but I don’t think I can. One star. Not recommended.

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LibraryThing member JWarren42

Normally, when I don't like a book, I just quietly remove it from my shelves and move on. However, occasionally I come across a book so poorly written I have to set up a warning beacon to make sure no one else gets snagged by it. This is one of those times.
This title is one of those that gets

thrown around when we're talking about foundational SF texts. I was excited to read it because of that.
What no one warned me about was that the main characters would spend the first 80 pages either, a) holding meaningless conversations about the minutiae of whatever struck their fancy, b) bitching at each other like teenagers, or c) hopping from ship to ship to ship with no explanation of why any one of them couldn't get the characters to their destination. Mind you, we're over a third of the novel in before they get where they're going, so A and B happen A LOT.
Finally, at about page 180, after the umpteenth fight between the characters (this one over a matter of historical record in this universe that the main character suddenly had an epiphany about for absolutely no reason I can discern), I pulled the ripcord.
I honestly have no idea how this book comes to be thought of on the same level as Rendezvous with Rama, or Dune, or Stranger in a Strange Land--all VASTLY superior texts.
Avoid this book at all costs.

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LibraryThing member jwhenderson

This is certainly one of the best science fiction novels that I have read. I say that because of the lucid and concise writing style, the use of scientific concepts in a way that exceeds most SF novels, and the brilliant imagination of Larry Niven who creates aliens and other worlds and puts you

the reader into them with confidence and grace. In the opening sections of the story Louis Wu, a two hundred year-old human is confronted by Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, and offered one of three open positions on an exploration voyage beyond Known Space. Speaker-to-Animals (Speaker), who is a Kzin, and Teela Brown, a young human woman, also join the voyage. Their goal is "Ringworld":
"The ring was more than ninety million miles in radius---about six hundred million miles long, he estimated---but less than a million miles across, edge to edge. It massed a little more than the planet Jupiter."(p 80)
Once the four travelers arrive at the Ringworld the novel becomes a more picaresque tale of their adventures. In spite of this the plot itself had several exciting moments with the group on the proverbial brink of disaster. This novel set in Niven's "Known Space" universe is considered a classic of science fiction literature. It was followed by three sequels, preceded by four prequels, and ties into numerous other books set in Known Space. Many of the concepts displayed in Ringworld were originally presented in earlier novels by the author. The Nebula award-winning novel still retains its ability to charm the reader.

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LibraryThing member HellCold

For such a famous novel, I was greatly disappointed to find it such a dreary, soulless, tear-out-your-eyes-with-boredom read that I can't even remember when was the last time I was so let down by a book. Any book. And I didn't even have any great expectations from it. I've read enough Sci Fi from

that early era to realize and accept the prevalent limitations of the times in terms of plot, characterization, pacing, and much else that makes a novel. It was supposed to be flawed but enjoyable. Think Philip K Dick, or Clifford D Simak, or Olaf Stapledon. Authors who never wrote a great novel in terms of characters or plot, but always delivered enjoyable stories with memorable ideas or worlds.

Here the whole Ringworld thing could have been written as a thirty page short story. And even then it would have been just an average, forgettable affair centered around one blip of an idea. But now expand that to hundreds of pages following faceless characters doing clichéd stuff on a bland (but supposedly huge, as if that matters at all) planet and you've got yourself a very bored, very grumpy reader who will most certainly drop the damn thing just a couple of dozen pages through.

But suppose one reader reads through it all out of some sort of self-torturing discipline just to see if it gets better? And suppose aforementioned reader actually finds only more of the same tripe?

Then by God this reader has to warn the world against the folly of repeating his mistake. Do not read this book. Ringworld deserves only total and universal oblivion. Maybe ban it to save people's time for other books. Any other books.

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LibraryThing member dege

The story of the Ringworld takes place in a distant future when man is living side by side with other alien lifeforms such as kzin and puppeteers. Mortality is available at choice and distances on earth has been reduced to zero using instantaneous travel. In this world Louis Wu is getting restless,

being 200 years old he has seen it all and experienced even more. Thus when a puppeteer approach him a a tantalizing suggestion, he after while agrees. The prospect is to find the Ringworld.

The Ringworld is a world built in the shape of a ring, the size of the earth orbit, rotating around a small star in an otherwise cleared area of space far distant to any known civilization. The Ringworld engineers ruled this place which with is vast area have room for all diversities sentient life can come up with. Embarking on a hazardous journey, the small company of Louis Wu set out to find and explore this world.

The story is very well written without losing the main thread. The pace is though somewhat slow in the first half of the book but increase as the events on the Ringworld takes place. As in most science fiction novels, some hurdles which seem almost impossible to clear are solved using yet-another-too-futuristic-invention which as always tires me. Not being restricted by the laws of nature sometimes makes it too tempting for authors to back out of corners in two sentences, the result is mostly tiring, although amusing at times. The physical appearance of the book is the usual mass-market paperback style, fitted with a truly horrible cover that not only boasts an image clearly painted by someone that never read the book but also with the usual superlatives which in this case forms the stomachturning sentence: "The legendary award-winning classic!".

All in all, this is a very good book clearly on par with books such as Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card and The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke. If you like science fiction, this is clearly a book which should reside in your home (but do buy the hardcover version).

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LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom

This is the first book by Larry Niven that I've read; I have to say that I'm petrified to try the sequels because in my somewhat humble opinion, the sequels never seem to be as good as the original. Look at Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, for example, and enough said.

However, I was

hooked by this book and didn't stop until I finished it. I won't rehash the storyline or plot or repeat what others have said here, but to me one of the aspects of the novel that I thought might have been given more potential depth (maybe it's explained in one of the sequels, and if so, I apologize) was that of what happens within a culture once its technology fails -- what's left? This is a chilling thought considering how utterly dependent modern society has become on the latest and greatest technology all over our planet.

I would definitely recommend this novel with the caveat that one shouldn't depend on the characters to carry the novel. The Ringworld itself is the focal point, and the entire time I was reading the book, I could hear eerie space music in the background awaiting another discovery.

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LibraryThing member edgeworth

A good portion of my to-be-read pile comprises of the various classics one is obligated to read, ranging from traditional classics, to Booker and Pulitzer prize winners, to science fiction watersheds. Ringworld is a seminal science fiction novel which spawned the concept of a ring as a space

habitat, used later in works such as Iain M. Banks in his Culture series, or – most obviously, for my generation – the Halo series of video games. It’s what’s apparently known as a Big Dumb Object, the only other example of which I recall reading was Arthur C. Clarke’s enjoyable but forgettable Rendezvous With Rama.

Ringworld follows the fortunes of four interstellar explorers who set out to explore the titular object, which encloses a star and has trillions of times the surface area of Earth. Shot down by the ring’s automated defences against space debris, the crew find themselves stranded on the surface and have to try to escape. It’s a good basic concept, muddied a little by the introduction of alien politics and a fairly odd idea relating to one of the human characters, regarding the idea of genetic luck, which actually comes to dominate much of the book’s final act.

Unlike a lot of the novels I have to cross off the classic list, Ringworld wasn’t too bad. It’s pretty typical mid-century science fiction: it’s full of exposition, it sacrifices character for setting, and the protagonist is accompanied by a young, beautiful and ditzy woman who has sex with him all the time. Comparing it to the Big Three, it has more in common with the cartoonish sense of humour of Robert Heinlein than the stiff, wooden sci-fi of Clarke or Asimov.

Ringworld is a readable and fairly enjoyable sci-fi adventure, even if it does drag a little towards the end, and has a couple of good scenes and ideas – I particularly liked the way the crew eventually escape the ring. But I didn’t find it worth writing home about, and I won’t bother reading any more of the series (which apparently goes downhill anyway.)

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LibraryThing member kgodey

I keep telling myself I need to read more science-fiction, so I decided to make good on that, starting with a classic, Ringworld by Larry Niven. I haven't read any books by Larry Niven before, although Ringworld is part of his Known Space book universe.

Ringworld is about an artificial world, 3

million miles across, that is built in the shape of a ring that spins around a sun (the concept is similar to a Dyson sphere.) Nessus, a Pierson's puppeteer (a cowardly alien species with two heads) leads a motley crew on a top-secret mission to explore it. Louis Wu is a two hundred year old world-famous adventurer, Teela Brown is an extraordinarily lucky twenty year old girl (and Louis's lover), and Speaker-to-Animals is a ferocious Kzinti diplomat.

The book starts off as an exciting adventure, I really enjoyed it up until the point where the expedition actually lands on the Ringworld (halfway through the book.) After that, it got a bit tedious, like Niven didn't know what to do with his characters.

Some of the ideas mentioned and explored in this book are pretty interesting – I enjoyed the discussions about the different kinds of evolutions (what the puppeteer's fight or flight response meant, for example) and how that led to different priorities for different species. I also liked the Ringworld itself, as well as the puppeteer's home world. Teela's "psychic luck" was also an interesting concept, although I found it implausible.

The characters are interesting to start off with, but like I said above, halfway into the book, they get pretty dull. I also found the descriptions of Louis Wu's (constant) sex kind of awful ("she impaled herself" is an awful description.) Also, the writing felt a bit dated; I think our conception of space were very different in the 70s.

I probably would not have stuck through this book if it was not part of my 25 book challenge, but I'm glad I did because it's a classic, and at least I've read it now! I probably won't be reading the other books in the series soon, but maybe eventually.

Originally posted on my blog.

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LibraryThing member geordicalrissian

This book was ooookkaaay. I really loved the first part of the story. Mr. Niven does a great job of introducing the reader to his future. I also loved the ginormous concepts. Instant travel, vast and old alien empires. And then there is the concept of Ringworld itself. But about 3/4 into the story

I started to lose interest. By the end of the book, I was just ready for it to be over. I doubt that I'll pick up any of the sequels.

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LibraryThing member jen.e.moore

This is everything I hate about 70s science fiction: female characters who could literally be replaced by a stuffed animal (except that the main male character has to have a lady around to bang or else he'll rape an alien), inconsistent aliens that don't quite make sense, an obsession with

impressive numbers to the detriment of story, and, oh yeah, alien species with non-sentient females. Yeah. It's readable enough, and parts of it were indeed interesting and fun, but mostly I wanted to set it on fire.

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LibraryThing member nmarrone

Decent to good science fiction novel that reminds me in many ways of Heinlein's greater works -- sexual freedom, exploration, libertarianism, hard science. I enjoyed the book but had greater expectations for it. On the plus side, the ideas of human expansion, population control, interspecies

harmony and the concept of the ringworld were very interesting. On the negative side, I found the characters to be one-dimensional. I would recommend this book to a fan of science fiction.

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LibraryThing member James_Knupp

For such a foundational book to the sci fi genre, this book really does not hold up well. The main character is utterly insufferable in his ego, and the only females characters are so one dimensional. While one of the women does serve a grander part of the lesson/plot, it is entirely outside of her

agency, and for most of the book she (and the other woman) serve as little more than sexual fodder for the main character, and constantly portrayed as dumb and naive. I appreciate what Ringworld contributed to the sci fi genre, but it was really not worth my time reading.

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LibraryThing member santhony

In an effort to read all dual winners of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, I recently tackled 1971 winner Ringworld by Larry Niven. I was soon turned off by the appearance of what I can only describe as “silly” aliens. I was reminded of the bar scene of Star Wars, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

or Spaceballs.

The story revolves around a quartet of explorers, gathered by an alien named a Pierson’s Puppet, a truly bizarre creature. The quartet consists of two humans (a 200 year old man and a 20 year old woman), a cat-like alien named a kzin and the Pierson’s Puppet. The group is formed to investigate a recently discovered phenomenon, the Ringworld.

Ringworld is a fantastic premise, very reminiscent of Arthur Clarke’s Rama (Ringworld actually precedes the publication of Rama) though on a tremendously larger scale. The premise is rich with possibilities, many of which are well developed by Niven. However, the clichéd aliens along with annoying verbal idiosyncrasies (the ridiculous term “tanj”, an abbreviation of “there ain’t no justice” is so overused as to detract from the novel) ruin what could have been a much better book, in my opinion.

Another problem with the novel is the difficulty in visualizing some of the author’s descriptions. We’re talking about a one million mile wide band around a sun, spinning at a rate of 770 miles/second. There are other bands of sun blocking rectangles, whose orbits are inside that of Ringworld. In trying to describe aspects of Ringworld, and surrounding objects, the author goes to great descriptive lengths which I many times found hard to picture. Were it not for the cover drawing, I would have really been lost. References to width, breadth, top, bottom, side, parallels and perpendiculars to orbits or other spatial phenomenon were confusing at best. At some points, drawings would have been very helpful.

This novel contains many outstanding examples of hard science fiction, mainly concerning power sources, weaponry and inter-stellar travel. Unfortunately, the promise of the premise and the strengths of the concepts were unable to overcome mediocre writing and the weaknesses described above. Three and a half stars.

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LibraryThing member nakmeister

Ringworld is the most stunning artifact in known space - an artificial world with 3 million times Earth's surface area.

A classic science fiction novel, awe inspiring, deals with big concepts.

LibraryThing member Radaghast

Ringworld is a cool idea. It is a cool story. But it is not an excellent story. Niven has a well-deserved reputation, but there is a shallowness to some of his writing that is impossible to ignore.

LibraryThing member theWallflower

This is one of those books that's on everyone's must-read sci-fi list. It had good science to it.

Ringworld is like a strip of a Dyson Sphere and the book does a good job of explaining how it could exist, what it would need, and what could go wrong. And these all weave well into the plot.

The

problem is that I had trouble connecting with the characters and the stakes. And for me, that is a necessity to make any novel a good one. Characters + setting = plot. This book was setting first. Then it added characters. Then Niven needed something for the characters to do, so he threw in things that would equal a plot. So, I'm not impressed with it as far as a founding sci-fi trope.

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LibraryThing member Reysbro

I was disappointed with this book. Besides the fairly shallow characters, the hard-to-visualize descriptions and sporadic plot, the writing itself is simplistic and not challenging at all.
When the writer resorts to describing the Ringworld by comparing it to a Christmas ribbon - and directing the

description directly to the reader - it stands out that there could have been a greater effort in expanding the visual language of this book.
Otherwise, the plot is not up to par with modern SciFi: a group of two humans and two aliens traveling over unknown territory in "flying cycles" simply to justify the occurrences by some sort of fatalism (luck?) with no real point to it? No thanks.
The bottom line: in my mind, this book is nothing more than a basic outline of a book or film. It reads like it's the script for the pilot episode, with many of the issues left without due development.

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LibraryThing member salimbol

Cool concept, middling execution. While Niven definitely conveys the vastness and sheer *epicness* of the Ringworld itself, and he writes believable alien characters, much of the book feels thin and dated. The two main aliens are considerably more interesting than the two main human characters, and

I found myself increasingly irked at the infantalising of the main female character. I also found my eyes glazing over at the heavily pedantic hard science sections; a more skilled writer could probably have written them in a more seamless fashion, and made them feel less like a science lesson. Still, you can see echoes of this book in many of the SF books that followed, and its place in SF canon must be acknowledged.

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LibraryThing member SwampIrish

There. I am done. A partially entertaining story of 2 humans and 2 aliens traveling to a ring-shaped world around a distant star. I can get past most poor characterization from this era if the sci-fi is engaging (see Tau Zero) but the plot of this novel was infuriating. 'Let's go over here!' 'Let's

go over there!' 'Play god, so that alien will have sex with you.' gaaah!

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LibraryThing member MicheD

Was nice and easy read, was kind of slow for a lot of it, though I loved the descriptions of the world but was kind of confused by some of them.

LibraryThing member Homechicken

I just finished reading an older (70’s are older??) SciFi book, Ringworld, by Larry Niven. It was an interesting book, and it amazes me how far you have to go back before SciFi starts dating itself (read Triplanetary by E. E. Smith for examples of dated SciFi). Anyway, it was about this discovery

of an artifical ring created around a sun to house a vast civilization. It was huge, 6 million times larger than the surface of the Earth, the ring was 1 million miles wide and the sides were 1000 miles high. It orbited its star at 93 million miles, just like Earth, but goes all the way around. That’s a bit too big for me to imagine. I was getting to the end of the book and started to worry because the story hadn’t been resolved, and sure enough, the author wrapped it all up in like 2 pages. Not near enough closure for me, but it was an interesting read. I don’t think I’ll read the sequel, but all in all it wasn’t bad, but it doesn’t rate real high on my must-recommend list.

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LibraryThing member tole_lege

What do you do if the universe is running out of time? And if you figure that the saviour of all the races looks rather like a cartoon character? And if you already happen to be well past the general three score and ten?

This is one of my favourite Niven books. Again, as with most of his others,

this is not taxing science fiction - it won't send you to the textbooks to find out what he's talking about.

But it will keep you turning the pages, if you enjoy the creation of coherent, alternate universes.

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LibraryThing member bradsucks

Man this was all kinds of not good. I couldn't make myself care about any of the characters and the plot just wandered.

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