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Ringworld #1
Ringworld
Pierson's puppeteers, three-leg two-head aliens find immense structure in unexplored part of the universe. Frightened of meeting the builders, they send a team of two humans, a puppeteer and a kzin, eight-foot red-fur catlike alien. Ringworld is 180 million miles across, sun at center. But the expedition crashes, and crew face disastrously long trek.
342 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1970
About the author
Larry Niven
604 books3,191 followersLaurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld (Ringworld, #1) (1970), which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. The creation of thoroughly worked-out alien species, which are very different from humans both physically and mentally, is recognized as one of Niven's main strengths.
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
Niven also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes The Magic Goes Away series, which utilizes an exhaustible resource, called Mana, to make the magic a non-renewable resource.
Niven created an alien species, the Kzin, which were featured in a series of twelve collection books, the Man-Kzin Wars. He co-authored a number of novels with Jerry Pournelle. In fact, much of his writing since the 1970s has been in collaboration, particularly with Pournelle, Steven Barnes, Brenda Cooper, or Edward M. Lerner.
He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has since lived in Los Angeles suburbs, including Chatsworth and Tarzana, as a full-time writer. He married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, herself a well-known science fiction and Regency literature fan, on September 6, 1969.
Niven won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Neutron Star in 1967. In 1972, for Inconstant Moon, and in 1975 for The Hole Man. In 1976, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Borderland of Sol.
Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early Kzin story The Soft Weapon. He adapted his story Inconstant Moon for an episode of the television series The Outer Limits in 1996.
He has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect, which are unusual in comic books.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/larryn...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,661 reviews
November 14, 2009
A very interesting concept....BUT, I have to get on my soapbox for a minute. After reading a few of his books, I have to say that Larry Niven's attitude towards women, what they are like and what they are capable of, is sadly lacking. Though his male characters seem to be pretty well fleshed out (human--even if they are alien--fallible and interesting), his female characters are sadly one-dimensional. It seems to me that most the female character in his books are either clueless, idiot savants, helpless before the sexual attraction of the main character(s), or all the above. Ok, I'm off my soapbox now.
Though this little issue nearly spoils it for me, the convoluted plot is well thought-out and the concept of the novel is interesting...blah blah blah...I will say that it's still worth reading. With a grain of salt.
In response to all those that say that Niven should be excused for essentially being an old man... and for being born in the first half of the last century...I'd like to point out the following:
A) This book was written in 1970, well after the feminist movement had taken root.
B) There is a vast array of male sci-fi authors, both contemporary with Mr. Niven and writing earlier, that don't have this same issue. **cough cough Tolkien cough Douglas Adams cough Frank Herbert cough**. Excuse me. :)
C) This is my opinion and a warning to other feminist-types (lukewarm or otherwise), not an attack on Mr. Niven's character nor overall ability as an author. Kind of.
D) That being said, it's frustrating that an important character in this interesting novel would be so incredibly (and irritatingly) one-dimensional.
Just saying.
Though this little issue nearly spoils it for me, the convoluted plot is well thought-out and the concept of the novel is interesting...blah blah blah...I will say that it's still worth reading. With a grain of salt.
In response to all those that say that Niven should be excused for essentially being an old man... and for being born in the first half of the last century...I'd like to point out the following:
A) This book was written in 1970, well after the feminist movement had taken root.
B) There is a vast array of male sci-fi authors, both contemporary with Mr. Niven and writing earlier, that don't have this same issue. **cough cough Tolkien cough Douglas Adams cough Frank Herbert cough**. Excuse me. :)
C) This is my opinion and a warning to other feminist-types (lukewarm or otherwise), not an attack on Mr. Niven's character nor overall ability as an author. Kind of.
D) That being said, it's frustrating that an important character in this interesting novel would be so incredibly (and irritatingly) one-dimensional.
Just saying.
October 4, 2017
I started this book expecting an awesome experience -- it won the Hugo AND Nebula awards, after all.
Too bad it was a hot mess.
The smile is because the book was lighthearted.
What to say of Niven's prose, other than that it is horrible? The dialog is stilted; often it is impossible to tell what the characters are talking about because their references are unclear or new information necessary to understand WTF is going on passes through the cardboard cutout/protagonist's head only after the page-long conversation has ended. The narrative is equally confusing; at times it was impossible to visualize what was happening (e.g. with the shadow square wire) or what anything looked like.
The protagonists have nonexistent emotional ranges, and when they do emote (each always in the same way, since all four are completely one-dimensional), the reader is told through adverbs and adjectives exactly how they feel (how many times is "fear" used in reference to Nessus, for example), eliminating any sense of complexity. Furthermore, there is no wonder. Everything is prosaic, which is a problem when the discovery and exploration of the unknown is the focal point of the book. When they finally see Ringworld, we are told that Louis will "remember this" (99), but it rings completely hollow since no visual impression or sense of awe is communicated in any depth. In almost every case, their response to the titanic and dangerous Ringworld is best described as dull surprise.
"OMG!!! An enormous artificial structure 600,000,000 miles long built by an unknown race a really long time ago!!!"
Characterization is not much better. Louis Wu is two hundred years old, which has no consequence or manifestation at all other than internal reflections on how he is two hundred years old. We have Nessus, a two-headed alien, who changes from an intelligent coward with instances of bravery to an intelligent coward with instances of bravery who speaks an additional language. Speaker-To-Animals, a member of the feline Kzin species, experiences a similarly fundamental character change. All of them have no motivation whatsoever for anything besides a generic racial survival motive (supernovae will wipe everything out unless they can develop fast enough space flight) that is never explored in any detail or complicated in any way.
The exception is perhaps Teela Brown, a young, naïve, lucky girl, whose development is obvious because Louis explicitly describes the inane ways in which she has changed. Why not SHOW us? Not that her character changed in a good way: she went from being oblivious eye candy for Louis to less-oblivious eye candy for another man. The only other woman, by the way, is a near-bald prostitute with the unfortunate name of Halrloprillalar Hotrufan. She serves essentially no plot function, but does often "touch Louis here and there," inducing the vaguest orgasms I have ever encountered in literature. As an illustration of gender in Ringworld, I will leave you with this gem:
"He got very uncomfortable and stopped sleeping with me. He thinks you own me, Louis."
"Slavery?"
"Slavery for women, I think. You'll tell him you don't own me, won't you?
Louis felt pain in his throat. "It might save explanations if I just sold you to him. If that's what you want."
"You're right. And it is."
Niven's Enlightened Woman
The plot is not much better. Nessus the puppeteer rounds up three other crewmates haphazardly in order to explore Ringworld for unclear reasons. Then they crash-land on the surface. The rest of the novel is spent on Ringworld, a place so big and empty that it is dreadfully boring. The four leads fly around. Stuff happens that does not move the plot forward at all, or, worse, is discernibly contrived so that the plot does advance in the most mundane way possible without any real character growth or revelation. Nothing is explored in any depth and there is no payoff whatsoever. The Ringworld is ultimately irrelevant in every way, . The books ends with a whimper and little resolution. What makes this so ludicrous is that an enormous terraformed Ringworld should be interesting in se. Niven's genius lies in executing marvelous premises in the most mind-numbingly dull and intellectually sterile ways possible.
Niven touches upon some interesting ideas -- birth control, homogenization of cultures with increased contact, FTL travel, introduction of non-native species to a new environment (the Slaver sunflowers), breakdown of civilization -- but does nothing more with them. Most of the actual discussions about these issues take place in half a page and never resurface. There is essentially no world-building. Various alien races exist and have different dispositions; they are advanced. That is all we get. On Ringworld, we learn that For a novel about "big ideas," there was a disappointing dearth of them.
Visual representation of the bountiful depth of Ringworld
Perhaps the most egregious flaw of the novel is the malignant plot tumor of Teela's luck. By the end, the reader learns that . First, how unnecessary. How more meaningful would her journey have been if she had started young and innocent and ended with her naïveté eliminated because she had matured into a real woman with real agency? Instead, any significance and growth is ripped away from us as Niven piles on the pseudo-fatalistic nonsense for pages and pages WITH NO PAYOFF.
Second, what an absolutely garbage idea. Fate would have been more plausible because at least it is not empirically falsifiable. Niven studied math, so he should know better, and indeed he does: At one point Louis states, "All he's really found is the far end of a normal curve. Probability theory says you exist...Lady Luck has no memory at all" (126). Exactly. So why do technologically-advanced, intelligent characters maintain to the end of the book that Teela is extraordinarily lucky and that past INDEPENDENT events were somehow predictable because she has ALWAYS been lucky? They all know it is mathematically impossible, and no elaboration or explanation is ever given.
Seriously, what am I missing?
This book was just BAD. Niven does get props for the cool idea of the Ringworld and the few mentions of its history , but nothing else. I cannot imagine why this was well-received; I can only assume the reviewers like the idea and ignored everything else. Just read the plot summary and be proud that you have experienced everything this book has to offer.
Too bad it was a hot mess.
The smile is because the book was lighthearted.
What to say of Niven's prose, other than that it is horrible? The dialog is stilted; often it is impossible to tell what the characters are talking about because their references are unclear or new information necessary to understand WTF is going on passes through the cardboard cutout/protagonist's head only after the page-long conversation has ended. The narrative is equally confusing; at times it was impossible to visualize what was happening (e.g. with the shadow square wire) or what anything looked like.
The protagonists have nonexistent emotional ranges, and when they do emote (each always in the same way, since all four are completely one-dimensional), the reader is told through adverbs and adjectives exactly how they feel (how many times is "fear" used in reference to Nessus, for example), eliminating any sense of complexity. Furthermore, there is no wonder. Everything is prosaic, which is a problem when the discovery and exploration of the unknown is the focal point of the book. When they finally see Ringworld, we are told that Louis will "remember this" (99), but it rings completely hollow since no visual impression or sense of awe is communicated in any depth. In almost every case, their response to the titanic and dangerous Ringworld is best described as dull surprise.
"OMG!!! An enormous artificial structure 600,000,000 miles long built by an unknown race a really long time ago!!!"
Characterization is not much better. Louis Wu is two hundred years old, which has no consequence or manifestation at all other than internal reflections on how he is two hundred years old. We have Nessus, a two-headed alien, who changes from an intelligent coward with instances of bravery to an intelligent coward with instances of bravery who speaks an additional language. Speaker-To-Animals, a member of the feline Kzin species, experiences a similarly fundamental character change. All of them have no motivation whatsoever for anything besides a generic racial survival motive (supernovae will wipe everything out unless they can develop fast enough space flight) that is never explored in any detail or complicated in any way.
The exception is perhaps Teela Brown, a young, naïve, lucky girl, whose development is obvious because Louis explicitly describes the inane ways in which she has changed. Why not SHOW us? Not that her character changed in a good way: she went from being oblivious eye candy for Louis to less-oblivious eye candy for another man. The only other woman, by the way, is a near-bald prostitute with the unfortunate name of Halrloprillalar Hotrufan. She serves essentially no plot function, but does often "touch Louis here and there," inducing the vaguest orgasms I have ever encountered in literature. As an illustration of gender in Ringworld, I will leave you with this gem:
"He got very uncomfortable and stopped sleeping with me. He thinks you own me, Louis."
"Slavery?"
"Slavery for women, I think. You'll tell him you don't own me, won't you?
Louis felt pain in his throat. "It might save explanations if I just sold you to him. If that's what you want."
"You're right. And it is."
Niven's Enlightened Woman
The plot is not much better. Nessus the puppeteer rounds up three other crewmates haphazardly in order to explore Ringworld for unclear reasons. Then they crash-land on the surface. The rest of the novel is spent on Ringworld, a place so big and empty that it is dreadfully boring. The four leads fly around. Stuff happens that does not move the plot forward at all, or, worse, is discernibly contrived so that the plot does advance in the most mundane way possible without any real character growth or revelation. Nothing is explored in any depth and there is no payoff whatsoever. The Ringworld is ultimately irrelevant in every way, . The books ends with a whimper and little resolution. What makes this so ludicrous is that an enormous terraformed Ringworld should be interesting in se. Niven's genius lies in executing marvelous premises in the most mind-numbingly dull and intellectually sterile ways possible.
Niven touches upon some interesting ideas -- birth control, homogenization of cultures with increased contact, FTL travel, introduction of non-native species to a new environment (the Slaver sunflowers), breakdown of civilization -- but does nothing more with them. Most of the actual discussions about these issues take place in half a page and never resurface. There is essentially no world-building. Various alien races exist and have different dispositions; they are advanced. That is all we get. On Ringworld, we learn that For a novel about "big ideas," there was a disappointing dearth of them.
Visual representation of the bountiful depth of Ringworld
Perhaps the most egregious flaw of the novel is the malignant plot tumor of Teela's luck. By the end, the reader learns that . First, how unnecessary. How more meaningful would her journey have been if she had started young and innocent and ended with her naïveté eliminated because she had matured into a real woman with real agency? Instead, any significance and growth is ripped away from us as Niven piles on the pseudo-fatalistic nonsense for pages and pages WITH NO PAYOFF.
Second, what an absolutely garbage idea. Fate would have been more plausible because at least it is not empirically falsifiable. Niven studied math, so he should know better, and indeed he does: At one point Louis states, "All he's really found is the far end of a normal curve. Probability theory says you exist...Lady Luck has no memory at all" (126). Exactly. So why do technologically-advanced, intelligent characters maintain to the end of the book that Teela is extraordinarily lucky and that past INDEPENDENT events were somehow predictable because she has ALWAYS been lucky? They all know it is mathematically impossible, and no elaboration or explanation is ever given.
Seriously, what am I missing?
This book was just BAD. Niven does get props for the cool idea of the Ringworld and the few mentions of its history , but nothing else. I cannot imagine why this was well-received; I can only assume the reviewers like the idea and ignored everything else. Just read the plot summary and be proud that you have experienced everything this book has to offer.
March 3, 2011
I’d wanted to read this because I’m a fan of the Halo video games, and I’d heard that it was a big influence on those. I gotta say that I’d have liked it more if the Master Chief would have shown up and started chucking some plasma grenades around.
Set in 2855, human Louis Wu is recruited by an alien named Nessus to go on a hazardous mission to explore a strange structure that rings a distant star. Another alien called Speaker-To-Animals from a warrior race apparently descended from some really tough tomcats is also recruited. A human woman named Teela joins the group almost by accident.
When they get to their destination, they find a giant ring with a habitable inner surface that has an area many times greater than the earth. After an accident strands them on the world, they start exploring to find a way to get their ship back out into space.
This had some really big sci-fi ideas in it, most notably the Ringworld itself. But this is one of those books where the social attitudes of the time it was written have become really painful to read. Because even though it’s supposed to be 2855, the women in this book exist only to: 1) Sleep with Louis. 2) Be good luck charms. 3) Act as ship’s whores on long space flights.
You’ve come a long way, baby!
I generally try to avoid judging a book by the era it was written, but 1970 couldn’t have been this bad, could it? And if so, I’d expect a guy who could come up with concepts this big to have put a little thought into gender roles in 800 years. Plus, while the Ringworld idea is pretty clever, I found the rest of the sci-fi kind of crude and dated. Maybe that’s just because there’s been 40 years of material since it was published, but I didn’t get much enjoyment out of reading this.
Set in 2855, human Louis Wu is recruited by an alien named Nessus to go on a hazardous mission to explore a strange structure that rings a distant star. Another alien called Speaker-To-Animals from a warrior race apparently descended from some really tough tomcats is also recruited. A human woman named Teela joins the group almost by accident.
When they get to their destination, they find a giant ring with a habitable inner surface that has an area many times greater than the earth. After an accident strands them on the world, they start exploring to find a way to get their ship back out into space.
This had some really big sci-fi ideas in it, most notably the Ringworld itself. But this is one of those books where the social attitudes of the time it was written have become really painful to read. Because even though it’s supposed to be 2855, the women in this book exist only to: 1) Sleep with Louis. 2) Be good luck charms. 3) Act as ship’s whores on long space flights.
You’ve come a long way, baby!
I generally try to avoid judging a book by the era it was written, but 1970 couldn’t have been this bad, could it? And if so, I’d expect a guy who could come up with concepts this big to have put a little thought into gender roles in 800 years. Plus, while the Ringworld idea is pretty clever, I found the rest of the sci-fi kind of crude and dated. Maybe that’s just because there’s been 40 years of material since it was published, but I didn’t get much enjoyment out of reading this.
June 11, 2023
June 2023
Well I can safely say, that my opinion hasn't changed, and I still rate this exceptionally highly , maybe in my top ten of all time, certainly top 20 (Hmm maybe I will have to have a think one afternoon in the sun what my all time favourite books are , some are just obvious, others less so - anyway they are ponderings for another day).
Why is this book so good (in my humble opinion) ?> Well, it is the idea and the scale of Mr Niven's imagination, and whilst he may not (quite) have the writing qualities of say Ray Bradbury, his writing is still very good. It's intricate, it's clever, it's descriptive and the characters (at least 3 are aliens) are well formed and yes even believable.
As I said below it is no surprise this book when every major SF award on its release, and lets be honest Mr Niven, has gone on to write on his own and with others so classics of the genre.
This time I think I have some of the sequels, so maybe we shall see.
August 2018
Well this book won both the Hugo and Nebula award in 1970/71 for best novel, and who am I to argue with the voting panels. In my view this book is astounding (SF pun intended), its characters are well built, and the story is just so far reaching with brilliant science to back it up.
I first read this sometime back in the late 70s and have re-read it a couple of time since, but it has to be 15 years since I last read it, oh how I have missed books this far ranging, this broad in their scope, this thought out , and just this enjoyable.
Shall I go onto sequel number 1, well the problem is, I can't seem to find it, so I shall have to buy it to carry on the adventure.
If you are a SF fan and have never read this book, then I urge you to do so, you will not be disappointed. Thank you Mr Niven for this truly marvellous story !!
Well I can safely say, that my opinion hasn't changed, and I still rate this exceptionally highly , maybe in my top ten of all time, certainly top 20 (Hmm maybe I will have to have a think one afternoon in the sun what my all time favourite books are , some are just obvious, others less so - anyway they are ponderings for another day).
Why is this book so good (in my humble opinion) ?> Well, it is the idea and the scale of Mr Niven's imagination, and whilst he may not (quite) have the writing qualities of say Ray Bradbury, his writing is still very good. It's intricate, it's clever, it's descriptive and the characters (at least 3 are aliens) are well formed and yes even believable.
As I said below it is no surprise this book when every major SF award on its release, and lets be honest Mr Niven, has gone on to write on his own and with others so classics of the genre.
This time I think I have some of the sequels, so maybe we shall see.
August 2018
Well this book won both the Hugo and Nebula award in 1970/71 for best novel, and who am I to argue with the voting panels. In my view this book is astounding (SF pun intended), its characters are well built, and the story is just so far reaching with brilliant science to back it up.
I first read this sometime back in the late 70s and have re-read it a couple of time since, but it has to be 15 years since I last read it, oh how I have missed books this far ranging, this broad in their scope, this thought out , and just this enjoyable.
Shall I go onto sequel number 1, well the problem is, I can't seem to find it, so I shall have to buy it to carry on the adventure.
If you are a SF fan and have never read this book, then I urge you to do so, you will not be disappointed. Thank you Mr Niven for this truly marvellous story !!
March 6, 2010
I can't believe this won three big awards.
The story is about as interesting as the trade war minutia of Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. In non-geeky terms, not very interesting. Actually as I went out to buy a cup of coffee this morning I thought that if Larry Niven had teamed up with George Lucas the prequel episodes of Star Wars could have been totally ruined, and maybe episodes 4-6 could have been reworked too to make them completely insipid and unwatchable. How? Well, Larry Niven seems to be really interested in stopping times for ships going really fast. For example he has some ship that can travel hundreds of light years in like three minutes or something like that, but then it takes months to slow down- now if the principles of deceleration were applied to the warp-speed (or whatever it was called in Star Wars), then so much unnecessary coolness of the first three movies could be eliminated and in the time it took say for the Millennium Falcon to slow down on a mission so much extra trade details could be included.
Anyway, for all of the details given to deceleration and the math involved in figuring out the size of the ringworld (for those who don't really give a shit, it's really really big), Niven knows shit about evolution which would be fine except that he ties up the whole story in selective breeding nonsense that makes no sense at all, and actually works as a cheap literary device to get the characters out of any situation they might happen to find themselves in. I know this is called Deus ex Machina, but in this context I like to call it Dungeon Master bullshit.
There is really no story here, except if one thinks of a story as 340 pages of how big a fucking ring is.
There are things to give the asocial and undersexed hope for the future when apparently women will be dumber than a box of rocks but very very easy, and men will have to have constant companionship (be constantly getting their rocks off with these dumber than a box of rocks women) or else they might start raping aliens (yes this is mentioned twice at least, the main character will need a companion or he might rape an alien). This makes sense though because the male lead in this story is really not much smarter than a box of rocks either, we are told he is smart, but he's not. He's a hedonistic moron who constantly needs to be entertained and have his physical needs met like a hyperactive infant. When in one of the only scenes where something really happens, this idiot is in a dangerous situation he quickly starts whining to himself that there is no entertainment. Maybe this isn't so far fetched a future man though.
Why two stars? Because for some reason the first 70 pages were actually kind of fun, but once the idea of this big ring was fully introduced there was nothing left in this book except for a plot line that was dumber than a box of dung.
The story is about as interesting as the trade war minutia of Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. In non-geeky terms, not very interesting. Actually as I went out to buy a cup of coffee this morning I thought that if Larry Niven had teamed up with George Lucas the prequel episodes of Star Wars could have been totally ruined, and maybe episodes 4-6 could have been reworked too to make them completely insipid and unwatchable. How? Well, Larry Niven seems to be really interested in stopping times for ships going really fast. For example he has some ship that can travel hundreds of light years in like three minutes or something like that, but then it takes months to slow down- now if the principles of deceleration were applied to the warp-speed (or whatever it was called in Star Wars), then so much unnecessary coolness of the first three movies could be eliminated and in the time it took say for the Millennium Falcon to slow down on a mission so much extra trade details could be included.
Anyway, for all of the details given to deceleration and the math involved in figuring out the size of the ringworld (for those who don't really give a shit, it's really really big), Niven knows shit about evolution which would be fine except that he ties up the whole story in selective breeding nonsense that makes no sense at all, and actually works as a cheap literary device to get the characters out of any situation they might happen to find themselves in. I know this is called Deus ex Machina, but in this context I like to call it Dungeon Master bullshit.
There is really no story here, except if one thinks of a story as 340 pages of how big a fucking ring is.
There are things to give the asocial and undersexed hope for the future when apparently women will be dumber than a box of rocks but very very easy, and men will have to have constant companionship (be constantly getting their rocks off with these dumber than a box of rocks women) or else they might start raping aliens (yes this is mentioned twice at least, the main character will need a companion or he might rape an alien). This makes sense though because the male lead in this story is really not much smarter than a box of rocks either, we are told he is smart, but he's not. He's a hedonistic moron who constantly needs to be entertained and have his physical needs met like a hyperactive infant. When in one of the only scenes where something really happens, this idiot is in a dangerous situation he quickly starts whining to himself that there is no entertainment. Maybe this isn't so far fetched a future man though.
Why two stars? Because for some reason the first 70 pages were actually kind of fun, but once the idea of this big ring was fully introduced there was nothing left in this book except for a plot line that was dumber than a box of dung.
September 9, 2012
I'm afraid this made me want to punch Larry Niven in the stomach on the behalf of all women everywhere. Along with people who aren't so privileged that life bores them with its comforts, but mostly on behalf of women.
A 180 year old man sleeping with a 20 year old woman? Just so wrong, and it keeps going more wrong. He writes things about Teela like
"Her lips, he saw, were perfect for pouting. She was one of those rare, lucky women whom crying does not make ugly."
It is painfully condescending, even as her power is revealed, her thinking and aware self remains enslaved to it. But I said it got worse. The females of the feline alien race on the ship are non-sentient beings whose only purpose is to have babies, and it is intimated that the puppeteers might have a similar system. We finally meet one of the Ringworld over-race whatever and it's a woman who is not too bright and there were only three women there in a crew of 36 on the spaceship she worked on so obviously she is some kind of prostitute. Why else would a woman be on a spaceship? So apart from that infuriating fact, there are sentences like "Prill tried to explain to me what happened here, as one of her crew explained to her. He had oversimplified of course." And then: "Her touch was a joy as thick as syrup. She knew a terribly ancient secret: that every women is born with a tasp, and that its power is without limit if she can learn to use it..." And she will use it to enslave and control her man, of course she will, she has no other options.
Worst of all? He names one of his creatures the frumious bandersnatch. My favourite Carroll creation, I did not appreciate finding it here. The ring world is very cool, Nessus too, but I couldn't get over the anger. Still, I finished it and it kept me turning the pages, so it is now two stars as I suppose one star is for the books I just couldn't even finish.
A 180 year old man sleeping with a 20 year old woman? Just so wrong, and it keeps going more wrong. He writes things about Teela like
"Her lips, he saw, were perfect for pouting. She was one of those rare, lucky women whom crying does not make ugly."
It is painfully condescending, even as her power is revealed, her thinking and aware self remains enslaved to it. But I said it got worse. The females of the feline alien race on the ship are non-sentient beings whose only purpose is to have babies, and it is intimated that the puppeteers might have a similar system. We finally meet one of the Ringworld over-race whatever and it's a woman who is not too bright and there were only three women there in a crew of 36 on the spaceship she worked on so obviously she is some kind of prostitute. Why else would a woman be on a spaceship? So apart from that infuriating fact, there are sentences like "Prill tried to explain to me what happened here, as one of her crew explained to her. He had oversimplified of course." And then: "Her touch was a joy as thick as syrup. She knew a terribly ancient secret: that every women is born with a tasp, and that its power is without limit if she can learn to use it..." And she will use it to enslave and control her man, of course she will, she has no other options.
Worst of all? He names one of his creatures the frumious bandersnatch. My favourite Carroll creation, I did not appreciate finding it here. The ring world is very cool, Nessus too, but I couldn't get over the anger. Still, I finished it and it kept me turning the pages, so it is now two stars as I suppose one star is for the books I just couldn't even finish.
September 11, 2017
Ringworld is definitely a sci-fi classic, a monumental achievement in world building. Any sci-fi aficionados who don’t like it should be ashamed of themselves.
Argh! It’s never pleasant to go against the conventional wisdom but over at PrintSF (online SF discussion community) I see a lot of comments along the line of “I really want to like this book because everybody say it’s great, what am I missing?” I think a lot of people try too hard to like certain books and I don’t know why, it does not entail that you are wrong or even that you are right and everybody else is wrong. You like what you like, leave it at that.
OK, enough of the irrelevant opening. There is no denying that Ringworld is a major work in the history of sci-fi. A ginormous artificial ring-shaped planet encircling a star is an amazing concept, especially as Larry Niven is able to back up the concept with real world science. Gravity generated from the centrifugal force of the planet’s programmed rotation speed, an inner ring of shadow squares to create nights, a weird "horizon" due to the shape of the planet etc. These are mind blowing concepts and very influential for later generations of sci-fi authors.
The Ringworld itself is a monumental sci-fi creation.
Where it falls down for me is the story and the characters. Having built this amazing world I don’t think the events that take place on it make for a very compelling narrative. The characters do get into a lot of trouble but their adventures do not read like edge of the seat thrills. I am having a lot of trouble explaining why the plot does not excite me here, there are many wild inventions here which are almost as awesome as the basic premise itself but I just felt detached from the narrative. Certainly part of it is the characterization, characterization is not indispensable for good sci-fi, the likes of Asimov and Clarke were mostly able to get away with quite perfunctory character developments. However, I think they told very riveting stories with the right pacing and at modest page counts. Niven’s characters in Ringworld are quite colorful but I did not care for any of them and did not give a monkey whether any or all of them snuff it through the course of the narrative.
One problem I perceive is that Niven uses the sci-fi trope of each alien species having one type of overriding character trait. The kzinti are all warlike, the puppeteers are all cowards etc. Why then are humans so diverse in personalities? Real aliens may turn out that way I don’t know but it is hard to believe in a species with one personality. Consequently the alien characters come across as a little “one note”, but come to think of it the human characters are kind of “one note” too. They don’t feel like vivid, complex believable characters, they are just there to drive the plot. By the end of the book I was feeling quite impatient to be done with it.
For “Big Dumb Object” books I much prefer Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, the characters are equally flat but the book somehow feels alive and the sense of wonder is more palpable. As for Larry Niven I am a big fan of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, especially The Mote in God's Eye which is one of my all time favorites.
Ringworld is not “bad” by any stretch of imagination, it’s me, I’m the bad one.
Rating:
5 Stars for the Ringworld planet.
3 Stars for the storyline
2 Stars for the characters
= 3.3333 (etc.) neutron stars
Note:
Another Ringworld art, this depicts a view from the surface of the planet:
Ringworld's "horizon" is interesting to imagine. Given the shape of the planet it does not really have a horizon! The above artwork is probably inaccurate though because the Ringworld is many times the size of Earth (600 million miles in diameter, one million miles wide) so you probably would not be able to seeso much any of the upward curvature. I am not sure what you would see but it would look awesome and weird!
Argh! It’s never pleasant to go against the conventional wisdom but over at PrintSF (online SF discussion community) I see a lot of comments along the line of “I really want to like this book because everybody say it’s great, what am I missing?” I think a lot of people try too hard to like certain books and I don’t know why, it does not entail that you are wrong or even that you are right and everybody else is wrong. You like what you like, leave it at that.
OK, enough of the irrelevant opening. There is no denying that Ringworld is a major work in the history of sci-fi. A ginormous artificial ring-shaped planet encircling a star is an amazing concept, especially as Larry Niven is able to back up the concept with real world science. Gravity generated from the centrifugal force of the planet’s programmed rotation speed, an inner ring of shadow squares to create nights, a weird "horizon" due to the shape of the planet etc. These are mind blowing concepts and very influential for later generations of sci-fi authors.
The Ringworld itself is a monumental sci-fi creation.
Where it falls down for me is the story and the characters. Having built this amazing world I don’t think the events that take place on it make for a very compelling narrative. The characters do get into a lot of trouble but their adventures do not read like edge of the seat thrills. I am having a lot of trouble explaining why the plot does not excite me here, there are many wild inventions here which are almost as awesome as the basic premise itself but I just felt detached from the narrative. Certainly part of it is the characterization, characterization is not indispensable for good sci-fi, the likes of Asimov and Clarke were mostly able to get away with quite perfunctory character developments. However, I think they told very riveting stories with the right pacing and at modest page counts. Niven’s characters in Ringworld are quite colorful but I did not care for any of them and did not give a monkey whether any or all of them snuff it through the course of the narrative.
One problem I perceive is that Niven uses the sci-fi trope of each alien species having one type of overriding character trait. The kzinti are all warlike, the puppeteers are all cowards etc. Why then are humans so diverse in personalities? Real aliens may turn out that way I don’t know but it is hard to believe in a species with one personality. Consequently the alien characters come across as a little “one note”, but come to think of it the human characters are kind of “one note” too. They don’t feel like vivid, complex believable characters, they are just there to drive the plot. By the end of the book I was feeling quite impatient to be done with it.
For “Big Dumb Object” books I much prefer Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, the characters are equally flat but the book somehow feels alive and the sense of wonder is more palpable. As for Larry Niven I am a big fan of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, especially The Mote in God's Eye which is one of my all time favorites.
Ringworld is not “bad” by any stretch of imagination, it’s me, I’m the bad one.
Rating:
5 Stars for the Ringworld planet.
3 Stars for the storyline
2 Stars for the characters
= 3.3333 (etc.) neutron stars
Note:
Another Ringworld art, this depicts a view from the surface of the planet:
Ringworld's "horizon" is interesting to imagine. Given the shape of the planet it does not really have a horizon! The above artwork is probably inaccurate though because the Ringworld is many times the size of Earth (600 million miles in diameter, one million miles wide) so you probably would not be able to see
January 7, 2015
Not much I can say about this.
It blew my mind.
In order for you to truly appreciate Ringworld you would have to mentally backtrack forty-odd years.
Big Ideas in Science Fiction are a dime a dozen.
Today.
But in 1970…?
Perhaps Niven’s vision upstaged his characters. Perhaps. But I could still lose myself on the ring. It fascinated me then; it fascinates me now. This novel made authors sit up and pay attention to just how big you could think if you really applied your imagination. Also, I’ve spent years wracking my mind trying to think just how that horizon must look, curving up like that for millions of miles…
Hugo Award – 1970
Nebula Award – 1971
Locus Award – 1971
Respect
Loved it then
Love it now
Favourites
It blew my mind.
In order for you to truly appreciate Ringworld you would have to mentally backtrack forty-odd years.
Big Ideas in Science Fiction are a dime a dozen.
Today.
But in 1970…?
Perhaps Niven’s vision upstaged his characters. Perhaps. But I could still lose myself on the ring. It fascinated me then; it fascinates me now. This novel made authors sit up and pay attention to just how big you could think if you really applied your imagination. Also, I’ve spent years wracking my mind trying to think just how that horizon must look, curving up like that for millions of miles…
Hugo Award – 1970
Nebula Award – 1971
Locus Award – 1971
Respect
Loved it then
Love it now
Favourites
January 9, 2023
Here’s the recipe for Ringworld. Take a few large handfuls of hard science fiction galactic engineering, several aliens with a single specific species trait, a pinch of magic (luck breeding, eternal youth serum, etc.), a quest, and a dollop of misogyny – mix well – voila! The good news is that the galactic engineering carries the day.
Amazon has announced a streaming series, so I decided a reread was in order. I read this book when I was around fourteen and all I could remember before I started the re-read was the Ringworld itself. I had no recollection of the plot or characters. Before you judge me, just keep in mind my initial read was forty-two years ago in 1979! Larry Niven released Ringworld in 1970 and it won the sci-if Triple Crown (Nebula 1970, Hugo 1971, Locus 1971). Looking back, imho the book has flaws, but it’s still brilliant world building as well as compelling and influential. I’m not sure Nivan was the first to conceive of a space megastructure, but he certainly had a significant role in popularizing the concept. Would Star Wars have had the Death Star without this book, possibly not. The video game Halo certainly would have a different setting.
The book has this interesting mix of hard science fiction and well – less hard science fiction. The amount of imagination, math, and scientific knowledge that went into this book is impressive. However, today, most scientists don’t believe a ringworld megastructure as conceived by Nivan is possible. In addition, there are many other scientific concepts that don’t seem to be rooted in scientific fact such as anti-gravity flycycles, impervious ship hulls, time stasis fields, point to point teleportation, etc. I personally don’t care, the implication of mind-stretching ideas like these are why I love science fiction. It’s just that this book is often near the top of many hard-science fiction lists.
Let’s quickly cover my opinion on the flaws. I did find the aliens to be very one dimensional – puppeteers are cowards, Kzin are reformed warmongers. It somewhat reminds me of a jumbled L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz – the cowardly lion, heartless tin man, brainless scarecrow, and Dorothy all meet up for a quest to the majestic city of Oz! Only Oz is the ringworld, and the lion is warlike, the tin man is cowardly and more of a small two-headed dinosaur (?), and Dorothy is very, very lucky. The other issue is the female characters. Of course, like most Golden Age science fiction, the women are very young, have perfect bodies and always desperately want to sleep with the much older male (200 years old) main character. One is along because she has been bred to be lucky and the other was a professional and talented prostitute on long-duration space flight. Whew, as I write this up, it seems even more misogynistic than I first thought. Hopefully, Amazon fixes that in the upcoming series.
Anywho, as I said, important book in moving space megastructures into popular science fiction and a number of cool science fiction ideas. Three orbiting stars for this hard science fiction novel, that while flawed, still had significant influence on the Science Fiction that followed.
Amazon has announced a streaming series, so I decided a reread was in order. I read this book when I was around fourteen and all I could remember before I started the re-read was the Ringworld itself. I had no recollection of the plot or characters. Before you judge me, just keep in mind my initial read was forty-two years ago in 1979! Larry Niven released Ringworld in 1970 and it won the sci-if Triple Crown (Nebula 1970, Hugo 1971, Locus 1971). Looking back, imho the book has flaws, but it’s still brilliant world building as well as compelling and influential. I’m not sure Nivan was the first to conceive of a space megastructure, but he certainly had a significant role in popularizing the concept. Would Star Wars have had the Death Star without this book, possibly not. The video game Halo certainly would have a different setting.
The book has this interesting mix of hard science fiction and well – less hard science fiction. The amount of imagination, math, and scientific knowledge that went into this book is impressive. However, today, most scientists don’t believe a ringworld megastructure as conceived by Nivan is possible. In addition, there are many other scientific concepts that don’t seem to be rooted in scientific fact such as anti-gravity flycycles, impervious ship hulls, time stasis fields, point to point teleportation, etc. I personally don’t care, the implication of mind-stretching ideas like these are why I love science fiction. It’s just that this book is often near the top of many hard-science fiction lists.
Let’s quickly cover my opinion on the flaws. I did find the aliens to be very one dimensional – puppeteers are cowards, Kzin are reformed warmongers. It somewhat reminds me of a jumbled L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz – the cowardly lion, heartless tin man, brainless scarecrow, and Dorothy all meet up for a quest to the majestic city of Oz! Only Oz is the ringworld, and the lion is warlike, the tin man is cowardly and more of a small two-headed dinosaur (?), and Dorothy is very, very lucky. The other issue is the female characters. Of course, like most Golden Age science fiction, the women are very young, have perfect bodies and always desperately want to sleep with the much older male (200 years old) main character. One is along because she has been bred to be lucky and the other was a professional and talented prostitute on long-duration space flight. Whew, as I write this up, it seems even more misogynistic than I first thought. Hopefully, Amazon fixes that in the upcoming series.
Anywho, as I said, important book in moving space megastructures into popular science fiction and a number of cool science fiction ideas. Three orbiting stars for this hard science fiction novel, that while flawed, still had significant influence on the Science Fiction that followed.
June 26, 2019
Larry Niven published Ringworld in October 1970 to much acclaim – the novel won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for best science fiction novel in 1970.
Any fan of the genre will be familiar with Ringworld, it’s frequently cited as one of the best ever and I’ve seen it on countless bookshelves and it has long been on my radar to read. It’s a SF classic and has no doubt been wildly influential on scores of works since it first came out.
To be blunt: I was a little disappointed.
I liked it, don’t get me wrong, it’s good SF and fun. A charismatic and eclectic band of adventurers from the far future set out to explore a mysterious and MASSIVE object in space – a RINGWORLD, ancient and made by distant aliens.
The ragtag team is composed of two humans – Louis Wu and Teela Brown, a Kzin named Speaker-to-Animals (a Kzin is a huge, truculent cat alien kind of like a fuzzy Klingon, and we’re the animals BTW) and a strange alien called a Puppeteer, who is very much a behind the scenes kind of guy. The four ride air cars and explore the MASSIVE, really mind bogglingly big, Ringworld and make some unexpected finds.
I compared this to Arthur C. Clarke’s brilliant Rendezvous with Rama and John Varley’s Gaean trilogy – all books about finding an ancient, mysterious alien construct world. Whereas Clarke’s characterization is – as almost always for him – visibly lacking (I don’t think he tried very hard in that area) Niven can put some good dialogue together. But I wanted to know more about the Ringworld and he focused more on the 60s kitsch journey. Other readers will no doubt be turned off by his over the top sexism and somewhat dated science descriptions.
Maybe in 1970 this was more groundbreaking, and I can see the influence on later SF, but I’ll stop here though he wrote some sequels.
Any fan of the genre will be familiar with Ringworld, it’s frequently cited as one of the best ever and I’ve seen it on countless bookshelves and it has long been on my radar to read. It’s a SF classic and has no doubt been wildly influential on scores of works since it first came out.
To be blunt: I was a little disappointed.
I liked it, don’t get me wrong, it’s good SF and fun. A charismatic and eclectic band of adventurers from the far future set out to explore a mysterious and MASSIVE object in space – a RINGWORLD, ancient and made by distant aliens.
The ragtag team is composed of two humans – Louis Wu and Teela Brown, a Kzin named Speaker-to-Animals (a Kzin is a huge, truculent cat alien kind of like a fuzzy Klingon, and we’re the animals BTW) and a strange alien called a Puppeteer, who is very much a behind the scenes kind of guy. The four ride air cars and explore the MASSIVE, really mind bogglingly big, Ringworld and make some unexpected finds.
I compared this to Arthur C. Clarke’s brilliant Rendezvous with Rama and John Varley’s Gaean trilogy – all books about finding an ancient, mysterious alien construct world. Whereas Clarke’s characterization is – as almost always for him – visibly lacking (I don’t think he tried very hard in that area) Niven can put some good dialogue together. But I wanted to know more about the Ringworld and he focused more on the 60s kitsch journey. Other readers will no doubt be turned off by his over the top sexism and somewhat dated science descriptions.
Maybe in 1970 this was more groundbreaking, and I can see the influence on later SF, but I’ll stop here though he wrote some sequels.
January 10, 2014
I have a lot of faith in science fiction but this one dented it - it's a daft cartoon of a novel in which there's this really big, you know, I mean giant big big enormous, like, world, and these aliens go there, and they droop and mumble about in it, and it's really big, and one of them looks like a carpet and the other looks like a diplodocus, and the other like an old chinaman cause you got to have an old chinaman in your far future novels, yeah. It was showered with awards but i would have showered it with something else.
August 2, 2012
On Luis Wu’s 200th birthday, he is approached by Nessus, a quasi-equine alien species knows as Puppeteers because of the two heads sprouting from their backs that are tethered by strands of skin, to undertake a remarkable journey. Being 200 years old, Luis has seen his share of the universe, so he is a bit skeptical when Nessus asks him to join a force of beings to explore the mysterious Ringworld.
So far so good.
Enter the rest of the cast.
First off, I have no problem with how any alien is created. By my count the possibility of alien life, and what these beings may look like, are limitless. So when Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzinti, is aptly described as being lion-like and ferocious I dig it; likewise, when Teela Brown is brought on board as the token (human) female with sexy attributes, I again dig it, but with a shameful misogynistic sneer. (Let’s be honest for a minute, folks. There are plenty of times in 60s, 70s, and even 80s science fiction where the female beauty is there for nothing more than sexual deviance; it was a curse of the times.) But I do have a problem with how this quartet came to be. For my money, I wanted more details of how these species interact, their histories, and even what they are like within their own cultures. Granted, Niven does give some of these details throughout the book, but, I’m greedy, and I wanted more…okay most of the book is about the interactions of these four, but I still wanted more backstory.
So the story itself. Well, you see…uhmm….how about this: Plot: Mysterious sphere (reminiscent of a Dyson sphere) is floating through space and is begging to be explored. I wish I could tell you more; alas, there really isn’t more to tell. You see this is not an adventure novel of space exploration or alien world exploration. This novel is all about ideas. If you’re the type of reader that likes to have a solid plotline throughout a story, with nice resolutions at the end, you’re going to be disappointed. There are far too many questions that never get addressed again after being introduced, and the biggie question of them all: Who are the Ringworld Engineers? is never given. Basically, RINGWORLD is a novel about the characters insofar as the Reader is allowed to understand them. For instance, there is a wonderful bit of cosmic politics about why humans, and not the Kzinti, were given the knowledge of hyperdrives from the Outsiders. (Think war war war….kind of ironic when you stop to think about it). Furthermore, the mere scope of the Ring is mindboggling. The radius of the sphere is set at one astronomical unit; that is: 93,000,000 miles. Niven explores about .000001% (guesstimate only, put your calculators away) of this through his characters. Like I said, this is a story about ideas. And because this idea of a ringworld is so powerful and unique, this novel rightly deserves to be considered canonical. Just think, where do you think HALO came from?
I digress.
Niven had an idea with this story. Nothing more. Most of the time this would cause a novel to fall flat on its face, lose the reader…not here. It is precisely for this reason that the reader becomes trapped and awed by this story, never wanting to leave, and always searching for answers. Niven allows the reader to leave the novel with all of his ideas, and the permutations of ideas that the reader had while reading the novel…that is AWESOME! Granted, Niven did buckle. He did write a sequel ten years later (THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS) explaining some of the questions and giving all those that didn’t like the original book a nice, tidy bow as an ending. I can’t say that I’ve ever read this; I can say that I will never read this because I don’t want to lose the magic of this novel. If you liked Clarke’s RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, you’ll like RINGWORLD. If not, you best steer clear of this one.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
So far so good.
Enter the rest of the cast.
First off, I have no problem with how any alien is created. By my count the possibility of alien life, and what these beings may look like, are limitless. So when Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzinti, is aptly described as being lion-like and ferocious I dig it; likewise, when Teela Brown is brought on board as the token (human) female with sexy attributes, I again dig it, but with a shameful misogynistic sneer. (Let’s be honest for a minute, folks. There are plenty of times in 60s, 70s, and even 80s science fiction where the female beauty is there for nothing more than sexual deviance; it was a curse of the times.) But I do have a problem with how this quartet came to be. For my money, I wanted more details of how these species interact, their histories, and even what they are like within their own cultures. Granted, Niven does give some of these details throughout the book, but, I’m greedy, and I wanted more…okay most of the book is about the interactions of these four, but I still wanted more backstory.
So the story itself. Well, you see…uhmm….how about this: Plot: Mysterious sphere (reminiscent of a Dyson sphere) is floating through space and is begging to be explored. I wish I could tell you more; alas, there really isn’t more to tell. You see this is not an adventure novel of space exploration or alien world exploration. This novel is all about ideas. If you’re the type of reader that likes to have a solid plotline throughout a story, with nice resolutions at the end, you’re going to be disappointed. There are far too many questions that never get addressed again after being introduced, and the biggie question of them all: Who are the Ringworld Engineers? is never given. Basically, RINGWORLD is a novel about the characters insofar as the Reader is allowed to understand them. For instance, there is a wonderful bit of cosmic politics about why humans, and not the Kzinti, were given the knowledge of hyperdrives from the Outsiders. (Think war war war….kind of ironic when you stop to think about it). Furthermore, the mere scope of the Ring is mindboggling. The radius of the sphere is set at one astronomical unit; that is: 93,000,000 miles. Niven explores about .000001% (guesstimate only, put your calculators away) of this through his characters. Like I said, this is a story about ideas. And because this idea of a ringworld is so powerful and unique, this novel rightly deserves to be considered canonical. Just think, where do you think HALO came from?
I digress.
Niven had an idea with this story. Nothing more. Most of the time this would cause a novel to fall flat on its face, lose the reader…not here. It is precisely for this reason that the reader becomes trapped and awed by this story, never wanting to leave, and always searching for answers. Niven allows the reader to leave the novel with all of his ideas, and the permutations of ideas that the reader had while reading the novel…that is AWESOME! Granted, Niven did buckle. He did write a sequel ten years later (THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS) explaining some of the questions and giving all those that didn’t like the original book a nice, tidy bow as an ending. I can’t say that I’ve ever read this; I can say that I will never read this because I don’t want to lose the magic of this novel. If you liked Clarke’s RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, you’ll like RINGWORLD. If not, you best steer clear of this one.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
November 21, 2015
Radio waves move at the speed of light. This is not particularly noticeable on Earth, but if you were at the sun, it would take eight and a half minutes for a signal to reach you, which would make a phonecall rather awkward. It would be even worse at the next closest star, Proxima Centauri, where messages take four years. Thus, the speed of light is the rate at which information moves, at which change change can propagate.
But most people don't think, when watching Star Trek, that Captain Picard shouldn't be able to have a quick chat with someone back on Earth. For those who do think that, there is Hard Sci Fi. It's a subgenre where the author actually knows something about scientific theory and tries to use that knowledge to make his world seem more reasonable to other people who know something about science.
It can be delightful to hear someone tell Commander Shepard that such communication is possible due to 'Quantum Entanglement', especially if you already know what that means (even if Shepard doesn't know, meaning you are now playing a character dumber than you). Thus, Hard Sci Fi is made up of a series of technological thought experiments, which can be very interesting, or very dull.
For instance, you can play a fun game with the author and second-guess their ideas, which OCD aspies seem to get off on. I decided to play around a bit myself and test his repeated assertion that it would take a lot of time to populate the Ringworld, thoroughly solving overpopulation problems for a species like humans.
Human beings on Earth double their population every fifty years, which is a geometric progression (x2, x4, x8, x16, x32), so that the growth gets faster and faster. The current population density of humans on the Earth is 45.3 people per square kilometer of land. Take the 6.8 billion humans on earth and move them to the ringworld (1.6×10 to the 15th square kilometers, but half of that's water), and you get eight and a half people for every million square kilometers of land. That is a lot of room to spare.
But that's before we start doubling and redoubling. Since the Ringworld's land area is 1.5 million times the land area of Earth, we'd need 1.5 million times as many people to reach the same population density. We would reach a population of 1.5 million times 6.8 billion between doublings 20 and 21, which--at 50 years per doubling--is just over a thousand years; not really that long a respite, in galactic terms.
And that doesn't even get into the migration rates, since, to get from one side of the ring to the other in a thousand years would require traveling 16 thousand miles per day, so you're probably starting to see both how distracting and how tedious Hard Sci Fi can be.
But Niven's isn't that bad, and he rarely gets into the numbers. A lot of readers might not even consider him to be real 'Hard Sci Fi' today--he's got faster-than-light travel, after all, and without a complex explanation or anything. But if a writer wants to make an engaging adventure story, they can't let themselves get too bogged down in the Science of it all. And Niven doesn't, it's just a treat for the reader who knows what to look for--some of it's even informative.
His characters are fairly straight-forward. We have a smart, introspective, science-minded guy who doesn't have a whole lot of personality. We've got distant, unusual logic alien, giant noble warrior alien, and a naive girl. It's not a bad exploration of these now-familiar tropes, even after all the intervening time.
The woman I found rather annoying, in part because she reminded me of the type of girl I usually avoided at parties: someone who had been pretty and well-off her entire life and hence, never had the need to develop a personality. I much prefer people who started our weird and awkward and only became attractive later in life.
But, at least Niven actually tries to explore this aspect of her character, instead of merely taking it for granted that this is how women are. I won't say his portrayal of women is ideal, she and the only other woman in the book are defined by their femininity and derive all of their power from sex. They do it somewhat knowingly, but it hardly makes for very complex characters or a challenging worldview, nor is it very 'alien'.
The plot itself is passable, much more sober and well-constructed than
Riverworld, but also less whimsical. It moves along at a quick pace, uncovering a few intergalactic political mysteries on the way, but we don't get a very solid conclusion at the end, so I must assume it's more of a lead-in to the next book in the series. We do get some closure, but I would have appreciated a stronger and more definitive arc.
Altogether an enjoyable, unpretentious read, and it's not hard to see why it became influential in the genre. It's not going to feel revolutionary to sci fi readers, even compared to earlier works like Star Trek and the Golden-age authors, but it's a solid, well-executed piece.
Comments below contain spoilers.
But most people don't think, when watching Star Trek, that Captain Picard shouldn't be able to have a quick chat with someone back on Earth. For those who do think that, there is Hard Sci Fi. It's a subgenre where the author actually knows something about scientific theory and tries to use that knowledge to make his world seem more reasonable to other people who know something about science.
It can be delightful to hear someone tell Commander Shepard that such communication is possible due to 'Quantum Entanglement', especially if you already know what that means (even if Shepard doesn't know, meaning you are now playing a character dumber than you). Thus, Hard Sci Fi is made up of a series of technological thought experiments, which can be very interesting, or very dull.
For instance, you can play a fun game with the author and second-guess their ideas, which OCD aspies seem to get off on. I decided to play around a bit myself and test his repeated assertion that it would take a lot of time to populate the Ringworld, thoroughly solving overpopulation problems for a species like humans.
Human beings on Earth double their population every fifty years, which is a geometric progression (x2, x4, x8, x16, x32), so that the growth gets faster and faster. The current population density of humans on the Earth is 45.3 people per square kilometer of land. Take the 6.8 billion humans on earth and move them to the ringworld (1.6×10 to the 15th square kilometers, but half of that's water), and you get eight and a half people for every million square kilometers of land. That is a lot of room to spare.
But that's before we start doubling and redoubling. Since the Ringworld's land area is 1.5 million times the land area of Earth, we'd need 1.5 million times as many people to reach the same population density. We would reach a population of 1.5 million times 6.8 billion between doublings 20 and 21, which--at 50 years per doubling--is just over a thousand years; not really that long a respite, in galactic terms.
And that doesn't even get into the migration rates, since, to get from one side of the ring to the other in a thousand years would require traveling 16 thousand miles per day, so you're probably starting to see both how distracting and how tedious Hard Sci Fi can be.
But Niven's isn't that bad, and he rarely gets into the numbers. A lot of readers might not even consider him to be real 'Hard Sci Fi' today--he's got faster-than-light travel, after all, and without a complex explanation or anything. But if a writer wants to make an engaging adventure story, they can't let themselves get too bogged down in the Science of it all. And Niven doesn't, it's just a treat for the reader who knows what to look for--some of it's even informative.
His characters are fairly straight-forward. We have a smart, introspective, science-minded guy who doesn't have a whole lot of personality. We've got distant, unusual logic alien, giant noble warrior alien, and a naive girl. It's not a bad exploration of these now-familiar tropes, even after all the intervening time.
The woman I found rather annoying, in part because she reminded me of the type of girl I usually avoided at parties: someone who had been pretty and well-off her entire life and hence, never had the need to develop a personality. I much prefer people who started our weird and awkward and only became attractive later in life.
But, at least Niven actually tries to explore this aspect of her character, instead of merely taking it for granted that this is how women are. I won't say his portrayal of women is ideal, she and the only other woman in the book are defined by their femininity and derive all of their power from sex. They do it somewhat knowingly, but it hardly makes for very complex characters or a challenging worldview, nor is it very 'alien'.
The plot itself is passable, much more sober and well-constructed than
Riverworld, but also less whimsical. It moves along at a quick pace, uncovering a few intergalactic political mysteries on the way, but we don't get a very solid conclusion at the end, so I must assume it's more of a lead-in to the next book in the series. We do get some closure, but I would have appreciated a stronger and more definitive arc.
Altogether an enjoyable, unpretentious read, and it's not hard to see why it became influential in the genre. It's not going to feel revolutionary to sci fi readers, even compared to earlier works like Star Trek and the Golden-age authors, but it's a solid, well-executed piece.
Comments below contain spoilers.
January 2, 2018
Being an engineer by nature, and by training (10 yrs at MIT), when I read this book (in the 1970s) I went supernova. Massive engineering on an unimaginable scale, made real by Niven. Fabulous!
July 2, 2017
Larry Niven takes a lot of shit. A lot. Without ever reading a word of his before I have heard him called a racist, a sexist pig and a dolt. If the racist statements attributed to him are true, well, that is deplorable but everything I can find about them is 2nd or 3rd hand and seems to be of fairly questionable authenticity. Even in the worst case I can enjoy a Roman Polanski or Woody Allen movie so I should be able to enjoy a Larry Niven book right? He is not that bad!
As far as the sexism goes, these are not the strongest female characters you will ever read. They get mocked pretty mercilessly by Louis Wu while he is boinking them at every available opportunity. I do have a fundamental problem with judging a work from 1969 by 2017 moral standards though. I love Heinlein and his cast of buxom babes. Something about reading Niven’s description of boobies as conical and later, another set as high and heavy tickles the inner schoolboy in me. I’m sorry. I can read dozens of recent books without a single description of body type and size. Larry Niven goes there .
As far as Niven’s failings of hard science go, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that the Ringworld is an impossible structure. It bothers me that a central premise of the story is that luck is a genetically inherited characteristic.
What I did like is the idea of the “tasp”, a pleasure based weapon that induces instant ecstasy and eventually addiction. I thought Niven had some terrific turns of phrase her eyes pierced him like a martini olive and some giggle inducing dialogue. I loved this exchange between Tila and Speaker-to-animals - a giant Klingon cat:
Tila: Why, does that challenge your manhood?
Speaker: My ability to procreate is not in question
Michael Dorn could not have delivered that line better.
My absolute favourite Science Fiction trope is “humans encounter massive alien object”. Rendezvous with Rama is an all-time favourite. I loved Revelation Space and Arrival.
Ringworld left me cold though and I think it is because Niven’s writing style is so devoid of clear description (other than his memorable recounting of the shape of the women's boobies). For the Kjin I see a race of Klingon cats. The “Puppeteers” I see a cowardly “Mr Men” type alien with 2 heads. For the Ringworld I see the image on the cover and found it very hard to visualise based on the writing. So many times while reading it I was like “what are we doing” “who are these people” “oh we are not at the thing” etc. The plot wasn’t complex but it just seemed to jump all over the place without any clear descriptions and I had to pick up what was happening from context. The actual descriptions of things were bare bones thin and I felt my attention frequently wandering.
The audiobook was narrated by Tom Parker and one of the few very old Audible audiobooks (1996!) that was very well done so no problems there.
As far as the sexism goes, these are not the strongest female characters you will ever read. They get mocked pretty mercilessly by Louis Wu while he is boinking them at every available opportunity. I do have a fundamental problem with judging a work from 1969 by 2017 moral standards though. I love Heinlein and his cast of buxom babes. Something about reading Niven’s description of boobies as conical and later, another set as high and heavy tickles the inner schoolboy in me. I’m sorry. I can read dozens of recent books without a single description of body type and size. Larry Niven goes there .
As far as Niven’s failings of hard science go, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that the Ringworld is an impossible structure. It bothers me that a central premise of the story is that luck is a genetically inherited characteristic.
What I did like is the idea of the “tasp”, a pleasure based weapon that induces instant ecstasy and eventually addiction. I thought Niven had some terrific turns of phrase her eyes pierced him like a martini olive and some giggle inducing dialogue. I loved this exchange between Tila and Speaker-to-animals - a giant Klingon cat:
Tila: Why, does that challenge your manhood?
Speaker: My ability to procreate is not in question
Michael Dorn could not have delivered that line better.
My absolute favourite Science Fiction trope is “humans encounter massive alien object”. Rendezvous with Rama is an all-time favourite. I loved Revelation Space and Arrival.
Ringworld left me cold though and I think it is because Niven’s writing style is so devoid of clear description (other than his memorable recounting of the shape of the women's boobies). For the Kjin I see a race of Klingon cats. The “Puppeteers” I see a cowardly “Mr Men” type alien with 2 heads. For the Ringworld I see the image on the cover and found it very hard to visualise based on the writing. So many times while reading it I was like “what are we doing” “who are these people” “oh we are not at the thing” etc. The plot wasn’t complex but it just seemed to jump all over the place without any clear descriptions and I had to pick up what was happening from context. The actual descriptions of things were bare bones thin and I felt my attention frequently wandering.
The audiobook was narrated by Tom Parker and one of the few very old Audible audiobooks (1996!) that was very well done so no problems there.
March 29, 2022
Dazzlingly huge in space is Ringworld
An artificial construct three million times the surface area of the Earth
The explorers;
Louis Wu - an old crafty human
Teela Brown - a human bred for luck
Speaker-to-Animals - a warrior Kzin alien - imagine a giant tiger
Nessus - a puppeteer alien - from a paranoid, high tech race
Think big
The rim of the ring expanded in their view. It was a wall, rising inward toward the star. They could see its black, space-exposed outer side silhouetted against the sunlit blue landscape. A low rim wall, but low only in comparison to the ring itself.
"If the ring is a million miles across," Louis estimated, "The rim wall must be at least a thousand miles high. Well, now we know. That's what holds the air in."
See;
Floating cities and fallen buildings
Fields of deadly sunflowers that burn plant-eating animals into fertilizer
Sun Squares that divide day and night
Fist of God - a mountain a thousand miles high
Ringworld is so huge that a single book cannot explore it all.
Ringworld - the first of an exciting series!
Enjoy!
An artificial construct three million times the surface area of the Earth
The explorers;
Louis Wu - an old crafty human
Teela Brown - a human bred for luck
Speaker-to-Animals - a warrior Kzin alien - imagine a giant tiger
Nessus - a puppeteer alien - from a paranoid, high tech race
Think big
The rim of the ring expanded in their view. It was a wall, rising inward toward the star. They could see its black, space-exposed outer side silhouetted against the sunlit blue landscape. A low rim wall, but low only in comparison to the ring itself.
"If the ring is a million miles across," Louis estimated, "The rim wall must be at least a thousand miles high. Well, now we know. That's what holds the air in."
See;
Floating cities and fallen buildings
Fields of deadly sunflowers that burn plant-eating animals into fertilizer
Sun Squares that divide day and night
Fist of God - a mountain a thousand miles high
Ringworld is so huge that a single book cannot explore it all.
Ringworld - the first of an exciting series!
Enjoy!
June 10, 2017
I find it hard to believe anyone got through this one, let alone its whole legion of sequels and spin-offs.
The Ringworld is such a cool concept but it's SO poorly described, I defy anyone to picture what the hell Niven is on about. It was black and on the horizon blue, a ribbon, several squares were hovering there like... WHAT?! Take some time to do this thing justice, mate! We're gonna be spending a deal of time there...
It takes too long to get to Ringworld, then when they do, nothing happens. Plus I couldn't work out how they'd landed? Wasn't there supposed to be glass on the inner surface or something? Did I read that? So confused.
It was kind of fun to see how male writers handled female characters in the 70s though ;) Ahaha, so badly. Worst sex scene ever ("impaled herself"? More like "flattered YOURself"!)—it just came outta nowhere and ended just as abruptly.
Can't recommend.
The Ringworld is such a cool concept but it's SO poorly described, I defy anyone to picture what the hell Niven is on about. It was black and on the horizon blue, a ribbon, several squares were hovering there like... WHAT?! Take some time to do this thing justice, mate! We're gonna be spending a deal of time there...
It takes too long to get to Ringworld, then when they do, nothing happens. Plus I couldn't work out how they'd landed? Wasn't there supposed to be glass on the inner surface or something? Did I read that? So confused.
It was kind of fun to see how male writers handled female characters in the 70s though ;) Ahaha, so badly. Worst sex scene ever ("impaled herself"? More like "flattered YOURself"!)—it just came outta nowhere and ended just as abruptly.
Can't recommend.
July 20, 2020
Upon re-reading I have upgraded this book an additional star.
I am starting to see a pattern that perhaps I wasn't aware of before, of older science fiction having very limited charterer depth and focusing more on the using the plot to explore scientific ideas. (The same hold true for a lot of older fantasy as well, except with fantastical ideas.)
This didn't use to bother me (when all I read was older, shallow character sci-fi and fantasy) but now, no matter how exciting the ideas are, I miss the drama and emotional insight found in newer approaches to speculative fiction or even thrillers and horror.
This book is good for it's historical period, but it might come off as a little dry for readers used to novels with deep point of view, subtext, etc.
I am starting to see a pattern that perhaps I wasn't aware of before, of older science fiction having very limited charterer depth and focusing more on the using the plot to explore scientific ideas. (The same hold true for a lot of older fantasy as well, except with fantastical ideas.)
This didn't use to bother me (when all I read was older, shallow character sci-fi and fantasy) but now, no matter how exciting the ideas are, I miss the drama and emotional insight found in newer approaches to speculative fiction or even thrillers and horror.
This book is good for it's historical period, but it might come off as a little dry for readers used to novels with deep point of view, subtext, etc.
December 22, 2008
The magic intersection point of the old and new styles of SF... basically, Golden Age space opera with cool aliens, but also including sex. (The sex isn't with the cool aliens, in case you were wondering - that's James Tiptree Jr. you're thinking of).
If you are an SF fan and have never been to the Ringworld, try and visit them some time! If you're not particularly into SF, well, these days Iain M. Banks does the same kind of thing better, so I would recommend reading "Consider Phlebas", "Player of Games" or "Use of Weapons" instead. But Ringworld is still a fun book.
June 13, 2013
Classic science fiction has always been hit or miss for me. I have always been told how great Ringword is, but I found it to be mediocre and kind of blah. It is a somewhat interesting story, but I never really cared about the characters or what they were doing, which is disappointing because the premise sounded really interesting.
September 28, 2024
*** 3.55 ***
The stars are for the concepts and the two main alien characters✨😃
I just finished my re-read of this 1970's novel and I enjoyed it, but I agree with almost all who read it for the first time in this century - It just hasn't aged well... The concepts are very intriguing and I even liked the characters. The "lucky sex bimbo" and her role in the whole thing was exploitative and I believe that was the author's point, but the matter of fact way Louis Wu thought about women and their roles in the hierarchy was quite cringe! We are talking about a male character who, because of current medical advances, looks young but is 200 years old and thinks nothing about hooking up with a very young and naive woman, Teela Brown... Doesn't help that she tells him she loves him after just a night of passion 😃. Despite all of this, which was typical for the time it was written in, the ideas of the Ringworld, its existence, the reasons for it and the aliens are fun and imaginative to read about.
I loved Nessus, the Pierson's Puppeteer, all two heads and cowardly disposition:) Also enjoyed the feline alien Kzin, Speaker-to-Animals, and really got a kick out of him sniffing around Louis Wu when he was hungry:))) I kind of wish he had eaten Teela Brown. Humanity wouldn't have lost much...
Which brings me back to Teela.... Goodness gracious! I know she was selected genetically for luck, but did that mean she had to lack all intellect and somehow reach adulthood with no human experiences that make you a human being? That part actually was the hardest for me to accept in the whole Science Fiction typical suspension of disbelief givens... Let's all hope her luck will make her happy for the rest of her life...
Yes, this has aged badly, but there are still valid reasons for hardcore fans of Sci-fi to give it a try, if not for anything else, at least to see that what we see as new has been around for a while and appreciate the history of the genre 😊👍
Now I wish you all Happy Reading and may you find what you Need in the pages of a great book 📚📖📚😃👍!
The stars are for the concepts and the two main alien characters✨😃
I just finished my re-read of this 1970's novel and I enjoyed it, but I agree with almost all who read it for the first time in this century - It just hasn't aged well... The concepts are very intriguing and I even liked the characters. The "lucky sex bimbo" and her role in the whole thing was exploitative and I believe that was the author's point, but the matter of fact way Louis Wu thought about women and their roles in the hierarchy was quite cringe! We are talking about a male character who, because of current medical advances, looks young but is 200 years old and thinks nothing about hooking up with a very young and naive woman, Teela Brown... Doesn't help that she tells him she loves him after just a night of passion 😃. Despite all of this, which was typical for the time it was written in, the ideas of the Ringworld, its existence, the reasons for it and the aliens are fun and imaginative to read about.
I loved Nessus, the Pierson's Puppeteer, all two heads and cowardly disposition:) Also enjoyed the feline alien Kzin, Speaker-to-Animals, and really got a kick out of him sniffing around Louis Wu when he was hungry:))) I kind of wish he had eaten Teela Brown. Humanity wouldn't have lost much...
Which brings me back to Teela.... Goodness gracious! I know she was selected genetically for luck, but did that mean she had to lack all intellect and somehow reach adulthood with no human experiences that make you a human being? That part actually was the hardest for me to accept in the whole Science Fiction typical suspension of disbelief givens... Let's all hope her luck will make her happy for the rest of her life...
Yes, this has aged badly, but there are still valid reasons for hardcore fans of Sci-fi to give it a try, if not for anything else, at least to see that what we see as new has been around for a while and appreciate the history of the genre 😊👍
Now I wish you all Happy Reading and may you find what you Need in the pages of a great book 📚📖📚😃👍!
July 6, 2015
This book was genuinely atrocious. For something that I've always heard described as a 'masterpiece of science fiction', I was horribly, horribly disappointed.
There are so many infuriating things about this book, it's hard to decide where to begin.
Firstly, the role of women in the novel is truly disgusting. For most of the novel, there is exactly one woman in the story. She is literally described as incredibly beautiful, very naive, sexually uninhibited, sensual, and generally helpless. She goes on a trip with the main character so that "he wouldn't have to sleep alone", and despite turning out to be "a major plot twist" in the story, doesn't do much other than have sex with the main character for most of the novel. One of the other characters even comments on "how often they copulate".
Then the second female character joins the story... and promptly starts having sex with the same character. At first it's because she's trying to use him, but when that's over, she just wants to be with him. Oh, also, she is literally a prostitute who ended up there because she was on a commercial ship servicing the crew. And then she uses her unbelievable prostitute sex skills on the main character.
There are seriously no other important women in this entire novel. The author even describes how for some of the other species in the book, women are non-sentient sex slaves / breeding cows. At one point, the author describes how the first woman's "lips are perfect for pouting", and how she was "one of the few women who isn't made ugly by crying". The misogyny is so thick, high schoolers should read this novel as a study in sexism.
The main character is extremely astute, obviously intelligent, has been alive for 200 years, and is a courageous adventurer... who, apparently, every sex goddess in the universe wants to sleep with.
It's seriously like a 16-year old boy vomited his sexual daydreams into a novel.
The rest of the novel is also terrible. There is zero character development, with one exception. The first sex consort leaves for a bit, and when she re-appears a couple of weeks later, she has noticeably matured and is more self-reliant. Don't worry, though - by this point, the sex goddess prostitute is with the main character, so he's still taken care of.
For a 'grand adventure', the novel doesn't even start off in a creative way. The main character is an overly cynical guy who is tired of people and jaded with life. Then, during his birthday, an impossibly powerful alien wizard shows up and lands an adventure in his lap. Sound familiar? That's because it's *an exact freaking rip-off of The Hobbit*.
The novel makes a big deal of the mystery of "what happened to the Ringworld civilization", and a tremendous amount of the dialogue in the story is the characters trying to figure it out. When it finally is explained, it's basically an afterthought with absolutely no impact on the story, and is entirely forgettable.
Near the end of the book, it becomes clear that this James Bond-like main character is going to solve everything. Despite the other characters spending the entire novel *not* following him, and the main character even commenting that he is a bad leader, he becomes the leader... and refuses to tell anyone his plan. Over and over again they ask him, and he just says, "I guess you'll have to see". I *hate* this literary device. It's such a tremendously lazy way to create drama and tension.
The writing itself is also horrid. At times, I literally burst into laughter at his word choice. Other reviews on this site describe how the writing is so bad that they can't even follow the dialogue. I could follow the dialogue most of the time, but I almost wish I couldn't.
Ugh. I have to stop writing this review. I don't want to think about this book for any longer than I have to.
I honestly cannot fathom how or why this novel won awards. For anything.
There are so many infuriating things about this book, it's hard to decide where to begin.
Firstly, the role of women in the novel is truly disgusting. For most of the novel, there is exactly one woman in the story. She is literally described as incredibly beautiful, very naive, sexually uninhibited, sensual, and generally helpless. She goes on a trip with the main character so that "he wouldn't have to sleep alone", and despite turning out to be "a major plot twist" in the story, doesn't do much other than have sex with the main character for most of the novel. One of the other characters even comments on "how often they copulate".
Then the second female character joins the story... and promptly starts having sex with the same character. At first it's because she's trying to use him, but when that's over, she just wants to be with him. Oh, also, she is literally a prostitute who ended up there because she was on a commercial ship servicing the crew. And then she uses her unbelievable prostitute sex skills on the main character.
There are seriously no other important women in this entire novel. The author even describes how for some of the other species in the book, women are non-sentient sex slaves / breeding cows. At one point, the author describes how the first woman's "lips are perfect for pouting", and how she was "one of the few women who isn't made ugly by crying". The misogyny is so thick, high schoolers should read this novel as a study in sexism.
The main character is extremely astute, obviously intelligent, has been alive for 200 years, and is a courageous adventurer... who, apparently, every sex goddess in the universe wants to sleep with.
It's seriously like a 16-year old boy vomited his sexual daydreams into a novel.
The rest of the novel is also terrible. There is zero character development, with one exception. The first sex consort leaves for a bit, and when she re-appears a couple of weeks later, she has noticeably matured and is more self-reliant. Don't worry, though - by this point, the sex goddess prostitute is with the main character, so he's still taken care of.
For a 'grand adventure', the novel doesn't even start off in a creative way. The main character is an overly cynical guy who is tired of people and jaded with life. Then, during his birthday, an impossibly powerful alien wizard shows up and lands an adventure in his lap. Sound familiar? That's because it's *an exact freaking rip-off of The Hobbit*.
The novel makes a big deal of the mystery of "what happened to the Ringworld civilization", and a tremendous amount of the dialogue in the story is the characters trying to figure it out. When it finally is explained, it's basically an afterthought with absolutely no impact on the story, and is entirely forgettable.
Near the end of the book, it becomes clear that this James Bond-like main character is going to solve everything. Despite the other characters spending the entire novel *not* following him, and the main character even commenting that he is a bad leader, he becomes the leader... and refuses to tell anyone his plan. Over and over again they ask him, and he just says, "I guess you'll have to see". I *hate* this literary device. It's such a tremendously lazy way to create drama and tension.
The writing itself is also horrid. At times, I literally burst into laughter at his word choice. Other reviews on this site describe how the writing is so bad that they can't even follow the dialogue. I could follow the dialogue most of the time, but I almost wish I couldn't.
Ugh. I have to stop writing this review. I don't want to think about this book for any longer than I have to.
I honestly cannot fathom how or why this novel won awards. For anything.
November 9, 2022
This is a great, fun read once you get past the sexism (which seems, with the lone exception of the Hainish Cycle by Ursula Le Guin, pretty much par for the course of 60s and 70s sci-fi). The idea of the Ringworld was brilliant and certainly was a big inspiration to the ring in my fave sci-fi TV show, The Expanse as it was also built and abandoned untold eons before it was rediscovered by Louis, Speaker-to-Animals, Teela, and Nessus with similarly impenetrable defenses. The hard sci-fi of the Ringworld hits a stride once our team reaches the artifact and starts their exploration. I enjoyed all the science and ideas: the various aliens were original and fun. Having just finished A Fire Upon the Deep, it struck me that there may be a trope of having 4 voyagers because thinking of it, The Expanse, Fire Upon the Deep and Ringworld all had this glaring similarity. I preferred the physics and aliens in Niven's world but was put off by how casually he brushes aside any signs of female intelligence and .
But, I liked the world-building and physics enough to want to try the sequel The Ringworld Engineers.
But, I liked the world-building and physics enough to want to try the sequel The Ringworld Engineers.
September 12, 2024
March 2023 reread. Last read decades ago (1970 book), and I'm amazed how sharp my memories of it are. Louis Wu and his Motley Crew! The Luck of Teela Brown! "In challenging a Kzin, you scream and you leap!" Nessus the Pierson's Puppeteer, with a voice like a teenager's dream-girl. I'll have to look for actual quotes that people have posted. See below for a few.
My booknotes say this is my third read, with the last in 1993. Huh. If he keeps up with the wonderful opening, I'm likely to raise my rating?
Well. By p.80 (of 342, mmpb), more warts are starting to show. First, the physics: basically, it's early-60s Physics-100 level stuff. Do recall that Niven flunked out of CalTech then. Hey, I should talk -- I struggled with entry-level physics too, at about that time. Even the math to handle Physical Chemistry was a struggle. Why do you think I ended up in Geology? Eyes and hands suffice, to start, and I had a WONDERFUL Geol-100 lecturer. His name escapes me -- this would have been ca. 1966 -- but he had a great trick. He would be rattling on, about this & that. Then my neighbor would nudge me. Dr. Whozit would pull out a little bag of Bull Durham and a cigarette-paper, expertly fill the paper & neatly lick it, roll it almost as tight as a ready-roll, light up -- and give the class a big shit-eating grin. Texas, 1965! Different century, different world.
My college GF smoked Pall Malls & introduced me to that forbidden pleasure (among others). And her lips would taste so good after!
Intoxicate me, my cigarette
And give me a scornful air,
I want to stay cold and silent
While hearing sweet confessions.
--Lucianne Boyer, "Dans la Fumee", 1930
More notes from my reread:
@p. 89. Teela Brown offends the resident Kzin by telling him that he is "cute."
"Do not ever say that again. Ever."
@p. 138, the Lying Bastard has crash-landed on the Ringworld, after unfortunate encounters with the shadow-square wires and the anti-meteor defenses, the latter in top-notch working order. The novel has settled into a Thrilling Wonder Story, with the trip as One Damn Thing After Another. Which plays to Niven's strengths. A great writer of character-driven fiction, he is not!
@p. 224: "A kind of war god," Louis said. Teela was making hiccuping sounds. Well, you had to be there!
@p. 234, in the ancient floating palace. Nessus reveals the Curse of Ringworld tech: it would have been absolutely dependent on cheap transmutation, once the move-in and disassembly of the local planetary system was finished. If the transmutation machines ever failed, they were well & truly fucked!
Halrloprillalar Hotrufan! “Prill” for short. By far the most interesting new character: an interstellar ramship crewman, stranded on the Ringworld when her ship broke down a thousand years ago. Her people had very good “boosterspice” but she’s not quite sane. A VERY well-trained and experienced sex-worker! She belonged to a Guild! By their rules, she had to learn to play a musical instrument. . .
Still. Just 3 women in a crew of 30! A definite whiff of misogyny — especially since Niven made the female Kzinti non-sentient. You can see why women readers might down-check the book (and author) for that!
By contrast, Teela Brown is something of a washout. The Birthright lottery! Puppeteers as puppet-masters. Now she’s going to walk around the entire Ring for her Wanderjahr? I never quite believed in the “Luck as Magic” shtick . . .
The selective breeding of Kzinti for (comparative) docility, now, I was totally onboard with that!
The ending: well. Niven remembered Tolstoy’s Rule, and put that super-strong shadow-square wire to good use. And of course I remembered about Fist-of-God mountain, and why it wasn’t on the old Ringworld maps! Worked just fine, and I have “Ringword Engineers” on hand for reread. Which some argue was his best novel. Or at least best in the series?
Ringworld #1: 4.4 stars from me. High marks. A Vintage Classic!
My booknotes say this is my third read, with the last in 1993. Huh. If he keeps up with the wonderful opening, I'm likely to raise my rating?
Well. By p.80 (of 342, mmpb), more warts are starting to show. First, the physics: basically, it's early-60s Physics-100 level stuff. Do recall that Niven flunked out of CalTech then. Hey, I should talk -- I struggled with entry-level physics too, at about that time. Even the math to handle Physical Chemistry was a struggle. Why do you think I ended up in Geology? Eyes and hands suffice, to start, and I had a WONDERFUL Geol-100 lecturer. His name escapes me -- this would have been ca. 1966 -- but he had a great trick. He would be rattling on, about this & that. Then my neighbor would nudge me. Dr. Whozit would pull out a little bag of Bull Durham and a cigarette-paper, expertly fill the paper & neatly lick it, roll it almost as tight as a ready-roll, light up -- and give the class a big shit-eating grin. Texas, 1965! Different century, different world.
My college GF smoked Pall Malls & introduced me to that forbidden pleasure (among others). And her lips would taste so good after!
Intoxicate me, my cigarette
And give me a scornful air,
I want to stay cold and silent
While hearing sweet confessions.
--Lucianne Boyer, "Dans la Fumee", 1930
More notes from my reread:
@p. 89. Teela Brown offends the resident Kzin by telling him that he is "cute."
"Do not ever say that again. Ever."
@p. 138, the Lying Bastard has crash-landed on the Ringworld, after unfortunate encounters with the shadow-square wires and the anti-meteor defenses, the latter in top-notch working order. The novel has settled into a Thrilling Wonder Story, with the trip as One Damn Thing After Another. Which plays to Niven's strengths. A great writer of character-driven fiction, he is not!
@p. 224: "A kind of war god," Louis said. Teela was making hiccuping sounds. Well, you had to be there!
@p. 234, in the ancient floating palace. Nessus reveals the Curse of Ringworld tech: it would have been absolutely dependent on cheap transmutation, once the move-in and disassembly of the local planetary system was finished. If the transmutation machines ever failed, they were well & truly fucked!
Halrloprillalar Hotrufan! “Prill” for short. By far the most interesting new character: an interstellar ramship crewman, stranded on the Ringworld when her ship broke down a thousand years ago. Her people had very good “boosterspice” but she’s not quite sane. A VERY well-trained and experienced sex-worker! She belonged to a Guild! By their rules, she had to learn to play a musical instrument. . .
Still. Just 3 women in a crew of 30! A definite whiff of misogyny — especially since Niven made the female Kzinti non-sentient. You can see why women readers might down-check the book (and author) for that!
By contrast, Teela Brown is something of a washout. The Birthright lottery! Puppeteers as puppet-masters. Now she’s going to walk around the entire Ring for her Wanderjahr? I never quite believed in the “Luck as Magic” shtick . . .
The selective breeding of Kzinti for (comparative) docility, now, I was totally onboard with that!
The ending: well. Niven remembered Tolstoy’s Rule, and put that super-strong shadow-square wire to good use. And of course I remembered about Fist-of-God mountain, and why it wasn’t on the old Ringworld maps! Worked just fine, and I have “Ringword Engineers” on hand for reread. Which some argue was his best novel. Or at least best in the series?
Ringworld #1: 4.4 stars from me. High marks. A Vintage Classic!
September 12, 2021
Debo reconocer que se me ha hecho pesado, no por los tecnicismos, que considero que no llegan al nivel de otros libros de ciencia ficción dura, tan característicos en la época del género al que pertenece esta novela, sino más bien por el ritmo.
Comienza muy prometedor al presentar el argumento, los conflictos internos de los personajes principales (aunque son bastante básicos) y seres extraterrestres bastante originales. Sin embargo, a los pocos capítulos, se vuelve bastante lento y repetitivo. Hay capítulos enteros que no aportan absolutamente nada, así como son muy pocos en los que se descubre algún hecho importante que tendrá incidencia en la trama.
A pesar que la propuesta es interesante, el estilo del autor la transforma en una lectura algo aburrida, hasta que se llega a las últimas páginas, donde todo se cierra a la rápida y con muy poco cuidado.
Comienza muy prometedor al presentar el argumento, los conflictos internos de los personajes principales (aunque son bastante básicos) y seres extraterrestres bastante originales. Sin embargo, a los pocos capítulos, se vuelve bastante lento y repetitivo. Hay capítulos enteros que no aportan absolutamente nada, así como son muy pocos en los que se descubre algún hecho importante que tendrá incidencia en la trama.
A pesar que la propuesta es interesante, el estilo del autor la transforma en una lectura algo aburrida, hasta que se llega a las últimas páginas, donde todo se cierra a la rápida y con muy poco cuidado.
May 26, 2013
This was a blast to read. It was great, escapist, old school science fiction at its best. It's a pretty light read, with fast moving short chapters all in single narrative. The story is a classic exploration tale taking place on an alien artefact that is one of the most amazing concepts ever imagined in my opinion. The Ringworld is an enormous artificial ribbon one million miles wide with the diameter of Earth's orbit. It's basically a partial dyson sphere.
"Take Christmas ribbon, an inch wide, the kind you use to wrap presents. Set a lighted candle on a bare floor. Take fifty feet of this ribbon, and string it in a circle with a candle at the center, balancing the ribbon on edge so that the inner side catches the candlelight. (Niven, 71)"
The ribbon is Ringworld and the candle is the alien sun. The inner side that cathes the lights is the habitable zone. Here's where it gets crazy: the habitable flat inner terrain has a surface area of about 3 MILLION Earth-like planets. This thing was built for some serious room. The mystery is who built this thing, and what the hell for?
We follow four main characters each with a different motive on an expedition to Ringworld. The interaction between them is what really made me enjoy this book more than anything. There is a 200 year old human (in perfect physical condition due to an age extension substance called boosterspice) that has become bored with his life, a two headed, tripedal alien that comes from an extremely advanced civilization yet is painfully and comically afraid of everything, a tiger-like warrior species who has become semi docile after their species were nearly wiped out by mankind, and a young woman who is so lucky that she doesn't know what fear or pain is. The relationship between these four strangers as they try to understand each other while they simultaneously struggle to comprehend the majestic and enigmatic Ringworld, is really entertaining. I read somewhere that Niven is a master at creating aliens, and I can't disagree. Nessus (the two headed tripedal alien) is worth the price of admission alone, as he has become one of my new favorite sci fi characters ever. That strange paradox of coming from such a technologically advanced race while constantly turning itself into a ball at the slightest threat, was very fun and made me laugh out loud several times. The girl unfortunately was a really flat character that didn't really add very much except be the only other human's love interest/penis storage.
I've read some criticism about whether or not Niven is sexist because he doesn't create very well rounded female characters. I dont think that's the case in Ringworld, but the muted female presence was something typical of that time (1970s) in science fiction, so I didn't think much of it. It's a stigma that has stayed with this genre because of those classic science fiction authors that didn't create complex female characters, whether by choice or simple lack of ability. I imagine Niven's target audience here was probably adolescent boys anyways. In fact, I wish I had read this when I was much younger, because it would've been in my wheelhouse.
It's far from perfect, however. I think alot more could've been done with what was actually found on the Ringworld, and would like to know a whole lot more about the natives. Sure there were killer sunflowers, flying buildings, and a storm created from a meteor strike that looked like a gigantic human eye, but for some reason, the last third of the book was kind of ho hum. The ending felt a bit rushed too.
You know, it's strange to have nostalgia for a book that I just read for the first time, but oddly enough, that's exactly what I feel. Maybe I even read it when I attended Hammocks Middle School and went across the street to the library almost every afternoon during my golden age of reading, and I simply forgot after all the decades of hard drugs, booze, sex, and rock and roll.
There's something comforting and familiar in this book. Or maybe its going back to that much simpler time in science fiction where aliens spoke English, the speed of light could be broken, and we could come to understand the biggest mysteries of the universe. There is great optimism in Niven's universe. It reminded me in alot of ways to Gene Roddenberry's vision of mankind's awesome future. In these bright futures, mankind has grown up from its infancy of constant warfare and self destruction and instead has begun to explore a relatively unhostile galaxy. In these bright futures, the stars are reachable and we're no longer alone.
It may be that there really is nothing groundbreaking in Ringworld 43 years after it was published. We've seen a ringworld in the famous HALO videogame franchise, and wierder more interesting aliens have been depicted elsewhere. There are much better writers out there with much more fluent beautiful prose and deeper characters that in Ringworld, but there was something that just felt right,comforting, and genuinely fun in Ringworld. For that I will give it one more
extra star than it probably technically deserves.
May 3, 2013
Oh TANJ! Why did I read this book?! It should have been titled BoRingworld!
August 2, 2017
The concept of a ringworld is wonderful - Niven's story, not so much, yet good enough to entice me back into after the mega-structure on't otherside of the universe is currently topical (if indeed, anyone could use the term 'otherside' when talking about our curving and folding universe). Great fun for sci-fi week here on goodreads.A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures most or all of its power output. TED Talk: Tabetha Boyajian · Astronomer. Tabetha Boyajian is best known for her research on KIC 8462852, a puzzling celestial body that has inspired otherwise sober scientists to brainstorm outlandish hypotheses.
May 27, 2010
There's a word often bandied about when people discuss books, particularly fantasy and science fiction books, which often involve the creation of worlds unlike our own. That term is (perhaps unsurprisingly) worldbuilding. And if ever there were a paradigm case for worldbuilding, Ringworld would be it. The eponymous structure is not a planet but, for all intents and purposes, functions as one. With a simple concept and a little bit of physics, Larry Niven has a striking novum that's brand, setting, and mystery all in one. If only Ringworld lived up to that potential. . . .
The first half of the book wasn't bad. Watching Nessus recruit Louis, Speaker To Animals, and Teela was a fascinating look at Niven's far future. I can't say I was able to visualize the puppeteers very well, but I got the idea of transfer booths, cat-like Kzinti, hyperdrive, etc. This is my first science fiction book by Larry Niven, and it instilled in me a good opinion of Niven's ability to balance carefully hard science fiction concepts (like an adherence to relativistic travel) with soft science fiction (an emphasis on the sociological effects of spaceflight and unexplained plot devices like hyperdrive). Specifically, I loved his sociological asides, such as Louis' speculations about how much Nessus and other Puppeteers have interfered with human and Kzinti development. Niven makes good use of the time it takes to reach and explore the Ringworld itself to show us his version of the future.
Alas, once the action is restricted to the Ringworld and the new goal is to discover any remaining pockets of Ringworld Engineer civilization, the only thing remarkable about the story is the alacrity with which it becomes unremarkable. It's apparent that something happened to cause civilization to "fall" on the Ringworld. Louis' speculation about a microbe that ate away at complex compounds eventually proved correct (and very cool, I'll admit). That isn't enough to save the book from a mediocre trip from the crash site to an abandoned city, where they meet up with a surviving Engineer (who is more like a prostitute, posing as a god). Along the way, we had to endure torturous talk about how Teela was "bred for luck". As a result, she has almost zero free will, because nearly all her actions result from chance. I'm sceptical about accepting this whole "breeding for luck" idea, but suspension of disbelief compels me to shelve the matter and ignore Niven's incessant speculations. If only Niven hadn't similarly ignored the most interesting part of Ringworld itself: its inhabitants!
I'm talking about the fallen descendants of Engineers, of course, not the original inhabitants. Louis himself, near the very end of the book, reflects on the fact that the Ringworld is so vast as to support a great diversity of cultures. And Nessus makes a valid point that, because it isn't a planet and the Engineers could just transmute matter from one form to another, the Ringworld has no metal ores to mine. The only way to make tools is to scavenge what's left from abandoned cities. It would have been interesting to see how those diverse cultures and see how they've adapted to the unique challenges of living on a ring (which they think is an arch). Aside from a few scenes where Louis and the others pose as gods and meeting Seeker, we don't get a lot of face time with the natives. Niven and his characters are more obsessed with what happened to the Ringworld Engineers and (understandably) getting off the Ringworld.
It might seem strange that I didn't share their obsession. After all, I'm a technophile. The Ringworld is an awesome idea, and I was curious to discover who had built it. Nevertheless, I'm jaded enough that I was sure—especially after learning that civilization had fallen—that the answer wouldn't be very satisfactory. I was right.
After shrouding it in so much mystery, Niven reveals that the demise of Ringworld civilization wasn't nearly so mysterious. Louis was right about the microbe. The Engineers are dead, mad, or integrated into the fallen societies scattered around the ring. Only Pril is left to tell her story. But because Louis and Nessus had already unravelled much of that story on their own, there wasn't much left to serve as a surprise or a twist.
But it's the journey, not the destination, right? Aside from my complaints about not showing us more Ringworld culture, it's true that Niven gives us plenty of episodic events on the way toward the rim wall. We get killer sunflowers, a massive storm, and a floating castle with a holographic map. Ringworld would be an awesome place for a roleplaying game, just because it's such a wonderfully built world.
So in case I haven't browbeaten you enough yet, I'll be explicit: Ringworld is great because of its worldbuilding and sucks because of its story. If you're one of those people who likes reading about intriguing hypothetical constructions like rings, Dyson spheres, etc., then you should probably read this book. However, one cannot draw much satisfaction from the mystery of the Ringworld or the characters who try to solve it. Unlike the Ringworld, they aren't built nearly so well.
My Reviews of the Ringworld series:
The Ringworld Engineers →
The first half of the book wasn't bad. Watching Nessus recruit Louis, Speaker To Animals, and Teela was a fascinating look at Niven's far future. I can't say I was able to visualize the puppeteers very well, but I got the idea of transfer booths, cat-like Kzinti, hyperdrive, etc. This is my first science fiction book by Larry Niven, and it instilled in me a good opinion of Niven's ability to balance carefully hard science fiction concepts (like an adherence to relativistic travel) with soft science fiction (an emphasis on the sociological effects of spaceflight and unexplained plot devices like hyperdrive). Specifically, I loved his sociological asides, such as Louis' speculations about how much Nessus and other Puppeteers have interfered with human and Kzinti development. Niven makes good use of the time it takes to reach and explore the Ringworld itself to show us his version of the future.
Alas, once the action is restricted to the Ringworld and the new goal is to discover any remaining pockets of Ringworld Engineer civilization, the only thing remarkable about the story is the alacrity with which it becomes unremarkable. It's apparent that something happened to cause civilization to "fall" on the Ringworld. Louis' speculation about a microbe that ate away at complex compounds eventually proved correct (and very cool, I'll admit). That isn't enough to save the book from a mediocre trip from the crash site to an abandoned city, where they meet up with a surviving Engineer (who is more like a prostitute, posing as a god). Along the way, we had to endure torturous talk about how Teela was "bred for luck". As a result, she has almost zero free will, because nearly all her actions result from chance. I'm sceptical about accepting this whole "breeding for luck" idea, but suspension of disbelief compels me to shelve the matter and ignore Niven's incessant speculations. If only Niven hadn't similarly ignored the most interesting part of Ringworld itself: its inhabitants!
I'm talking about the fallen descendants of Engineers, of course, not the original inhabitants. Louis himself, near the very end of the book, reflects on the fact that the Ringworld is so vast as to support a great diversity of cultures. And Nessus makes a valid point that, because it isn't a planet and the Engineers could just transmute matter from one form to another, the Ringworld has no metal ores to mine. The only way to make tools is to scavenge what's left from abandoned cities. It would have been interesting to see how those diverse cultures and see how they've adapted to the unique challenges of living on a ring (which they think is an arch). Aside from a few scenes where Louis and the others pose as gods and meeting Seeker, we don't get a lot of face time with the natives. Niven and his characters are more obsessed with what happened to the Ringworld Engineers and (understandably) getting off the Ringworld.
It might seem strange that I didn't share their obsession. After all, I'm a technophile. The Ringworld is an awesome idea, and I was curious to discover who had built it. Nevertheless, I'm jaded enough that I was sure—especially after learning that civilization had fallen—that the answer wouldn't be very satisfactory. I was right.
After shrouding it in so much mystery, Niven reveals that the demise of Ringworld civilization wasn't nearly so mysterious. Louis was right about the microbe. The Engineers are dead, mad, or integrated into the fallen societies scattered around the ring. Only Pril is left to tell her story. But because Louis and Nessus had already unravelled much of that story on their own, there wasn't much left to serve as a surprise or a twist.
But it's the journey, not the destination, right? Aside from my complaints about not showing us more Ringworld culture, it's true that Niven gives us plenty of episodic events on the way toward the rim wall. We get killer sunflowers, a massive storm, and a floating castle with a holographic map. Ringworld would be an awesome place for a roleplaying game, just because it's such a wonderfully built world.
So in case I haven't browbeaten you enough yet, I'll be explicit: Ringworld is great because of its worldbuilding and sucks because of its story. If you're one of those people who likes reading about intriguing hypothetical constructions like rings, Dyson spheres, etc., then you should probably read this book. However, one cannot draw much satisfaction from the mystery of the Ringworld or the characters who try to solve it. Unlike the Ringworld, they aren't built nearly so well.
My Reviews of the Ringworld series:
The Ringworld Engineers →
July 11, 2018
"Read Ringworld!" she said.
"Read Ringworld!" he implored.
"Read Ringworld you lazy muthafucka!" I chided myself.
"Okay already! I'll read it. Now lay off!" other me shouted back.
Larry Niven sci-fi classic is not filled with a lot of action. It's mostly about exploration, some space theory and some alien character development. By the time you're done with it, you can definitely see that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the series that followed makes sense.
I really enjoyed this, but I know some people have complained about it's humorous side. It's no Hitchhiker's Guide... but perhaps it is a bit silly at times. That didn't bother me. The preponderance of theory tends to drag down the excitement level at times, so I was glad for a bit of lightheartedness now and then.
The main characters are well-defined, so that by the midway point I could probably have guessed who was speaking without dialogue tags. They were enjoyable people to spend a novel's worth of time with, and I could see myself moving on to the next book to see where their lives lead them.
"Read Ringworld!" he implored.
"Read Ringworld you lazy muthafucka!" I chided myself.
"Okay already! I'll read it. Now lay off!" other me shouted back.
Larry Niven sci-fi classic is not filled with a lot of action. It's mostly about exploration, some space theory and some alien character development. By the time you're done with it, you can definitely see that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the series that followed makes sense.
I really enjoyed this, but I know some people have complained about it's humorous side. It's no Hitchhiker's Guide... but perhaps it is a bit silly at times. That didn't bother me. The preponderance of theory tends to drag down the excitement level at times, so I was glad for a bit of lightheartedness now and then.
The main characters are well-defined, so that by the midway point I could probably have guessed who was speaking without dialogue tags. They were enjoyable people to spend a novel's worth of time with, and I could see myself moving on to the next book to see where their lives lead them.
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