Ringworld (Known Space Series)

Classic?

This book has been greatly misplaced. It needs to be included in the classics section of every bookstore. It tells the story of the human species impeeding doom due to our over population. It also explores theories behind human thought. Is Teela Brown incredibly lucky, or is it Louis's delusionary vision of her? The rumor of her luck has spread and turned into reality by people's altered perceptions. This alienates her from society, placing her as some sort of a god. Although not as tradgic as the other titles I listed, Ringworld is an exploration into human thought as well as exploration into the great unknown.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I Absolutely love this book.

I Absolutely love this book.

Excellent world building & a mediocre plot

This book was more an exercise in world building than anything else. For the most part it feels like the point of the book is "let's explore this awesome Dyson sphere variation while examining inter-species relationships." There is definitely character development that takes place as well, but to me it comes off as primarily an exploration and survival book. The world explored is incredibly interesting, but I found the main character a bit distasteful. He is a bored-with-life 200 year old man who is pragmatic, self-centered, sex-obsessed, and unlike the other characters seems very little changed/improved by the whole experience. The storytelling was a bit jerky, and I though the foreshadowing regarding a big plot point toward the end was incredibly obvious. Overall: I'm glad I read this for the excellent world-building but probably won't bother to ever read it again.

Great SciFi that keeps you guessing

I read this book over a vacation and enjoyed every page. It was difficult to figure out what was going to happen and the themes were invigorating and suspenseful.

Thwarted by High Expectations

I've read a number of award-winning scifi novels 'e.g. Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, Ender's Game, etc.', and have always been very pleased with the experience. Enter Ringworld. It's a neat idea, to be sure. As an engineer, I found the concept of a ringworld to be very fascinating but the implementation of Ringworld was anything but. It wasn't awful ... I've read worse, but how this won the Hugo and the Nebula, I truly have no idea.

A classic? Are you kidding?

This is the one and only book I have read from Niven..and I may never read another. I give it one star only because the idea of Ringworld is something different. The book was boring, the characters uninteresting. I picked it up because I was working my way through some top sci-fi lists and kept seeing it show up. I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone ever thought this book was anything more than a b-movie script.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Niven's classic had few flaws

This book is very rich in description, color and characterization. My favorite characters were the nonhumans, Speaker the Kzin and Nesus the Puppeteer. The story was fast pace, revealing, mysterious and suspenseful. It was also good fun and is a must read for any fan of Sci-Fi. The only weak link in the book - in my opinion - was the character of Teela Brown. She did more to provide annoyance to me as a reader and was typically in the way the entire story, even though her character does serve an overall purpose.

Ringworld features ideas of Dyson

Physicist Freeman Dyson (a real person) thought up the alternative,artificial world which Larry Niven writes about in this novel with such convincing clarity. It's an exciting story, with sharply-conceived and strange characters and an appealing style.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Originality, Character, & Superb Plotting

Larry Niven is one of those few writers that I return to constantly. In Ringworld, he creates another aspect of his Known Space series. His expertise, not only in plot building, but characterization is rarely matched. To read Niven, is to develop a friendship with the people within the pages. Ringworld, like most of Niven's efforts, is a book that reads as well the third or fourth time as it did the first. I highly recommend this book, as well as any other in Niven's considerable body of work.

Classic Novel of Hard Science Fiction

This is a classic novel of hard science fiction-- it's the one that showed how it is done. This is an exciting adventure about exploration of a strange, enormous artifact in space with a mixed crew of human and aliens. If you like science fiction adventure, this is the classic

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