Rating: 
Summary: All I can say is that 1970 must've been a bad year for......
Review: ...science fiction. I guess I'm what you'd call a SF fanatic. I love to read it in all forms (short stories, flash fiction, space operas, historical SF, theoretical manipulation, etc.), but Ringworld fell flat for me. The story surrounds four characters: two humans, a two headed 'puppeteer' (who seems to be the equivalent of the cowardly lion with substantial brainpower), and a Kzin (just picture an eight foot Tony-the-Tiger with claw killing capabilities of Edward Scissorhands). These four head out to a newly discovered Ring around a sun some 200 light years from known space. Teela Brown (a human woman) goes along with the group because of her breeding (she was bred for luck), Louis Wu (the other human) goes along because of his past experiences with alien cultures, Nessus (Puppeteer) is the defacto controller of many events as the story unfolds and is part of the founding society that discovered the 'Ringworld,' and Speaker-To-Animals is the Kzin (a warrior race) who joins the group because of his killing skills and prowess. The characters are shallow and rarely believable. The story unfolds in an almost amateurish fashion and there were several times where I let the book slide from my hand and laughed at it. Seriously laughed at it! How could this have won the Hugo and Nebula awards? Indeed 1970 must have been a VERY bad year. But if the characters were bad (and they were), the science was good. And this is what tended to shine through, throughout the story. Mr. Niven takes great joy in explaining the Ringworld structure, the strings that hold the various shadow sections in place (yes, I know...it's a puppet analogy...but so what, it's weak in character), the spaceship travel times and drive systems, the flycycle controls, etc. ad nauseum. If he'd spent half that time developing the characters into fully fledged personas and the cultures they encountered (which are TERRIBLY lacking in development) into fully understandable societies, I would have enjoyed this novel 200 percent better. But as it stands, it's a poor book from my perspective. It needs much more, and it simply didn't have it. And didn't touch on opportunities to further these characters into the minds of the reader. C+ is my grade. And that's generous.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic science-fiction adventure in Niven's Known Space
Review: RINGWORLD has become Larry Niven's most successful novel, winning the Hugo and Nebula awards upon its release in 1970. It follows the multitude of stories in his Known Space universe written in the late 1960s (collected in NEUTRON STAR), and tells of the discovery of a massive ring-shaped world around a star 200 light years from Known Space. The novel opens with the 200th birthday celebration of Louis Wu in the mid-2800s. This is an era so far ahead of Niven's earlier short stories (Beowulf Shaeffer lived in the mid-2600s) that puppeteers are only a faint memory and the fusion drive has been replaced by the reactionless engine for which the Outsiders were charging a trillion stars in the story "Flatlander." Entering a transfer booth, Wu is diverted to a hotel room in which the mad puppeteer Nessus offers the job of exploring the Ringworld, which the puppeeters have just discovered in their retreat from the Galactic Core explosion. Louis Wu and Nessus are joined by Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzin ambassador, and Teela Brown, a ditzy young woman who seems to be incredibly lucky. After briefly visiting the puppeeter exodus (which is in a form that will surprise those who formed their impression of its appearance from NEUTRON STAR), Louis Wu and company arrive at the Ringworld, hoping only to reconaissance and return to Known Space. A crash landing forces them to explore this remarkable world, 93 million times the size of the Earth, and treat with its shocking inhabitants. The luck of Teela Brown seems to have a large influence on their travels, and the travelers are drawn into a quest much larger than they foresaw. Characterization in RINGWORLD isn't perfect. Louis Wu and Teela are annoyingly obsessed with sex, and Speaker-to-Animals and Nessus are unconvincing as aliens. Nonetheless, the real main character of the novel is the Ringworld itself, one of the most ingenious concepts in science fiction. A million miles wide and over 100 million miles long, its scale defies human imagination RINGWORLD is built upon the Known Space short stories Niven wrote from 1966-68 and it's absolutely necessary to read the collection NEUTRON STAR to have any idea what's going on in RINGWORLD. It's worth it, the Known Space stories are Niven's best works, many are award-winners. RINGWORLD is an excellent cap to the Known Space short stories and a highly entertaining adventure. I'd recommend it to any fans of science fiction who have enjoyed Niven's short stories in that universe. However, be aware that the two sequels it spawned are very poor indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT LISTEN TO THE NEGATIVE HYPE!!!
Review: i seriously do not know how anyone could judge this book or the series badly. this is true sci-fi - the concepts are second to none - very few writers could convincingly create a believeable world as mind-boggling huge and intriguing as the ringworld - a soild hominid-built ring that orbits a sun - 40 million times bigger than the earth! the story is non-stop action with gadgets that will blow your mind. i dont see how anyone could be disappointed by the amount of gadgets in this book - this is the future - this is why we read these book - to get an idea of the level of technology that we have yet to even grasp. and Niven backs these brilliant ideas up with amazing theory and mechanical descriptions, making them so much more believeable.
Now the characters - where the [heck] do start - i wont even go into that much because i could write forever! they are absolutely fantastic, intriguing, funny, deep and incredibly intelligent. the interaction between the characters is one of the reasons why i have reread the series - Niven is a gem at developing an intense relationship between such diverse aliens that have come together to explore this incredible relic.
i could go on and on and on - but just read the book and you will soon find out. i cannot believe a movie has not been made about this book. Niven has written some other great novels - but i do believe he was born specifically to write this series. DO NOT LISTEN TO NEGATIVE HYPE - it has won awards for a reason - and dont forget it was written in the 70s and is still a convincing sci-fi novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad science and fiction
Review: If you have ever wondered why science fiction have bad reputation outside the field, look no further. The reason is that genuinely bad books are hailed as science fiction classics. Rinworld is such a book and a reason why science fiction is laughed at.
Ringworld is a gadget story. That is, a book whose only noveltry is some gadget, in this case the ringworld, otherwise characterised by bad writing and plotting.
The science is wonky as well. The concept of genetic luck is of course unintentionally funny.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: A good book. The concept behind it is amazing and the science is interesting. I'll also agree with some of the negative reviews here because the story is a bit slow and does depend a lot on other books by Niven. Still, it is a good book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A Classic Misnomer
Review: I've heard a lot about Larry Niven and Ringworld so, wanting to see what all the fuss was about, I bought a copy. The front cover of the book describes itself as "THE LEGENDARY AWARD WINNING CLASSIC!" (all in caps, just as shown) and Niven as a "New York Times Bestselling Author." Well, I read it. And I really did not like it. It certainly didn't live up to the hype. The blurb on the back of Ringworld explains just what a "ringworld" is, which I found to be an interesting concept: a fancy artificial habitat built by a long-dead race, waiting for someone to explore it. But this seems to be the most interesting part of the book: an interesting setting, but a mediocre story.
Besides the concepts of a ringworld and the technical issues involved in the construction and maintenance of one, the other main device used in the story is the concept of 'genetic luck.' That is, that luck is a genetic property and, if breeding was determined by a lottery as was on a future Earth in this story, then only the lucky could breed and would thus create a race of extremely lucky people. Frankly, I found this entire concept to be absurd. Couple that with poor writing and mundane characters, and you get a book based on some interesting ideas, but nothing else. I don't understand why this book is hailed as a "legendary classic." That is certainly a misnomer. I regret having purchased it, and now I'm stuck with it. The cover has even started to detach from the binding so I can't resell it for very much. Maybe it's my genetic unluckiness.
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Imaginative!!
Review: This was an awesome read! I read it when I was in high school. I thought it was awesome then. This was the first Larry Niven book that I read. It turned me on to some of his other works. I compare the Ringworld series to the Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke. This series is just incredible. The whole concept of a civilization being so advanced that they can manipulate their solar system.... Wow! I plan on re-reading the entire Ringworld series one after the other.... Buy/Borrow this book as soon as you can.....
Rating:
Summary: Generally known as a classic.....
Review: ....but not to me. I dig Niven b/c he uses a lot of "hard" sci-fi and there's plenty evident here; however, it definitely helps to be familiar w/the species of the characters before undertaking this book. (Check out some of Niven's "Known Space" novels and short stories.) The sheer number of species introduced can make your head spin, and the journey *to* the Ringworld seemed more exciting than the voyage *on* it. Intriguing indeed were the discussions of the RW's possible origins and dimensions, but these, to me, were few and far between.
Rating:
Summary: had to force myself to read the whole thing
Review: the style is choppy, the characters unbelievable and poorly developed and the story had nothing that held me in its grasp except the desire to finish the book. some of the ideas were interesting, but they were underdeveloped. for example, tell me more about the puppeteers. that could be some thought provoking science fiction. leave out the attempts at ironic contrasts of non-existent societies. they weren't even worthy of bad science fantasy. basing an entire book on a modification of the dyson sphere is no reason for praise. i plan on reading one more in the ringworld series to see if the writing improves.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: An entertaining look at a world that is a thin ring thousands of miles long. This is a classic and mind-blowing piece of hard science fiction, with the emphasis on the cool implications of the enormity of Ringworld. The characters tend toward the scifi cardboard cutouts familiar to the genre, but this is not to be missed for scifi fans. A better Niven book for the characters, although not the science, is Footfall. Also check out the Mote in God's Eye, a fascinating look at a totally alien world.
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