Rating: 
Summary: Well... it is a fair follow up story to ringworld.
Review: I like Louis Wu. He is nearly my favorite Larry Niven character. So when this book came out years past I ran down to the book store and bought a copy. The book is sort of about Louis Wu and the old gang of the two previous Ringworld series. Some of the writing about Louis is quite good. (Spoiler Warning) Louis has a terminal disease from being off booster spice. His cure is quite innovative when looking at things on a microscophic level. My hat is off to Larry for thinking of such an good solution to an illness. I didn't care for the new characters. They tend to come into the main thrust of the novel and I just wanted to learn more about the Hindmost and Chmee. Chmee is just busy running his life and he treats everything as an afterthought. Perhaps I would be this way if I lived on a stable Ringworld with a bunch of wives and a Kingdom to defend. But, to Larry Niven fans, this is still classic Niven. The last few chapters makes up for some of the dull parts. Remember, Pak do not like automation. Since the death of Teela Brown there has not been a Pak on Ringworld. Thus we have the true crux of Ringworld's problem: it does not have a Pak running the structure. A paranoid Puppeteer is not a replacement for a Pak. You'll have to read this novel before "Ringworld's Children" comes out for the Summer.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop Reading Before its Too Late
Review: The 'professional' reviews for this book are much too kind. Compared to Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers, Throne is a major disappointment through and through. I just kept slogging along through the unreadable narrative, uninteresting characters with unpronounceable names whizzing by my head, looking forward to every sensible moment with Louis and the Hindmost. I only finished reading it because the Protectors storyline finally started to get my interest in the end. I should have stopped reading at page 100.
Rating:
Summary: Not a patch on the first two....
Review: The first two ringworld novels were great, and I had read pretty much all of LN's work up to 10 years ago. I finished this book today and most of it made no sense. I assumed that this was due to the length of time it is since I read the first two Ringworld titles, but the other comments here suggest that I just wasted my time. No plot, the book rambles along and the ending leaves you thinking 'so what'. Not much is revealed about the Ringworld apart from serial 'rishing'. The first few hundred pages is irrelevant to the rest of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not up to the first two
Review: If you've read the first two Ringworld books,You'll probably enjoy this one, it's gotmore details about Ringworld, and (this is new) a large section written from the perspective of Ringworld natives. It's quite interesting, especially if you are (like me) a Ringworld nut. On the other hand, I dont think it quite lives up to the first 2 books (which I'd rate 10), despite being quite a bit longer. And the ending was just a tad hard to follow I dont know if Niven quite has the touch he used to. I dunno. If you've read the first 2 books, read this! (Make sure you've read them, though, otherwise this book would be incomprehensible)
Rating:
Summary: A pointless, directionless sequel
Review: Larry Niven's Ringworld (1970) is one of the truly great SF novels. A crew of four, comprising Louis Wu, a cynical, 200-year-old man; Teela Brown, a young woman bred for luck; Speaker-to-Animals, an aggressive, cat-like Kzin; and Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, a technologically advanced race whose highest virtue is cowardice. The four of them go exploring on a recently discovered artifact: a gigantic ring a million miles wide and as big around as Earth's orbit. The sequel, The Ringworld Engineers (1980), starts twenty years later, with Louis Wu and Speaker (now known as Chmeee) returning to the Ringworld with the Hindmost, the deposed leader of the Puppeteers, to find a supposed transmutation device that the Hindmost thinks will help restore him to power. Along the way they discover various alien civilizations, Vampires (non-sentient, blood-eating hominids), and Ghouls (eaters of the dead who trade in information). They also learn that the orbit of the Ringworld has become eccentric and it will destroy itself in a matter of years unless they can save it. And then . . . there's The Ringworld Throne, where the only mystery yet to solve is, apparently, "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Larry Niven?" To say that Throne is a disappointing sequel is an understatement. The story picks up about a year after The Ringworld Engineers leaves off. Louis Wu and his motley crew are still stranded on the Ringworld after human-turned-Pak-protector Teela buried their spaceship under tons of lava. Unfortunately, Niven has changed a major premise of the last book. Engineers ended with an unthinkable moral dilemma: whether to allow the Ringworld and its trillions of occupants to be destroyed, or save it at the cost of several hundred million lives. This should weigh mighty heavily on Louis Wu's mind, but Niven lets him off the hook: the Hindmost announces that he could control the Ringworld's meteor defenses more precisely than anticipated, and thus was able to minimize the deaths. Had this been revealed at the end of Engineers it would be a hideous deus ex machina. As it is, it's just very sloppy writing; Niven conveniently no longer has to deal with a more complex protagonist. From here, Throne is basically two intertwined but generally unrelated stories. The first deals with an infestation of Vampires. Louis Wu is legendary on the Ringworld for once boiling an ocean to destroy a field of mirror sunflowers (which kill their prey by focusing sunlight on it and burning it). The resulting cloud cover cut off their light. However, one unintended consequence of this feat is a never-ending overcast sky, ideal for the spreading of Vampires. This, Niven gets right; all actions, however noble, may have unintended side effects that are not so good. The resulting battle between the locals and the Vampires drives about two-thirds of the novel's action. It's unfortunate that the vast majority of this action involves neither the principal characters nor the mysteries of the Ringworld itself. The appeal of the Ringworld novels is directly proportional to the amount of time Louis Wu spends exploring it. Instead we are treated to four or five different species of hominids comprising thirty-odd interchangeable individuals with unpronounceable names, alternately fighting vampires and "rishing" with each other (i.e. inter-species sex for the sake of binding contracts or forging friendships). It's monotonous, and in the end, there's no payoff. No more of the Ringworld's mysteries are revealed. Meanwhile, Louis Wu and the Hindmost are investigating why the Ringworld's remaining Pak protectors are destroying incoming ships and interfering with species other than their own. This part of the novel is completely incomprehensible, and I won't even attempt to explain what goes on. It doesn't help that the majority of the action is viewed through telescopes, communication devices, and so forth. Finally, we get to follow the principal characters around, and the story is a mess. This novel reveals nothing new about the mysteries of the Ringworld, nor does it develop the characters or the series' plot any further. If Ringworld's Children can't make sense of all this, then sadly one of the great hard-SF world ends not with a bang, but a whimper.
Rating:
Summary: Unpleasant Surprise
Review: Having read just about every science fiction novel with Larry Niven's name on the cover, I was sure that Ringworld Throne could not be as bad as the reviews.
I was wrong.
If there was a plot, I could not find it. Or it may have been all twists.
The introduction and reintroduction of various species and characters progressed nicely from the previous novels, but there was no development.
And with as much sex as there was in this novel, there was no climax. Or it was premature since most of the interesting stuff happened early.
There were almost no engineering goodies and the other inhabitants of "Known Space" were shot down before they got close.
From someone who has read even the co-authored books, this was a sorry effort. Maybe its time to pass this series on as some other authors have done.
Rating:
Summary: Surely this can't be Larry Niven!
Review: First off-I love Niven's work. I got hooked on him about a year ago when I read Ringworld. After that, I went back and read the entire Known Space series in a rough chronological order. This series is very good. However, about 100 pages into Ringworld Throne, I had to log into this site and look up the reviews to make sure I hadn't landed in the Twilight Zone. Sure enough, most people had come to the conclusions I had...this book is horrible. First off, he uses too many rediculously long names with shallow characters that you can't possibly keep track of (the cast of characters in the back of the book might help with this). About 30 pages in, I found myself just skipping over the names and trying to get an idea of where he was going with the plot. Second, the narrative is so disjointed and difficult to read it is hard to believe this is the person who created the astounding original Ringworld novel. It is very rare that I do not finish a book, but after 100 pages, I just couldn't stand it any longer. Sorry Larry...this book hurt. Despite the love I have for your work, this novel receives one star.
Rating:
Summary: As if the first two of the trilogy never existed.
Review: This reads like the work of an author who wrote two excellent books, then took some time off during which he explored funky religions and had an "awakening." The book opens slowly and pokes along, He inroduces many characters with interchangeable names. "Rishathra," interspecies sex for treaty building etc. got small billing in the first two novels. In this one it becomes the focus. Things pick up a bit halfway through, but overall this has little in common with "Ringworld" and "The Ringworld Engineers."
Rating:
Summary: Were These Niven's Notes...Actual Work Still Due?
Review: This effort from Mr. Niven has perhaps more to do with completing a trilogy simply for the sake of completing it...than being a serious attempt at story telling. Having read many other Niven works, I recognize this likely to be in the vein of 'write a book, fulfill a contract, get whining fans off my back;" tired successful author, minimal involvement. Certainly, the possibilities were nearly endless to develop a good plot, embellish the story with excellent scene descriptions, characterizations, and drama. Unfortunately the experience of the actual read is akin to reviewing overly long Cliff notes...disjointed, major point highlights, skim through, etc. Such are the sad realities when a long career draws near an end, perhaps. When a writer has been as excellent as Niven - can we help but want to experience again the wonderment?
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly Disappointing, Pointless Dribble
Review: The Ringworld Throne is not up to par with its predecessors. To begin with, the first half of the book follows characters that supposedly died in the last book. These characters fight battles against a city of vampires that seem to have no importance what-so-ever. The main character, Louis Wu, isn't even brought into the story until halfway through. When Louis is introduced it is to fight people from his old homeworld (Earth). Rather than attempting to leave the Ringworld (he was stranded in the last book) he teams up with the Hindmost (from the previous book) and a bunch of nobodies that simply appear when convenient. My favorite character in the series, Speaker-to-Animals/Chmeee isn't even in this book. Rather, he sends his son to "learn from Louis". This story seems forced from the first moment to the last. Though the locations and a few of the characters (the less interesting ones in my opinion) remain from the previous story, the plot of this one has nothing to do with the grand epic that was Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers. This book is simply a huge disappointment.
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