Ringworld

Rating:
Summary: Not for sentient creatures
Review: What a disappointment. I have to read this book for a class on sci-fi. Now I am a computers-are-sexy, nerf-sword-fighting, SETI-screensaving nerd...so I should know what to appreciate. Not this. Niven has a few shiny ideas; aliens use pleasure-stimulator guns as weapons, beings engineer gigantic hollow spheres and planet-ribbons that circle stars. But the 20-year-old chick in love with the 200-year-old protagonist makes me retch at her stupidity. Yes, Virginia, you wear more than slippers when you go out to walk on lava. If you are on the inside of a ring facing the sun--guess what?--the sun never sets. Eh. I'm not all the way through, so hopefully it gets better. The outlook, however, is grim.

Rating:
Summary: A kids book at best.
Review: This would be a good read for a jr. high student that hasn't read any good books and is just beginning to read for fun. It reminded me of Rendezvous with Rama, which I might add was also a lousy book. If you are an aspiring sci-fi writer don't read this book; it will only diminish any writing skills you previously had. The story as well as the characters are shallow. Don't even ask about the "luck" thing, it's just a stupid idea.
I think Larry has made enough money off this "Legenday Award-Winning Classic!". My recomendation: DON'T READ IT, Time is too precious to waste on an overhyped book such as this. Read Alfred Bester, Jack Vance, Tolkien, and Douglas Adams instead.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: The earth of the future is a bleak depressing place devoid of orginality.

How does the earth cope with overcrowding and overpopulation? Simple you build a new planet within easy reach of the planet.

This "planet" is enormous each person could have there own personal space of 100 square miles. But as the first settlers arrive they realize that getting to ringworld was just the beginning. This is one of my most favorite books in science fiction. Mr. Nivian has created a wonderful premise here and it continues in other books of the serise. If you enjoy a good story I suggest you read this.

Rating:
Summary: Ingenious, but a flawed masterpiece
Review: Ringworld won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best science fiction book of the year. It also spawned a series of sequels. The book deserves it - the idea for the Ringworld itself is ingenious. A ribbon surrounding a star, spinning for centripetal force (i.e. gravity), will have a huge surface area and would support life just as a normal planet (albeit without seasons). Niven has this world invented by an ancient alien race and sets 4 people out to explore it. Only 2 of the 4 explorers are human. The alien explorers are Niven's second great invention. One is a "Puppeteer," a herbivorous race whose defining characteristic is its cowardice (they won't do anything unless it's completely safe). The other is the "Kzin," fierce, enormous tiger-like carnivors that fought multiple wars with humankind in the past. The intrepid travellers arrive at the Ringworld, but find no evidence of activity. They blunder into some automatic defense systems (taking their spaceship for a meteor), and are consequently marooned on the ring. The story basically follows the quest of the explorers to escape the Ringworld that has apparently suffered a collapse of civilisation.

This exploration itself is not really that important; there's little in the travel and exploration that is particularly exciting or inventive. For adventure through exploration, Clarke's Rendevous with Rama is much better. Instead, the development of the Puppeteer race and the conflict between the three races of the exploration party contains the bulk of the interest. In addition, there are some neat but plausible scientific dodges that make Niven's universe believable and open to countless additional opportunities (hence, sequels are likely to be just as good as this book).

Unfortunately, the Kzin race is much more standard (think feline Samuri and you have the basic idea). The main human character is interesting, but his (young, nubile, and female) companion is not. Niven invents the idea that luck is a hereditary trait (inherited by this young woman), and allows the 4 travellers to be tossed about by the whims of her so-called luck/fate. While it's convenient to move the plot along, it adds a sense of artificial contrivance that the book would do better without. She could have been useful as the voice of inexperience (therefore someone to whom the reader could relate) who needed various scientific or social themes explained; instead she is uninterested and flakey, so serves no purpose (except to move the plot).

I do recommend this book. The 3-star level is less than it deserves. It doesn't quite make it to 4-star status, in spite of its ingenious inventions, mostly because the plot feels linear and contrived in spite of the wonder. It is reminiscent of Farmer's "Riverworld" series, but much more plausible and better written.

Rating:
Summary: Original, Great Fun
Review: Ringworld is perhaps the most unique Sci Fi story that I have ever read. The entire premise of the "Ringworld" is full of intriguing possibilities, though Niven chooses to leave something of a mysterious quality about the giant artifact. The actually story takes place many years in the future, after contact with many alien races. The story is interesting, following four adventurers--two humans, a Kzin (giant tiger alien) and a Puppeteer (too weird to describe here). The crew ventures through space to the Ringworld. They explore it from above and below, until a mysterious power crashes them onto the Ring itself. From there it's a fight to discover the secrets of the Ring, to learn from its people, and ultimately, to survive.

Ringworld is one of my favorite books (and I've read quite a bit of Sci FI). Despite some loose ends and unsolved mysteries, it stands well on its own. It goes very well with its sequel, together making one of the most memorable Sci Fi stories of all time.

Rating:
Summary: a good read
Review: This is my first niven book to read since being an adult and I thoroughly enojoyed it. The idea of the ringworld and the mysterious culture who built it fascinated me. I found the math , science, and physics to be excellent. However the characters were a bit underdeveloped. I also found the way they interacted with each other to get a little laughable near the end, especially the aliens. The plot was great but sometimes the pacing was a bit off and you miss the jump from one sceen to another. But overall this book was great!

Rating:
Summary: Niven's Best
Review: Niven has a strange way of managing to blend hard science fiction with some wacky humor. Or maybe it's just me. I dunno. In any event, Ringworld seems to accomplish this. The Ringworld is an intermediate between planets and the Dyson sphere, a theoretical structure put forward by Freeman Dyson as the preferred body to live on by what would probably be considered a Type II civilization. (If I remember correctly, the theoretical Type II civilizations can harnass the energy of stars, and a Type III civilization can harness the power of entire galaxies. I don't remember what Type I was, but I'd guess that the Ringworld would be about 1.5. To give you some idea, I think the scale puts the most technologically-advanced civilization on Earth as something like Type 0.6.). In exchange for the design plans for an ultrafast hyperdrive, along with the prototype, the puppeteer Nessus has humans Louis Wu and Teela Brown and kzin Speaker-to-Animals explore the Ringworld. The four become marooned on the Ringworld, where civilization has long ago toppled into barbarism. With some ingenuity manage to escape, except for Teela, who stays behind of her own volition.

One thing that is never satisfactorily explained, though, is how it is that the Ringworld engineers and inhabitants, all slight variants of humanity, arrived there. There is some vague speculation that they might have been taken as pets or such from Earth by another alien species, but no real explanation. This is explained in _The Ringworld Engineers_, but since Niven hadn't originally intended to write the sequel, it seems odd that he didn't wrap up this question in Ringworld.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review: Ringworld is a good science fiction book. However I don't think it merits being called a classic. The idea is great, the exploration of a gigantic populated ring around a far away sun, sort of a subset of a Dyson Sphere, with living space comparable to a billions of planets. The book also gets off to a good start as we are introduced to the characters, two humans and two aliens, and they go off on their quest. What disappointed me was that the potential that the exploration of this great artifact offers was never quite realized. Our explorers go from one place to another and none inspired in me the awe I was expecting from locations on such an exciting object. Compare this for instance with Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke where the tension never lags. Also, probably because I haven't read Niven's previous books, I found the aliens becoming more comical as the book progressed, which detracted from the tension (but may have been intentional by the author).
However this was a good read and I will go on and explore some of its prequels.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: If you are a fan of adventure or science fiction, you will instantly fall in love with this novel by Larry Niven. Niven has created a masterpiece that has something for people of all types, young and old alike. The book paints a disturbing picture of what futuristic earth looks like, and the immense powers the species of sthe universe have. From controlled breeding experiments designed to produce large quantities of luck in a human being, to the power to move entire worlds across space, the species are quite powerful. The book describes a scenario in which earth and many other planets of the galaxy will be destroyed by the power of the novae of several stars in the galactic core. As the different species work together to avoid this destruction, the find an artifact that is very large, and has the shape of a ring. To give you a sense of how large it is, the radius of the ring is the distance from earth to the sun. When the exploring members of the races land on the ring they discover that all civilization has fallen. Now without any power and a way to get their ship off of the inside wall of the ring, they must explore, and try to find help. Ring world will captivate the entire audience and is impossible to put down. There is stunning detail which can only hint at the vast imagination of Niven. Luscious pictures are painted of the ewnvironment of Ringworld, and ominous paintings created of gigantic floating cities that crashed to the ground when all power was lost on Ringworld. Niven's imagination of the technology that futuristic species will posses is amazing. He has thought of every last ship part and exactly how it works. It is a surprisingly quick read for a 350 page book. Order Ringworld today, and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Painful
Review: For me reading Ringworld was, in a word, painful. I understand that a good deal of this pain came from the fact that I am not a fan of "hard science". Yes, the concept of the Ringworld and Dyson spheres is facinating, I even like the idea of genetic luck, but I simply didn't enjoy reading 300 pages of pure technical description. I would have read that and more if there had only been some decent character interaction. There were glimmers of hope when the puppeteer's plotting came out, but no, the characters simply went their seperate ways and ignored one and other, as if Niven himself was afraid to concieve their emotions. Instead of focusing on these interactions we were left with the only character that did not seem to care who also did not want to talk about it and only contacted the interesting characters when he wanted to talk about the technical aspects of their escape. Overall I feel that there were the seeds of an interesting story, but they failed to flourish.