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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. View all 18 comments. Sep 27, Paul Bryant rated it did not like it Recommends it for: 12 year olds. Shelves: sf-novels-aaargh. 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 sh 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. View all 3 comments. If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Let the parent sun have mass M. Put the center of the Ringworld at the origin, with the axis of rotation along the z-axis.

Now, place the sun at dr along the x-axis a small perturbation in the plane o If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Now, place the sun at dr along the x-axis a small perturbation in the plane of the Ringworld.

Call the distance from the sun to the part of the Ringworld at angle t, R t. View 2 comments. Being an engineer by nature, and by training 10 yrs at MIT , when I read this book in the s I went supernova. Massive engineering on an unimaginable scale, made real by Niven. Jun 29, Stevie Kincade rated it it was ok Shelves: reviewed , audiobooks. 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.

He is not that bad! As far as the sexism go Larry Niven takes a lot of shit. 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 by moral standards though. I love Heinlein and his cast of buxom babes. I can read dozens of recent books without a single description of body type and size.

Larry Niven goes there. It bothers me that a central premise of the story is that luck is a genetically inherited characteristic. 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. Rendezvous with Rama is an all-time favourite. I loved Revelation Space and Arrival.

For the Kjin I see a race of Klingon cats. For the Ringworld I see the image on the cover and found it very hard to visualise based on the writing. 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 ! 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 th Upon re-reading I have upgraded this book an additional star.

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. The magic intersection point of the old and new styles of SF The sex isn't with the cool aliens, in case you were wondering - that's James Tiptree Jr. 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 The magic intersection point of the old and new styles of SF 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. Jun 10, Leo Robertson rated it it was ok. 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 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"! Can't recommend. 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. May 26, Guillermo rated it really liked it. 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. 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. 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 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.

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 s 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. Feb 10, Martin rated it it was amazing Shelves: science-fiction , love , recently-reviewed , travel.

Dazzlingly huge in space is Ringworld An artificial construct three million times the surface area of the Earth image: 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 image: 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 t Dazzlingly huge in space is Ringworld An artificial construct three million times the surface area of the Earth image: 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 image: Think big The rim of the ring expanded in their view.

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. Well, now we know. That's what holds the air in. Ringworld - the first of an exciting series! 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. Tabetha Boyajian is best known for her research on KIC , a puzzling celestial body that has inspired otherwise sober scientists to brainstorm outlandish hypotheses.

View 1 comment. Jul 11, Jason Koivu rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , sci-fi. I'll read it. Now lay off! 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 kno "Read Ringworld!

I really enjoyed this, but I know some people have complained about it's humorous side. It's no Hitchhiker's Guide 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. I'm always told that I have to make concessions for books written before a certain time.

And I try … but in this case there were just too many of the things that irk me thrown together. First off, the idea of the ringworld and the various astrophysical explanations were clever and innovative, that's for sure, but … … there was too much explanation going on. Characters explaining things to one another all the time. Sometimes jumping to conclusions where I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I'm always told that I have to make concessions for books written before a certain time.

Sometimes jumping to conclusions where I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I really didn't miss a hint how they got their ideas. The characters themselves felt extremely flat, like caricatures and ever so often behaving like in a kindergarten. And the women - I don't even want to call them women - they were the bimbos of the week, their main purpose to be there and have sex with the leading character. I felt myself wincing every time they came into a scene.

So, even with the lenience that the book is from I can only give 2 stars. It was quite some work to get through it - cause I was zoning out ever so often - and for me personally little reward.

May 03, Flink rated it it was ok. Oh TANJ! Why did I read this book?! It should have been titled BoRingworld! Jul 05, Ben Hilburn rated it did not like it. 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 goe This book was genuinely atrocious.

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 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. 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 years, and is a courageous adventurer It's seriously like a 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? 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. Over and over again they ask him, and he just says, "I guess you'll have to see".

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.

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. I recently reread this and it's still delightful after all these years. Niven is so much fun because of his fascinating ideas, and the playfulness with which he approaches them. The ringworld is a beautiful work of art, technology, and imagination.

Ditto time stasis fields, mirrored focusing sunflowers, using generated gravity as an art form, hurricanes shaped like giant human eyes. Even more fun are the glories of the Puppeteer home planets flying to the edge of the galaxy in a kemplerer rosett I recently reread this and it's still delightful after all these years.

Even more fun are the glories of the Puppeteer home planets flying to the edge of the galaxy in a kemplerer rosette Niven lets us revel in this glorious xenophilia that he has. His aliens are delightfully non-human. I did find myself surprised by how sexist many of the underlying assumptions were, which I don't remember thinking the first few times I read these books back in the 70s. I guess that shows we are making some kind of progress in our society. Back in the s, room temperature superconductors seemed a lot more technologically advanced than they do now, and the idea of Lewis Wu clacking away on a typewriter in college circa is laughable.

It reminds me of Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones" from the s which had the Stone family calculating interplanetary orbits on their slide rules.

This and Protector are my two favorite Niven books. I find Niven alone to be far superior to the Niven-Pournelle collaborations that came later.

What is Ringworld? Ringworld is a curiously contradictory science fiction novel. For a novel so concerned with the finer details of the exact science of alien technology it also features some bizarrely pseudo-scientific fantasy conceptions. However, it's use of technology and its ideas are an indication alone as to why it should be read despite some major flaws which become more obvious as the reader delves further into the story. Larry Niven's novel is claimed as a major influence of the crit What is Ringworld?

Larry Niven's novel is claimed as a major influence of the critically acclaimed Halo videogame series. It is not difficult to see the inspiration taken from this novel with the ideas of the Engineers and the large Ring shaped world which make up the central component of this novel. The nature of exploration and the discovery of a mysterious history on the world also bear similarities to the game series.

However, where Halo is the tale of wars between humans and aliens this novel is the tale of aliens working together with humans to work out what the mysterious ring structure is. Flaws The flaws of the novel are numerous and indeed detract from the magnificence of the ideas present. After all, it is staggering to think about the fact that it could possibly take ships travelling at lightspeed practically ages to slow down again.

And that is one of the groundbreaking scientific thoughts that Niven analyses in his novel. Yet, unfortunately the flaws detract from this and make it a slog at times to read through the book. Deus Ex Machina: Niven, unfortunately, relies upon this heavily criticised literary technique in several key moments of the book, creating a patchy conclusion to his novel.

Even worse, he utilises it badly and without the comic grace and ability of a Douglas Adams. His deus-ex-machina comes across merely as merely filling in the gaps with an explanation beyond the realms of understanding or the novel's own internal logic.

Pacing: The novel stays at a relatively constant slow pace, held there by the dryness of Niven's prose style. The beginning of the novel, however, is served rather well by this beginning, as it draws the reader into the richly imagined future of Earth where overpopulation, alien races and new technologies exist. Prose: Niven at times resorts to periods of telling rather than showing in his narration. This turns out to be the greatest weakness in his style because apart from that he shows a rather workable ability to utilise description and elements of suspense and surprise in his writing.

That said, there were also one or two noticeable lapses in the tense where it shifted from past tense to present. Pseudo-science: The pseudo-science of Niven's novel is irksome and bemusing. As mentioned above, it is fascinating to see how a writer so concerned with locking down physical understandings of alien technology could so rapidly move towards ideas closer linked to fantasy.

Romance: The romance in the novel was unfortunately rather ham-fisted in its execution. Though one can see why Niven writes the way he does the romance comes across as merely about uncaring sexuality rather than about loving individuals as they are. Niven also, unfortunately overemphasises the romantic elements to the point where they become tedious, restating the same ideas in the exact same words.

The Deeper Ideas It has been proposed by theorists that science fiction can be examined and potentially fantasy as well since the two genres are highly linked as performing literary cognitive dissociation. This being that science fiction takes the ideas and ideologies of reality and transposes them into fictional, imaginary worlds.

One can read Lawrence Durrell and observe what Alexandria was like when he wrote, yet one cannot necessarily read John Wyndham and understand what world he writes about from his literal writing. However, through understanding cognitive dissociation one could see that Wyndham incorporated elements of the fear of socialism into his novels. The major ideas in Ringworld are those of greater classics such as Frankenstein. Namely a warning about the dangers of using science, or using any power, in a godlike fashion.

In Ringworld the results of experiments create an individual who wields power in a way as to control others as puppets. There is also an unfortunate sense of sexism within this novel. Though Niven tries to create a sense of equality with transexual aliens one cannot help feeling that the romantic angle is a male-dominated relationship revealing how Louis Wu uses the sensitive, child-like Teela Brown.

At the end it seems that Niven attempts to correct this view spoiler [through revealing that Teela had been using Louis hide spoiler ] however much of the damage has already been done and the 'fix' comes across as wish fulfilment, with the problem merely moved to a different character.

Conclusion A novel with plenty of promise and one of the finer openings in any science fiction novel. However, the failings of the novel ultimately drag it from the realms of being rated as a truly great masterwork and into the realms of merely existing as an influential science fiction novel.

At times, however, Larry Niven, resembles P. Dick at his best and hence it may be worth observing a different novel by Niven. View all 7 comments. 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, settin 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.

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.

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. 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. Readers also enjoyed. Science Fiction. Science Fiction Fantasy. Hugo Awards. About Larry Niven. Larry Niven. 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 Laurence van Cott Niven's best known work is Ringworld Ringworld, 1 , which received the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. 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. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.

We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Ringworld may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

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Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to science fiction, fiction lovers. Your Rating:. Your Comment:. Home Downloads Free Downloads Ringworld pdf. Read Online Download. Great book, Ringworld pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone.