Ringworld

Read until they started floating around the Ringworld. I kept waiting for the interesting part, what was there in the Ringworld and why that would be of any importance. But I couldn't bare the thought that it would never happen, and this was going to be one of those books about the journey, not the end. And the journey is boring. I don't much care for alien races, unless they are very well developed perhaps. And they were not. Giving weird names and appearances does not a good character make.

I did not like the main character at all. Nothing to relate to. Reading some reviews, people seem to have an issue on how the female character was portrayed. I did not share that feeling because ALL of the characters felt really blend to me.

Originally posted at FanLit. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/

In 2850 AD, Louis Wu is at his 200th birthday party and thinking about how bored he is. The world has become homogeneous ??? everyone on Earth uses the same language, everything is available everywhere, and all the cities have lost their unique flavor. Life is dull. That???s why Louis Wu is a perfect candidate for the alien Nessus (a Pierson???s Puppeteer) who wants to take a manned spaceship to explore a strange phenomenon in space.

Nessus also recruits a Kzin named Speaker-to-Animals who is a feline alien from a warlike culture, and the beautiful 20-year-old human woman named Teela Brown that Louis Wu has been sleeping with. She???s so silly that at first it???s not clear what she offers the mission other than good looks, ???conical breasts,??? a giggle soundtrack, and sexual gratification for Louis Wu (this is something I hate about science fiction written by men in the 1960s), but later we discover that Nessus knows that Teela Brown has lucky genes and he thinks having her along will make the voyage lucky.

When the group stops off at the Puppeteer planet, they learn about their mission. They will investigate the Ringworld. Photos from space show that it looks like a blue ribbon arranged around a star. It???s about the size of the Earth???s orbit around the sun and it???s obviously artificial. The living area inside the ring provides about three times the Earth???s surface area, there???s gravity due to the ring???s centripetal force, and day and light cycles are created by shading the sun with huge panels. (Find the physics of Ringworld here.) The mission seeks to discover who created the Ringworld, why they created it, and whether they???re friendly or threatening.

Ringworld is a high concept novel and I generally love high concept novels. Ringworld has big ideas in a grand setting. Images of Ringworld will stay with me forever. Unfortunately, the characters are dull and the actual action in Ringworld would fill only a few pages. While I wanted to explore and experiment on Ringworld, the characters were usually discussing, bickering, arguing, and philosophizing. Some of this was interesting, such as the discovery that the Puppeteers were covertly performing genetics experiments on other species, the contemplation of what factors might make civilizations rise and fall (cycles of culture and barbarism is also a theme in the last Niven book I read, The Mote in God???s Eye). But much of it was teachy as characters spent too much time explaining evolution, genetics, meteorology, geology, and the physics and mathematics of the shape of orbits, velocities, heat transfer, and tensile strength. Worse, some discussion topics that started out interesting became repetitive and tiresome, especially the philosophical discussions about Teela???s luck which kept coming up and lasting too long.

I love Larry Niven???s big ideas and I know he can write really exciting science fiction even if he can???t write decent female characters. Ringworld is a great idea that gets obliterated by dull characters and too much talking. (Yet it won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and Locus Award.) There are several prequels and sequels to Ringworld in Larry Niven???s RINGWORLD and KNOWN SPACE universes. I listened to Blackstone Audio???s production which was nicely narrated by Tom Parker.

Rendezvous with Rama but with actual characters and on an object of unimaginable scale? Sign me up!

The claim is not false, it is similar in certain ways to Rama. But in other ways it very much reminded me of Hitchhiker's Guide with its humor and characters. Perhaps Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle too (it's been a while though) because the humor was also smart and subtle. The book never went into absurd in a way where it would break the immersion like Douglas or Vonnegut did, though. However, what nonsense there was, was to its detriment.

Unlike Clarke, Niven is also good character writer and I will remember most of this crew very fondly. Especially Speaker was funny and terrifying at the same time. I liked every character except for Teela and, sadly, the whole book revolves around her.

Speaker and Nessus were amazing aliens and Louis great main character. Chemistry between them was amazing and dialogues witty but when you introduce Mary Sue everything starts falling apart like those hovering skyscrapers. And in this case she was Mary Sue on purpose. It's actually hinted at right at the beginning, even before their journey begins. It has to do with purpose of their journey in a way. Characters figure it out towards the end so I won't spoil it. What I will say is that the story did not need this plot and without it I would love this book even more.

While I find the idea of a story like this incredibly attractive, it did not work for me because I was here for the Ringworld. To see how Louis and Speaker get along with each other. To awe at the scale of the world. Not to see absurd albeit entertaining events happen one after another with lazy explanations. Simply put, I wanted it to be more grounded in reality.

The scale... let's talk about it for a minute. Rama was vast and wonderous, it's what I love about that book the most. Ringworld on the other hand is so huge I fail to imagine it. Just like Louis I struggle with the scale because humans have simply never seen anything like it. One ocean on Ringworld could swallow entire planet Earth and probably Mercury on top of it. It's insane. It's amazing. But the scale works to the book's detriment for me. It's simply too vast to be awestruck too much and so I wasn't. It will not burn its place in my brain like Rama did although I still find it incredible. Perhaps someone will bring it justice on the big screen one day, though I don't see that happening any time soon.

It is one of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read and it's a big shame it does not reach the highest highs. I was tempted to give it four stars, it would most likely end up as 4.5 if I could give it that. Four stars are unfair to this book, though. I'm thinking of continuing Ringworld series but from what I heard it only goes downhill from here and the ending was sort of sufficient.