Background
Ringworld is part of the larger collection of work by Larry Niven called "The Known Space Series". This includes three sequels, and four prequels to Ringworld, as well as many other pieces of writing about known space which are related to but do not directly deal with the ringworld.
Summary
In the year 2850, an intergalactic expedition is being planned to explore an anomaly - a strip of blue running across a star like a piece of ribbon. The puppeteers, a three-legged, two headed race know nothing about it, save what they’ve been able to find out from a few photographs.
Nessus, the puppeteer running the mission, has recruited an orange furred cat-beast Kzin named Speaker-To-Animals, a young human woman named Teela, and Louis Wu, our two hundred year old human protagonist.
We find out very quickly in the book that there is a core explosion that has happened in the universe. The shockwave that will destroy everything as far as known space is twenty thousand years away. The puppeteer race has long since begun evacuating to a safer place, but the Kzinti and Humans haven’t even begun thinking about it. They probably won’t until it’s too late.
The puppeteers have a space ship that will begin the team’s journey to the ringworld, which travels three days to the light year. This ship is the prize for getting to the ring world, exploring, then coming back with Nessus in hand. The ship and blueprints on how to make the ship will be given to the humans and Kzinti, making it possible for each race to escape the explosion, even if they leave at the last minute.
Throughout the novel, many conflicts arise, including the hostility between Kzinti and basically every species; the love life between Louis and Teela; Nessus’ manic-depressive behaviour. There are many mysteries to be solved, like what the ring world is really for; what the Puppeteers really want; and what it means that Teela is hereditarily lucky.
Critique
The science writing in this book is fabulous. The depth of thought put into the ships, especially the Puppeteer ship is great. The detail Niven has put into thinking about the ringworld as a partial Dyson Sphere, both on a engeneering and a anthropologic sense is great and made me fully believe this story was possible, if not probably.
I feel that the excuse for why ships are traveling faster than the speed of light is weak. However, the whole story would fall apart if they couldn’t travel that fast, so I’m letting it slide this one time.
I found the story compelling, though occasionally overstated, especially when it came to emotional epiphanies. Louis’ internal narrative stated several things long after I had already gotten the point.
I also found that the action scenes often confused me. I lost track of who was where and doing what, which can often happen when four important characters are acting at once.
The writing is not literary, and pulled me out of the story every so often, but that is common in sci-fi, and at least it wasn’t cheesy. The plot and themes in this book were worth putting up with a bit of awkward phrasing so that I could know how it ended.
There is an extremely long introduction and a very short conclusion to this book. Niven did a very good job though, making the introduction as compelling as the rest of the book so that I wanted to continue reading.
Lastly, the printing of the book I have has an intricate picture of what the ringworld looks like on the cover. This counteracted almost any suspense I had about “the blue ribbon across a star” during the introduction. Later in the book, I will admit that the picture helped me grasp what the ringworld looked like, but I don’t think it was worth losing that suspense. If you’re able to, get a copy of the book that doesn’t have a close-up view of the ringworld on it. Don’t even look at the other copies. If you find yourself confused later on in the book, look up a picture of the ringworld then.
Niven, Larry. Ringworld. Del Rey, 1985.
- ISBN-10: 034533392
Kirstin Doggart - Kirstin Doggart is a Creative Writing student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC.
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