Ringworld (1970) [+]
Jul 06 2026
Larry Niven's Ringworld I've known about forever, maybe the first time in the early 1980's due to Chaosium's Ringworld RPG (1984) and probably through reading science fiction stories. But I've never read the novel until now.
Louis Wu, a 2-century old human (with prolong is a healthy 50'ish), is approached by Nessus, one of the mysterious puppeteers (a two-headed I guess horse-like race of herbivores known for their advanced tech and extreme cowardice) because they are assembling a team to explore a mysterious remote star system with some sort of line obscuring the star. They are joined by the Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzin (big cat people who waged several wars against humanity but always lost, the "Animals" in his name because humans are "animals" to Kzin so his name denotes his function as an ambassador of sorts). The fourth expeditioneer is the young and beautiful Teela Brown of Earth, who has never experienced hardship or pain because Nessus believes she has incredible Luck.
They set out in a ship and Nessus reveals it's a Ringworld on a star slowly leaving our galaxy, a Ringworld being a 10 mile strip of land that circles the star at approximately Earth distance and with the land area of a million Earths. The tech to build and maintain a Ringworld is as far advanced of puppeteers as puppeteers are to humans which makes the puppeteers scared and so this investigative mission which immediately starts in disaster as their ship is shot down by asteroid defenses and now the four get to explore the Ringworld on air bikes and try to find a way to repair their ship and return home. More difficult because it seems the Ringworld creators all died out leaving lots of humans (a mystery in itself) living primitively among ruined cities.
It's kind of matter-of-fact storytelling getting straight to the point. I like how something is said off hand and then pages later or chapters later the other characters catch on the implications (e.g. Nessus implies puppeteers can attract sun worms which eventually leads both Louis and Speaker to realize the puppeteers indirectly helped humanity win the Man-Kzin Wars). Teela's unconscious power is also interesting as at first Louis doesn't believe in it and Nessus's faith is shaken after they are shot down. But most of the way through the book and several improbable coincidences later, more and more improbable as the book goes on, they all realize that Teela is the most dangerous person in the team and possibly a danger to themselves too.
And of course exploring this vast space (of which they travel a few hundred thousand miles to wards one edge and back to their ship), meeting the peoples, seeing the artifacts, getting explanations of how various things worked, is quite fascinating. There is a giant vertical hurricane that looks like an eye, all due to a puncture in the floor with atmosphere escaping and creating the pressure imbalances that form a hurricane, except vertical imbalances hence a vertical hurricane. It's quite neat all the things to see and well thought out.
Overall a great read and interesting science fiction. Although the writing feels a bit dated the characters feel real and the ideas are still relevant science fiction five decades later.
Louis Wu, a 2-century old human (with prolong is a healthy 50'ish), is approached by Nessus, one of the mysterious puppeteers (a two-headed I guess horse-like race of herbivores known for their advanced tech and extreme cowardice) because they are assembling a team to explore a mysterious remote star system with some sort of line obscuring the star. They are joined by the Speaker-to-Animals, a Kzin (big cat people who waged several wars against humanity but always lost, the "Animals" in his name because humans are "animals" to Kzin so his name denotes his function as an ambassador of sorts). The fourth expeditioneer is the young and beautiful Teela Brown of Earth, who has never experienced hardship or pain because Nessus believes she has incredible Luck.
They set out in a ship and Nessus reveals it's a Ringworld on a star slowly leaving our galaxy, a Ringworld being a 10 mile strip of land that circles the star at approximately Earth distance and with the land area of a million Earths. The tech to build and maintain a Ringworld is as far advanced of puppeteers as puppeteers are to humans which makes the puppeteers scared and so this investigative mission which immediately starts in disaster as their ship is shot down by asteroid defenses and now the four get to explore the Ringworld on air bikes and try to find a way to repair their ship and return home. More difficult because it seems the Ringworld creators all died out leaving lots of humans (a mystery in itself) living primitively among ruined cities.
It's kind of matter-of-fact storytelling getting straight to the point. I like how something is said off hand and then pages later or chapters later the other characters catch on the implications (e.g. Nessus implies puppeteers can attract sun worms which eventually leads both Louis and Speaker to realize the puppeteers indirectly helped humanity win the Man-Kzin Wars). Teela's unconscious power is also interesting as at first Louis doesn't believe in it and Nessus's faith is shaken after they are shot down. But most of the way through the book and several improbable coincidences later, more and more improbable as the book goes on, they all realize that Teela is the most dangerous person in the team and possibly a danger to themselves too.
And of course exploring this vast space (of which they travel a few hundred thousand miles to wards one edge and back to their ship), meeting the peoples, seeing the artifacts, getting explanations of how various things worked, is quite fascinating. There is a giant vertical hurricane that looks like an eye, all due to a puncture in the floor with atmosphere escaping and creating the pressure imbalances that form a hurricane, except vertical imbalances hence a vertical hurricane. It's quite neat all the things to see and well thought out.
Overall a great read and interesting science fiction. Although the writing feels a bit dated the characters feel real and the ideas are still relevant science fiction five decades later.