Helpful Score: 3
winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and the start to one of the most memorable science fiction series around.
Helpful Score: 3
This book made me go out and get my hands on every other "known space" book he wrote. From the Flatlander era to Crashlander to Ringworld and beyond, some of the greatest sci-fi ever told.
Helpful Score: 1
what can you say about an all time classic. hasn't aged like some other scifi. good pace. original. fun.
Helpful Score: 1
I haven't read anything sci fi for awhile..but do like sci fi if well written and the world building is realistic and not to over the top...I have been reading vampire and more adventure and fantasy like that lately but I read this and Loved it.. what a wonderful story and what cool but dangerous place! it was very imaginative to make a world like this.. and the book was very exciting.. Id love to read more about ring world.. and the characters were really well written. some books are so good its like your there.. and forget about the real world and this is one of those books.. I highly recommend it!
Helpful Score: 1
Very good sci-fi
A science fiction story of the creation of a new world built around a distant star (sun). It tells of the development and the interactions of the individuals involved with the building of this new world.
Okay, but definitely not my favorite Larry Niven. This follows the Man-Kzin Wars chronologically and answers some questions that you may not have known you had about them!
One of, if not THE, best hard sci fi books ever written. Period.
If you like space travel / alien interaction / future events, you simply need to read this book.
I don't re-read very many books, but this one is an absolute pleasure and has held up extremely well over the decades!
If you like space travel / alien interaction / future events, you simply need to read this book.
I don't re-read very many books, but this one is an absolute pleasure and has held up extremely well over the decades!
A Golden Age Classic, full of imagination and clever characterizations. A high science concept becomes the focal point of an interesting read. Recommended. I have no idea how such a voracious read as I has missed this book for 40 years!
This book certainly earned its Hugo award! The concepts in this book are so wild and futuristic! This book the science in science-fiction. The title itself, Ringworld, is the equatorial slice of a Dyson sphere! That's getting pretty hardcore in my book! Certainly a good read!
I enjoyed it. Not a hard read, but some of the descriptions are hard to visualize. Will probably pick up the next in the series.
Larry Niven puts you in the cockpit while exploring an entirely mind bending new world. This book elicits the feeling that you're right there with the protagonists as they are the first to lay eyes upon something truly wondrous. It's definitely worth the read!
great for kids
Excellent text and a thrilling ride from cover to cover. I spent so much time trying to solve the secrets of the Rignworld, and the greatest joy is finding out there are no direct answers. I love a book that forces me to make my own conclusions.
I really liked this book. Kind of fun.
Ringworld is probably Larry Niven's most famous work, having won both the Hugo and Nebula awards back in 1970 when it was first published. My previous experience with Niven's work, though, has left me cold. He's a hard science fiction writer and his characters have been very flat, to say the least. I hoped that Ringworld would be different.
It isn't.
It appears as though Niven had the idea for the ringworld and forced some characters and story together to give him a reason to write about the toy he'd invented. For me the result simply didn't work.
The toy itself - the ringworld - is an interesting idea, but other than some math about dimensions and spinning it to create gravity, everything else about it is pure, unadulterated fantasy. There are all kinds of impossible things going on here in the guise of "science": impossibly strong and thin wire, materials impervious to just about anything, multiple forms of FTL travel, unexplained failsafe systems, life extending substances, stasis fields, transmutation of one material into another, alien species, etc. One or even a few of these things would be fine in a science fiction work, particularly with some background and explanation, but Niven piles them up thick and just keeps going.
In short, he made up anything needed to let him talk about the idea of the ringworld itself. Everything other than the ring - characters, physics, story - was essentially superfluous. If he was a better writer I might have suspended disbelief, but that never happened. Not once.
Even worse, there were several places where the writing is so bad - or the copy I have is so poorly transcribed from the original - that after rereading a few paragraphs several times I had to give up and move on. Some things just didn't make sense at all.
In other places, despite the fact that the words and sentences held together, Niven didn't adequately describe the situation or action. After a while you just wind up accepting that he's not going to explain things well enough to make sense and forget about it. Not a good sign.
For amusement you can look it up on Wikipedia and read about other technical problems. There are quite a few.
I don't know why this book won any awards. It's not very good. My perception of Niven as a writer remains unchanged and I will avoid his work in the future. Too bad.
It isn't.
It appears as though Niven had the idea for the ringworld and forced some characters and story together to give him a reason to write about the toy he'd invented. For me the result simply didn't work.
The toy itself - the ringworld - is an interesting idea, but other than some math about dimensions and spinning it to create gravity, everything else about it is pure, unadulterated fantasy. There are all kinds of impossible things going on here in the guise of "science": impossibly strong and thin wire, materials impervious to just about anything, multiple forms of FTL travel, unexplained failsafe systems, life extending substances, stasis fields, transmutation of one material into another, alien species, etc. One or even a few of these things would be fine in a science fiction work, particularly with some background and explanation, but Niven piles them up thick and just keeps going.
In short, he made up anything needed to let him talk about the idea of the ringworld itself. Everything other than the ring - characters, physics, story - was essentially superfluous. If he was a better writer I might have suspended disbelief, but that never happened. Not once.
Even worse, there were several places where the writing is so bad - or the copy I have is so poorly transcribed from the original - that after rereading a few paragraphs several times I had to give up and move on. Some things just didn't make sense at all.
In other places, despite the fact that the words and sentences held together, Niven didn't adequately describe the situation or action. After a while you just wind up accepting that he's not going to explain things well enough to make sense and forget about it. Not a good sign.
For amusement you can look it up on Wikipedia and read about other technical problems. There are quite a few.
I don't know why this book won any awards. It's not very good. My perception of Niven as a writer remains unchanged and I will avoid his work in the future. Too bad.
great book
A classic of "hard" science fiction. Three stories in one: The physics and engineering of the Ringworld alone are worth the reading; then the characters are engaged in strained human - alien relations which is an analogy of course for race relations; and then the strange story of selective breeding, in this case -- for luckiness.
Great book~ Must read for science fiction fans
