The ' (1970–2004), by science fiction author Larry Niven, is a part of his Known Space set of stories. Its backdrop is the Ringworld, a giant artifact 600 million miles in circumference around a sun. The series is composed of four standalone science fiction novels, the original award-winning book and its three subsequent sequels:
1970: Ringworld
1980: The Ringworld Engineers
1996: The Ringworld Throne
2004: Ringworld's Children
The core series was developed with three side series of prequels set in the same Ringworld universe, and written in collaboration:
1988–2009: Man-Kzin Wars (by various edited by Niven)
2007–2010: Fleet of Worlds (by Niven and Edward M. Lerner)
2010-2011: Juggler of Worlds (by Niven and Edward M. Lerner)
File this under "good books with big flaws that you probably shouldn't read."
2 stars
I grew up as a massive Halo fan, and it was awesome to see where Bungie drew the inspiration for their setting, realized in dreamlike prose. The joy of reading is greatly diminished by Niven's overwhelming misogyny, and some more subtle but just as uncomfortable underpinnings as well (referring way too many times to the ringworld natives as "savages", privileging "civilization" over "primitiveness", and, perhaps less importantly but just as upsetting to me, seeing deserts as barren wastelands without life instead of biomes unto their own.) Glad I read it myself. Can't reccomend.
Overall, this was a pretty interesting book. A Ringworld would be incredible to behold and live in. While this novel is just the introduction to this world, it does a good job at selling the wonders and dangers of it. Plot-wise and character-wise it's not particularly noteworthy, but I think this is the type of book you read just for the setting. Maybe the other books in the series drive up the story, but even if they only explore the Ringworld and it's mysteries, that might be enough.
1) "In Budapest were wine and athletic dances, natives who tolerated him as a tourist with money, tourists who thought he was a wealthy native. He danced the dances and he drank the wines, and he left before midnight. In Munich he walked. The air was warm and clean; it cleared some of the fumes from his head. He walked the brightly lighted slidewalks, adding his own pace to their ten-miles-per-hour speed. It occurred to him then that every city in the world had slidewalks, and that they all moved at ten miles per hour. The thought was intolerable. Not new; just intolerable. Louis Wu saw how thoroughly Munich resembled Cairo and Resht ... and San Francisco and Topeka and London and Amsterdam. The stores along the slidewalks sold the same products in all the cities of the world. These citizens who passed him tonight looked all alike, dressed all …
1) "In Budapest were wine and athletic dances, natives who tolerated him as a tourist with money, tourists who thought he was a wealthy native. He danced the dances and he drank the wines, and he left before midnight. In Munich he walked. The air was warm and clean; it cleared some of the fumes from his head. He walked the brightly lighted slidewalks, adding his own pace to their ten-miles-per-hour speed. It occurred to him then that every city in the world had slidewalks, and that they all moved at ten miles per hour. The thought was intolerable. Not new; just intolerable. Louis Wu saw how thoroughly Munich resembled Cairo and Resht ... and San Francisco and Topeka and London and Amsterdam. The stores along the slidewalks sold the same products in all the cities of the world. These citizens who passed him tonight looked all alike, dressed all alike. Not Americans or Germans or Egyptians, but mere flatlanders. In three-and-a-half centuries the transfer booths had done this to the infinite variety of Earth. They covered the world in a net of instantaneous travel. The difference between Moskva and Sidney was a moment of time and a tenth-star coin. Inevitably the cities had blended over the centuries, until place names were only relics of the past. San Francisco and San Diego were the northern and southern ends of one sprawling coastal city. But how many people knew which end was which? Tanj few, these days."
2) "That night, freely falling in darkness, Louis heard her say, 'I love you. I'm going with you because I love you.' 'Love you too,' he said with sleepy good manners. Then it percolated through, and he said, 'That's what you were reserving?' 'Mm hmm.' 'You're following me two hundred light years because you can't bear to let me go?' 'Yawp.' 'Sleeproom, half-light,' said Louis. Dim blue light filled the room."
3) "But why should Louis Wu be graceful? An altered ape, whom evolution had never entirely adapted to walking on flat ground. For millions of years his fathers had walked on all fours where they had to, had used the trees where they could. The Pliocene had ended that, with millions of years of drought. The forests had left Louis Wu's ancestors behind, high and dry and starving. In desperation they had eaten meat. They had done better after learning the secret of the antelope's thighbone, whose double-knobbed shoulder joint had left its mark in so many fossil skulls. Now, on feet still equipped with vestigial fingers, Louis Wu and Teela Brown walked with aliens."
4) "Seeker stood at bay with his black iron sword. Three men were down before him, and others stood back, and the sword dripped. Seeker was a dangerous, skillful swordsman. The natives knew about swords. Teela stood behind him, safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine."
