Ringworld by Larry Niven
Despite being nerdy enough to gobble it up by the truckload, I never really read that much sci-fi, although I did make myself aware of what novels I should read and would occasionally pick one up. I read a lot of Michael Crichton, who certainly wrote a lot of sci-fi books, but I never really classified his books as hard or pure science fiction. Not like Herbert?s Dune <sup>1 or Asimov?s Foundation <sup>2 or the short stories of Philip K. Dick <sup>3. For the stuff I didn?t read, I did what I always do: learn just enough so that I would appear knowledgeable on the surface. From there, I made various preconceived notions about the rest. I got through a number of sci-fi discussions with phrases like: ?Clarke is the man!? ?I love Card?s books, but I hate his politics.? ?Brave New World? More like Brave New Pretentious Twaddle.? ?Cyberpunk is passe; Gibson was only ripping off the Wachowskis after all?? ?Battlefield Earth was garbage.?
Now that I?ve given up the pipe dream that I would ever finish the Wheel of Time series, I can stop forcing myself to read page after tedious page and pick up something more pleasing to my literary pallet. The first sci-fi book I decided to pick up was one that I had no real preconceived notions about: Larry Niven?s Ringworld. I only saw it consistently mentioned in ?Best of? lists and in the list of Nebula award winners, but I never really heard much about it outside of that. I believe now that it was cosmic fate that lead me to this book (I had just finished the Lord of the Rings, after all), not just to pick it up on a whim while perusing the sci-fi section, but to actually seek it out and enter the book store with the intent of buying it.
All you need to know about the book, you can pretty much surmise from the title. There?s this world, and it?s in the shape of a (wait for it) ring. A group of aliens discover the world and assemble four adventurers to explore it. There are two humans: a two hundred year old man and a twenty year old woman. They have sex. It?s icky. Thankfully, for the most part, it?s all implied, which becomes a bit of a running joke of, ?nudge-nudge, wink-wink know what I mean.? Then there?s the Kzinti, a kind of man-bear-shark who reminded me of the red-haired tennis-shoe-clad monster from the Bugs Bunny shorts. Finally there?s the Pierson?s puppeteer, a two-headed, three-legged alien whose response to pretty much everything is to curl up in a ball. He?s the equivalent of a first level mage in Dungeons and Dragons. ?That was a pretty spectacular fight, eh guys? Well, I need to rest for eight hours now.?
The various reasons why the tetrad was chosen to explore the ringworld is revealed throughout the novel, and is a big part of the enjoyment that comes from reading it. Much of the story revolves around the young woman, Teela Brown, who is the luckiest person in the universe. As the novel progresses, the concept of luck versus mere coincidence is brought into question and the group discovers that luck can be a tangible, and useful, thing. In fact the whole novel is a lot of fun to read because on nearly every page there is some new gadget or concept or idea that is brought forth. My favorite is probably the sunflowers, which are flowers that harness sun beams to act as death rays. Just the conversations between the characters are interesting to read because Niven recognized that, even though the group is all able to speak the same language, they often have trouble communicating since their species are so different. For instance, the Puppeteers and Kzinti have no sense of humor, which makes the concepts of sarcasm and irony impossible to convey.
The only complaint that I have has to do with the ending is that it actually occurs. I wanted the group to keep exploring. With a world as vast and varied as the ringworld, it feels as though a mere 342 pages doesn?t do it justice. The world?s circumference is about as large as the Earth?s orbital path around the sun. It?s a million miles wide, but only a thousand feet deep, so the ring is very thin, but has a huge surface area. It encompasses the same surface area as 3 million Earths. It?s not just large, but unfathomably so, and the group explores only a sliver of a fraction of it. Even with delving into such a small piece, the group still manages to find a number of fascinating things. Fortunately, the novel ends with a hint of things to come and further adventures on the planet, which leaves me excited to delve into the sequels.
<sup>1 Sandworms, man: ****ing sandworms.
<sup>2 Only slightly less awesome than sandworms.
<sup>3 I love Dick; if there was nothing but Dick left in the world I would be perfectly happy.
This was originally posted (by me) at playtime-magazine.com
http://www.playtime-magazine.com/200...ens-ringworld/
A couple of my articles.
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