Ringworld [Paperback]

The idea itself, the Dyson sphere, is both imaginative and awe-inspiring. Its humongous scale is exemplified by the huge rim walls and a colossal mountain (over a 1000 miles high) called the Fist-Of-God. It would have been impossible for Niven to flesh out the entire world as there would be too much to cover so it is told from the viewpoint of the four members’ expedition through a limited section of the ‘artifact’. In this respect it succeeds admirably in world-building in a supposedly ‘hard’ science context.

But I gave this 3.5 stars because a good idea itself is not enough to make it REALLY good. The characters for one thing are atrociously developed and two dimensional. This would be forgivable if Niven focussed on furthering the plot but he delves too much into the character’s relationship with each other including a rather odd romance (if that) between a 200 year old man and a girl one tenth his age. Similarly Nessus suffers from seemingly bipolar disorder which seemed completely out of place. The most interesting being for me was Speaker. An angry, violent, 8 foot orange cat sounds ridiculous but his species’ history with humans, his interactions with Nessus and his Samurai-like ways make him, for me, the best of the bunch. As for Louis Wu there’s nothing redeeming about him whatsoever. As a protagonist he’s just too boring! The author attempts some ill-advised sex scenes to spice things up but erotica this is not. Something about Teela being ‘impaled’ did not endear me to his writing.

Therefore it makes it very difficult to read this story if you really couldn’t care less whether a character was killed or not. And apparently neither do the characters themselves when such an occasion does arise. However the novel does have several revelatory moments which make you think “hmm…that was conceptually stimulating” but because the people populating it are so dull and lifeless it is just not a classic SF book in my opinion. I’m all for hard science but it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to display dodgy character development and simplistic writing.

Makes you think who were the other contenders for the Hugo and Nebula awards when this managed to snatch them both?

Winner of the 1971 Hugo Award, Ringworld is also noteworthy for some (but not all) of its characters. The four adventurers are (ostensibly) led -- or, more accurately, hired by -- Nessus of the Puppeteers, who resembles a large semi-plucked turkey with two necks, a brace of python heads, and bipolar disorder. Speaker To Animals is an oversized brawny ginger tom cat of the warlike Kzin race, which has battled mankind for centuries and been overthrown as a consequence of the Puppeteers technological intervention on behalf of humanity. As it turns out, the Puppeteers have been manipulating both races for their own ends, a fact which Niven (hilariously) tries to deploy as a plot twist; but the clue is in the name, isn't it? The two humanoids, Louis Wu (chosen for his experience) and Teela Brown (chosen for her supposed luck) are, frankly, tedious, and the exposition regarding their relationship slows the book to down to a crawl in a places.

In summary, whilst I could hardly recommend Ringworld for the telling of its story alone, Niven's peerless description of an alien artefact of almost incomprehensible enormousness is what makes this book so satisfying. Take his conjuration of some of that wonder from it and see your own world through it.