Ringworld (Ringworld #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Aug 01, 2012 Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ab-do, multiple-award, violentia, fiktion, klassiker, technik, computer, surrealism, wissenschaft, speculative-fiction

I liked this book, in fact I got hooked at so many parts. As I am a slow reader and me having finished this book in a couple of days should tell ya something. The book is mainly an exploration novel of another land during the earth year of 2850. The exploration of the Ringwold is magnificent and is detailed crisply into my imagination.
It is also about the characters too; a great character building story I must say. In a way I found that the characters in the book and their interactions between e
I liked this book, in fact I got hooked at so many parts. As I am a slow reader and me having finished this book in a couple of days should tell ya something. The book is mainly an exploration novel of another land during the earth year of 2850. The exploration of the Ringwold is magnificent and is detailed crisply into my imagination.
It is also about the characters too; a great character building story I must say. In a way I found that the characters in the book and their interactions between each other had to be the most interesting part of the story.
It had 4 main characters that were all very different to each other in many, many ways; and somehow made the perfect team. The 4 characters are Louis Gridley Wu, Nessus, Speaker to Animals, and Teela Brown.
Wu is a 200 year old human man that is in perfect physical condition, due to life extending drugs.
Nessus is a Pierson's Puppeteer which has two forelegs and a single hindleg ending in hooved feet and two snake-like heads instead of a humanoid upper body. The heads are very small, containing a forked tongue, extensive rubbery lips, rimmed with finger-like knobs, and a single eye per head. The Puppeteer brain is housed not in the heads, but in the "thoracic" cavity well protected beneath the mane-covered hump from which the heads emerge. They use the "mouths" to manipulate objects, as a humanoid uses hands. He is in charge of the operation to the ring world and the being that finds the team and puts it together.
Then there is Speaker to Animals or just Speaker and is a Kzin. A Kzin is a very warlike and bloodthirsty race of cat-like aliens. The Kzinti are larger than humans, standing around 8 feet and weighing around 500 pounds. These tiger-sized bipeds have large membranous ears, a barrel-chested torso with a flexible spine, and large fangs and claws. He was responsible for the expedition's safety on Ringworld and because if that he was in charge most of the time.
And last we have Teela Brown, a twenty year old human girl. Her sole qualification was that she was descended from "lucky" ancestors, six generations of whom were born as a result of winning Earth's Birthright Lottery. The Puppeteer saw this as a kind of artificial selection, tending to breed for a psionic power of good luck. He hoped Teela would bring luck and success to the entire expedition.
The team was a great mixture of characters and the main reason for the 5 stars. What an imagination Larry Niven had!
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Jun 19, 2009 Tom rated it it was ok

Shelves: hard-copy

First half of this book was quite good, but the second half was not. Once arriving at the Ringworld, it's like the characters ran out of story... 2nd half was just trudging across the Ringworld, yes occassionally getting in a tight spot or seeing something interesting, but mostly to no great end.

Again, another science fiction story with a great deal of chauvinism. Female characters are only here to serve at the pleasure of the male characters. Imagine, a race so far advanced from ours that they ...more

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