RW: Tell me it gets better

[artofstu]

I'm a little more than a quarter of the way through the book, and I find myself getting bored by the story. Please tell me it gets better and picks up the pace. I feel like I'm still waiting for the story to begin and am wading through uninteresting sections where the characters are continually evaluating/discussing puppeteer technology.

There are some elements of the book that I'm enjoying, such as the humor. But otherwise, I just want to be done with this story already, and I'm finding it hard to find reasons to keep picking it up. I'm not one to lem books, but I'm wondering if it's going to get any better.

[Paul]

I wish I could...

[Paul]

No, Not Really...maybe in Spots but it is what it is...I have a real hard time enjoying Niven's Novels. I like his Essays and short work better i.e. Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex :)

[Joe Informatico]

I'm afraid it's pretty much peaks and valleys throughout. I remember perking up a bit when they finally get to Ringworld. There was a sense of awe and wonder like I got from reading Rendezvous with Rama. But sadly it didn't last.

[Dazerla]

Unfortunately, I can't tell you that it gets better. I found most of the thing slw and laborious.

[artofstu]

Wow. Sounds like people aren't really digging it. Why did this win the vote again?

[Mark]

Because people tend to vote and then read, not the other way around?

[artofstu]

It was a rhetorical question. Obviously.

[Phil]

This novel was wildly popular when it was written and won the Hugo award for best novel in 1970. Sometimes science fiction is meant just to evoke a sense of wonder and not be a deep character study. It may be a little harder to wow people nowadays because they're used to seeing spectacular things on screen but that wasn't true back then (except for 2001). I remember reading this around 1975 and talking and thinking about it for days.
Styles and preferences have changed over the years but I still think it's important that if you're interested in the genre you should read the older works that the field is built on.

[Mark]

S. Lee wrote: "It was a rhetorical question. Obviously."

and it was a sarcastic response. No worries.

[Ben]

While I wouldn't say it gets better as it goes on, for me it certainly got more annoying.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

S. Lee wrote: "Wow. Sounds like people aren't really digging it."

I'm a little over half way, and loving it. Each to their own. :)

But nothing has really happened in the story yet that would likely change the mind of someone not enjoying it at a quarter of the way in, so it might be one to file under 'not for you' if you're not already enjoying it...

...well, I'll check back in if something epic and unmissable occurs. :D

[artofstu]

Ugh! I'm a third of the way through now, and I'm finding Niven's descriptions to be nearly incomprehensible. And I'm so tired of these bickering idiots floating around the Ringworld. Just land already. I'm not holding out much hope of the situation improving. Should've read Redshirts.

[Rob]

Weird. I'm on my second time reading this and I'm finding it mesmerizing despite the slow pace.

[Harold]

It's interesting to me how many people seem to be having this reaction to this book, particularly as I recognize that reaction in myself...not for Ringworld (I enjoyed it), but I've had this exact same reaction before, with Charles Sheffield (Cold as Ice in particular). Maybe Sheffield is that much worse than Niven, or maybe it depends on variables like what one was expecting, what one read beforehand, one's mood, et cetera. That said, I'm a fan of the many authors who seem to have expanded on Niven's ideas: Asher, Banks, Reynolds and so on. I was also reading it with admiration for such an old book. I found that my annoyance with Ringworld was commensurate with how much I would forget that it was as old as it is. It was written and published before I was born, before personal computers (as we recognize them today, at any rate), before birth control injections (nice prediction of his, by the way), before the space shuttle, before Voyager, before GPS, and so on. Not that his writing has anything to do with those things, but that a lot has happened in the world of science (or engineering) since he wrote this. That I found it easy to occasionally forget that and so would compare it to modern science fiction is a testament to how well Niven wrote this; in some respects, his writing feels modern. In an earlier comment, I compared his writing to Bova (particularly Moonrise) in the ways that it irritated me with its inconsistent science. The difference is that Bova wrote his novel more than 20 years after Niven, when science had advanced that much further.

Anyway, my points are that, for whatever reason, I found the quest to get the hyperdrive in Ringworld compelling, and at least part of that is because I was able to overlook how dated some of the writing is.

[Kristina]

Ben wrote: "While I wouldn't say it gets better as it goes on, for me it certainly got more annoying."

Oi...

[artofstu]

I don't know that Niven's ability to predict technological advances makes him a good writer. I'm sure it makes him a smart guy, though.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

S. Lee wrote: "Should've read Redshirts.


You still can. They are both short books. :)

[Kristina]

I'm rather bored with the book, but I can't bring myself to lem it-at least I know who/what is on the ring.

[AndrewP]

I think this is one of those books that will not appeal to you unless you get excited by exploration and concepts of advanced technology and engineering. It's for sure not a character based story.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

AndrewP wrote: "I think this is one of those books that will not appeal to you unless you get excited by exploration and concepts of advanced technology and engineering. It's for sure not a character based story."

I'm surprised you think so. Personally, I seldom enjoy a book if I can't connect with the characters, but these ones are likeable and interesting, at least to me. They are definitely one of the things which keeps me reading.

[artofstu]

Okay, so I finished it, and, though it did get a bit better, I ultimately just ended up hating it. I thought it was kind of pointless. And again, Niven's descriptions are just ridiculously bad. Half the time I didn't even know what he was trying to describe. For example, the (view spoiler)[shadow square thread. I had the basic idea of what it was supposed to be, but the specifics of them handling it made no sense to me. (hide spoiler)]

Also, it was almost as if some of the book was the result of Niven being jilted by some girl back in the day, and so he decided to eviscerate her in prose in the form of Teela Brown. That's probably just me.

But anyway, it took me forever to get through just the last ten pages because, by that point, I just didn't care. And that ending... what a bunch of anticlimactic nonsense. I haven't wanted to get to the end of a book this badly since I read House of Leaves. Well, now I know that I will never want to read another Niven book again. I mean, I just don't care about what happens to Louis Wu or Teela Brown. And is (view spoiler)[Nessus dead or what? (hide spoiler)]

[Rob, Roberator]

S. Lee wrote: "And is (view spoiler)
."

I was wondering that myself. He didn't make that very clear. (view spoiler)[They said how the ship had a bunch of extra biological parts, including extra heads, but didn't really clarify if humpty dumpty was put back together again (hide spoiler)]

[artofstu]

Rob wrote: "S. Lee wrote: "And is (view spoiler)
."

I was wondering that myself. He didn't make that very clear. [spoilers removed]"

Yeah, you just kind of assume that (view spoiler)[he did get put back together again, but he never makes another appearance. And also the fact that they're left floating around in the police station, and you're left to merely assume that they make it back to the Liar and what not. (hide spoiler)] I just didn't care for any of that.

[Paul]

Yeah Like I said I've Read two Niven books this year and didnt enjoy either of them very much I spent more time with them to just finish them than because I wanted to spend time with them.

[Valerie]

I did not get a chance to get this in July. So glad for this thread. I am about a third of the way through. I think I am going to have lem it.

Right now it seems a bit misogynistic, but even worse, it is boring.

[Nate Frary]

I enjoyed the book for what it was but didn't love it. His treatment of the one female character was very off-putting for me.

[Trike]

I really liked Ringworld, but I think the sequel, The Ringworld Engineers, is better, mostly because they have more to do than just explore and "get off the island."

If you don't like a book, stop reading it. Too many books, too little time.