Review: Ringworld by Larry Niven

The idea of a ringworld is pretty cool… But the writing is boring, the characters are unrealistic (why is everyone so nonplussed by the insane events that take place in the book?), the women characters (all two of them) are little more than sexual objects (both tag along on the journey just to be able to have sex with the protagonist), the dialog is bizarre (it seems like an attempt at something akin to British humor, but it didn’t work for me), and there is no sense of mystery (characters seem to solve problems at random), no suspense, and no exciting action scenes. I’m not sure why this became such a sci-fi classic when it came out in the 70’s. Maybe you just had to be there.

There are some wonderfully imaginative ideas in the book, including the ring world itself (a world built as a gigantic flat ring that spins around a sun), stasis fields (which deploy during emergencies to stop time for the occupant, protecting them from harm), and the tasp (a device that generate so much pleasure in someone’s brain as to incapacitate them). However, while the author devotes a lot of attention to the physics of the ringworld, all the other technologies are presented effectively as magic. People teleport from place to place and travel faster than light without giving it a second thought and without any consideration for the implications.

In part, my timing with reading this book was poor, as I just recently finished The Expanse series, which is a gritty, somewhat realistic, very human look at our future. After that book, the nonchalant attitude of everyone in Ringworld is highly off-putting. Not enough science and too much fiction for my tastes.

Rating: 3 stars