: Ringworld
Author: Larry Niven
It won a Hugo award, but I’d never read this classic science fiction story until now. Frankly, it’s got a little too much science and not enough fiction, for my taste. Niven’s created an amazing world: Ringworld is an artificial structure three million times the size of Earth, a million-mile wide strip of land six hundred million miles long that spins around a sun. Centrifugal force gives it gravity, and 1000 mile high walls on the rims keep in the atmosphere. It’s got two oceans each several times bigger than the entire surface of Earth. Basically, it’s humongous, the ideal solution for over-crowding. The story centers on four bickering creatures (two alien species and two humans) who crashland on Ringworld and struggle to escape. The characters are well-done and believable, but the psychonalysis is overly complicated (though accurate); I really didn’t care if any of them lived or died. Read Ringworld for the fantastic world, not for the story. I’ll have to see if the sequel, The Ringworld Engineers is better.
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