Ringworld

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Tom Parker

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel, Ringworld remains a favorite among science fiction readers and listeners.

The artifact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its center. Pierson’s puppeteers—strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens—discovered this “Ringworld” in a hitherto unexplored part of the galaxy. Curious about the immense structure, but frightened by the prospect of meeting the builders, they set about assembling a team to explore it:

Louis Wu, human—old and bored with having lived too fully for too many years, seeking an adventure, and all too capable of handling it.

Nessus, puppeteer—a trembling coward from a species with an inbuilt survival pattern of nonviolence. This particular puppeteer, however, is insane.

Speaker-to-Animals, kzin—large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. The kzin are one of the most savage life-forms known.

The party’s expedition, however, goes disastrously wrong when their ship crash-lands and its motley crew faces a daunting trek across thousands of miles of Ringworld territory.

©1970 Larry Niven (P)1996 Blackstone Audiobooks

Excellent

What did you love best about Ringworld?

I really like the interesting details. Sunflowers unlike any you have ever heard of, landing cannons, transfer booths, and many, many more interesting and unique ideas. Larry Niven has been one of my favorite authors for several years, and this is certainly one of his best works.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I'm not entirely sure I can pick a favorite - but if I had to choose I would probably say Nessus - his race, for one, is pretty unusual. Not to mention their meddling! All around a pretty interesting, and quite amusing character.

What does Tom Parker bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Hard to say, as I haven't just read the book - but he does bring the story to life. He reads it just perfectly, giving each character their own voice (as good narrators always do), and I think his reading is very interesting.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"The Galaxy's hugest megabuild"

Any additional comments?

I really, really enjoyed this audiobook.

Fun escapism

The story is fun escapism, old fashion pulp science fiction. The story line is a bit choppy and the end is very sudden, overall reasonable enjoyable.

This book suffers from bad audio quality.

Interesting

Interesting and unique SciFi, however, the story often feels interminable and wanders through many valleys as the story wends its way to a slow resolution.

Missing a point

Well performed and supposedly one of top 50 SciFi books. Just not enough of a plot. Kept waiting for dots to connect Teela’s luck etc

Just never happened

My first true sci-fi read/listen...

.....librarything guessed that I wouldn't like this....and were 78% sure that they were right. But actually, besides the misogynistic thought processes that Mr. Niven had back in the 70s when this was written, it was a pretty good story. A bunch of misfits head off on a mystery road trip to a place they know nothing about. All the characters (well, except for the vapid females) were rather likable...each made me laugh, think and by the end of the book, I was sorry to see them go....pretty good for a book written 40 years ago!

One of my all time favourites

As the headline suggests, this is one of my favourite audiobooks. Tom Parker (better known as Grover Gardner) is a hall of fame level narrator, and Ringworld is a marvelous example of his talent. His tone, and choice of voice for each character is perfect. I can't read the paperback/kindle version of this without reading it in his voice internally. It's such a good reading, that, when I discovered he wasn't brought back for the other Ringworld entries, I was severely disappointed. I simply cannot imagine Speaker-to-Animals, Nessus or Louis Wu read by anyone else!

As for the book itself, it's a brilliant piece of speculative fiction. While there has been much good natured talk over the years about the structural feasibility of the Ringworld, the idea itself is fantastic. Niven does such a good job helping you visualize the scale of it. It's just such a unique tale with some thought provoking ideas. As good as Tom Parker/Grover Gardner is, its obviously the story itself which keeps me coming back for listen after listen, read after read.

I can't recommend this audiobook enough. A great story, with a great narrator to match it.

Good Listen

I really enjoyed the book. I love books about seeking out new worlds. Love the Bobiverse series. I was hoping for more backstory, but it only scratches the surface of the Ringworld, but there are 4 more books in the series to explore.

Better than Rendezvous with Rama

Any additional comments?

This book is very similar to Rendezvous of Rama in many ways, only it was actually interesting. I found one of the main premises of breeding luck into humans to be very ridiculous, the author my as well said their ships were powered by magic. And the female character was stereotypical sic-fi female character from the 1950's complete with crying and childish behavior. But other than that the Aliens were quite interesting, and the rest of the story was pretty decent.

Spectacular Sci Fi Adventure!

Read it as a teenager and loved it. Coming back to it as an adult I got more out of it. Larry Mien is one of the SciFi greats!

Dated

I really liked this book when I was growing up in the 1950's. The narration here is good and the story is a classic.

But, I was struck by how very dated this story is. If you are a cyberpunk fan, this is not the book for you.