Ringworld's Children

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

The Ringworld is a landmark engineering achievement, a flat band 3-million-times the surface area of Earth, encircling a distant star. Home to trillions of inhabitants, not all of which are human, and host to amazing technological wonders, the Ringworld is unique in all of the universe.

Explorer Louis Wu, an Earth-born human who was part of the first expedition to Ringworld, becomes enmeshed in interplanetary and interspecies intrigue as war, and a powerful new weapon, threatens to tear the Ringworld apart forever. Now, the future of Ringworld lies in the actions of its children: Tunesmith, the Ghould protector; Acolyte, the exiled son of Speaker-to-Animals, and Wembleth, a strange Ringworld native with a mysterious past. All must play a dangerous role in order to save Ringworld's population, and the stability of Ringworld itself.

Blending awe-inspiring science with non-stop action and fun, Ringworld's Children, the fourth installment of the multiple-award-winning saga, is the perfect introduction for listeners new to this New York Times best-selling series and for long-time fans of Larry Niven's Ringworld.

©2004 Larry Niven (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks

Good story that needs better voices

I really enjoyed the entire series. The first book probably had the best narration but the other two books were very good too. The last book had a great story, but really bad voice acting. Overall, still worth getting since the story is strong and it fits in well with the entire series. Just can't over Acolyte's voice -- that's just wrong. The voices for humans were fine, but the other characters were way off.

Good story - Narration Not So

What made the experience of listening to Ringworld's Children the most enjoyable?

Concluding the forth book of the series. I know there are more but I may just stop here.

What other book might you compare Ringworld's Children to and why?

Any other Ringworld book, Fuzzy Planet, and Old Mans War. All deal with interaction with alien entities, learning about new ways of thinking about things.

What didn’t you like about Barrett Whitener’s performance?

I think is should be required to listen to the other audio books in a series before one sets out to narrate. There were SEVERAL character names and Item names that were just wrong. Key example - FLUP - Barrett kept pronouncing it FLUPE... nowhere in the book does it have a long U. As stated character names have the same issue.

The reading was slow and without much emotion. It teetered on boring... RingWorld is not boring. Though Barrett tried to use different voices to distinguish the different characters he sis not do so well.

There were several time I almost stopped but I could not find this book read by someone else.

The previous 3 books were done by 2 different narrators and either would have made this book much more enjoyable.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No

Any additional comments?

Really and truly… it should be a requirement to review the pronunciation of the established items and characters in a book series, any book series. Imagine reading a Star Wars book where Luke becomes Luk and Vader becomes Vadder or a Star Trek book where Picard is Pickerd. It is very annoying.

Different narrator from other books

Amazing conclusion to the Ringworld story, I just wish the narrator wasn't so horrible. I understand that different narrators will pronounce things differently, especially names, but even actual English words are continually mispronounced. As for the voices of characters, Protectors have no speach impediments and most frustratingly/insultingly, Acolyte sounds like Disney's Goofy.

another excellent story.

I loved it, amazing weaving of characters. I don't know how he keeps it altogether.

Adifferent view

Though lesser than the original Ringworld it suspenseful with some predictability. Although this is or maybe the last Ringworld it left open possibilities. I would love more Louie Wu adventures aa compelling character.

Great Book ruined by Bad Narration

I can tell from the other reviews that I am not the only one who found the narration to be done poorly. Now granted, when reading straight from the text, I can see (to a very slight degree) how the mispronounced words and even some of the terrible voices came about, but the reality is that when any Narrator is going to be reading a book that is part of a series, the very least they should do is listen to the previous readings to at least get a feel for what previous narrators had done.

I love this book and would absolutely recommend it to anyone, but as for this audiobook.... No. The shift in tone and character is just far too distracting when listened to along with the previous books and the voices are far too goofy and weird to take seriously if I had listened to this on it's own.

Entertained and pondering

Ring world fans You must listen to one more installment in the history of ring world, much is revealed

Love this Book! So does my Son.

Where does Ringworld's Children rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Right up there!

Who was your favorite character and why?

The small Protector was a standout. Finally a different character you could empathise with.Pretending to be a pet chimp ook ook really cracked me up.

What three words best describe Barrett Whitener’s voice?

Ok his voice was ok. Sorry Barrett the Tunesmith voice was way too human, with perfect pronunciation etc. And the Kzin Battle cat sounded like a castrated teenager! Barrett could have used some help with other readers to do the different voices.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Spoiler alert, Louis turning Protector then human was a nice twist.

Any additional comments?

More please Mr Niven.

Narrator was kinda off, still worth it

Narrator kinda made it sound like a kids book with over exaggerated voices. Still mostly good

Terrible reading

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The book itself is good, but the reader screws up all the names, and the voices are not appropriate for the characters represented. It makes it really hard to listen to. Even well known names like Persephone are not spoken correctly. Names are not pronounced like in previous audiobooks.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He can't even pronounce Persephone correctly. Pak was always pronounced "pack" but he says "pock". The voice of Acolyte is absolutely ridiculous. The narrator should have at least had to listen to the pronunciations in the previous audiobooks. This book is just really hard to listen to.