Ringworld's Children

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

Length: 9 hrs and 5 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 readers 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

Distracting narration.

Mispronounced words, ridiculous voicing of characters. Narration is just plain terrible. Acolyte sounds like a silly version of the cowardly lion. Really detracted from what would otherwise be a good addition to the series.

17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Great sequel but deserves a better narration

Ringworlds Children is as enticing as Ringworld, and I've been a fan of Ringworld since it's original release in the 70's. I won't spoil the ending for anyone here but it was excellent, you won't be disappointed. I have heard better narrations though and would buy this audio book again if a better narration was made. Still, it's great sci-fi.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Back to his roots.

This book brought me back to the original excitement I felt when I first read Ringworld and Engineers. Much better than Throne or other titles. I agree with the other review about the narration. I often found myself thinking that the narrator had no comprehension whatsoever of the material he was reading. Every sentence seems to be read in an earnest fearful tone of voice that is totally out of context with the material he?s reading. I found it especially irksome that he choose to use a voice that resembled Goofy or Cletus the Slake Jawed Yokel for the Kzinti Accolite. He defiantly wasn't "getting it"
Still... It's great book. Glad I listened.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Great Sci-Fi

I for one happen to like the reading by Whitener. One should read at least "Ringworld" and "Protector" before reading this book as this one is based on both of these works. Great read, one that you don't want to stop until it is finish and then you want more.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

narrator ruined consistency

If you listen to these books in order then you'll have a hard time listening to this one. The new narrator has the usual pronunciations changes but has also completely changed the way characters sound. Ok fine no two actors are the same but now everything is cartoon-ish and annoying. Tunesmith nows sounds like a over energetic salesman and the kazin all sound like depressed cartoons with stuffed noeses. Good extension of the story ruined by the voice acting. Its so anoying im having a hard time finishing.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Mispronounced

Story was spectacular Larry Niven. The narrator mispronounced some of Niven's words and names. Made the Kzin sound like Barney the purple dinosaur. Struggled to finish.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

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.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Rough reading

Would you try another book from Larry Niven and/or Barrett Whitener?

I love the ringworld series and stuck with this recording only to be able to understand what was happening in the last book.

Would you be willing to try another book from Larry Niven? Why or why not?

yes. Larry is a great writer.

Would you be willing to try another one of Barrett Whitener’s performances?

NO. Absolutely not. He did not characterize the voices and had no consistency with the few he did. The pronunciation of the proprietary vocabulary and names was completely different from that of any of the other readings. Different, and poorly excited. Not sure if he was not paid enough to care or is just this bad all the time.

Could you see Ringworld's Children being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

eh, it would be ok.

Any additional comments?

So sad to have what could have been an ok story completely muddled into almost an almost unintelligible state. I would suggest Audible try and find an alternate reading of this book.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

where are books 2 & 3 from this series?

This is book 4 in the Ringworld Series. I enjoyed Ringworld and thought this was the sequel, but quickly became lost when starting to listen to it. I did some research and found that the 2nd book is called "The Ringworld Engineers", and the 3rd is called "The Ringworld Throne". Unfortunately, these do not seem to be available on Audible. Not sure how to rate it since my issue is with Audible and not the book - so going with 3 stars.

23 of 28 people found this review helpful

Good Ringworld book, but needs better narration.

The book focused a lot on the protectors, which is great. I was hoping that part of the series would be fleshed out. I enjoyed it.

However, the narrator used different voice and personality tone for many of the established characters, and some fictional words had different pronunciations. In at least one case this violated the author's own pronunciation instruction from a previous book. The problem is that this book is a part of a series, so these changes are distracting. I understand that the Narrator has a different voice, not much you can do about that, but he should have listened to one of the other books to keep pronunciation and tone similar.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

From a space opera to the muppet show

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

Yes, the story is as good as the other ring world books

What was one of the most memorable moments of Ringworld's Children?

Probably the vastness and scale of the ringworld

How could the performance have been better?

The Narrator got all the characters wrong. And mispronounced several other established names of characters, concepts etc. Especially the kzin which sounds more like disneys goofey than the majestic and terrifying creatures they are. It took some getting used to. It seemed he had no love for the story at all and just performed a chore. If you can overcome such nuisances then the story is still good. Otherwise get the kindle version or a printed copy. The followup has a new narrator Tom Weiner which is better though still not on par with Paul Michael Garcia.

Do you think Ringworld's Children needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

(spoiler ) Yes, the ultimate fate of the ringworld remains undisclosed

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Almost back to form, shame about the performance.

After the terrible Ringworld Throne, where three-quarters of the narrative was different species talking about having sex with each other, Niven is almost back to form with this book.

However, the performance is terrible. Every alien (and there are many) sounds like a character from the Muppets. The Kzin, Acolyte (an eight-foot tall tiger with sabre teeth) sounds like Kermit’s nephew Robin. And he cannot pronounce many English words. Who pronounces ‘droud’ as ‘drood’, or ‘Pak’ as ‘pork’?

More of Louis Wu & friends, old & new - A Must

Another polished rendition. This is the 4th book of the main Ringworld series and just as enjoyable as the previous three. Characters, both the familiar ones and the new, continue to intrigue and interest with their complexity and simplicity within the incredible setting of the Ringworld itself.