Ringworld's Children

De: Larry Niven

Narrado por: Barrett Whitener

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

Disappointing narrator compared to previous books

Is there anything you would change about this book?

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

I've listened to all the previous Ringworld and some other of Niven's books on audio, and this is the first one where I found the narrator's performance disappointing. Not only were names from previous books pronounced completely differently (which alone, I might forgive, if no guidance was given by the author), but this narrator made some bizarre choices for portrayal of some of the characters. For Acolyte, the Kzin, the narrator chose a rather goofy sounding voice, which actually reminded me of Goofy as opposed to a 7-foot speaking tiger! For the Protector Tunesmith, he made no attempt to sound like a protector might sound, speaking with a hardened beak-like mouth. Previous narrators have very convincingly portrayed how this speech "impediment" might sound. The puppeteers voice didn't convey the musical or feminine nature that is usually used to describe them. On the whole, the voices were just more whimsical and jovial that I would have expected. There were also some off inflections which made me think the narrator didn't understand what he was reading... like when referring to Louis Wu as a "current addict". The inflection made it sound as if he meant current as in "right now" as opposed to "electricity". Perhaps if I was completely unfamiliar with Niven's universe or previous books, I might not notice these subtleties, but I found them quite distracting.

Not bad, but not as good as the first two

The readers performance is passable, but have have listened to others that really do a great job of creating distinct characters with their voices. The story is also passable, has a few interesting bits, but the end feels like Larry got bored and just wanted to be done with it. Overall I am glad I listened to it as it did add to the overall storyline. Just wish it had as much as the first two books.

Unusual Character Impressions

I don't know if it's because I had gotten accustomed to the narrator in the previous books but this reading seemed a little off to me. The reading of the dialogue seemed cartoonish, where characters like Acolyte sounded like an off-brand impersonation of Goofy. Outside of that the rest of the narrative sounded fine though, and the story was as compelling as the rest in the series.

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