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

The last one

I enjoyed the series thinking it was done. Only to find there are a fourth book.

The dead tree edition is much better.

Would you listen to Ringworld's Children again? Why?

I love the story and plot lines, however Barrett Whitener should have listened to the earlier volumes if for no other reason than to stay consistent on how to pronounce character's names and the names of objects. It is a little irritating to hear these mispronounciations over and over again.
Another complaint is the speech patterns of some of the characters is all wrong for their personality and again, as they were in earlier volumes, for consistency sake.
Except for these issues, it's OK, but I preferred the hard copy version to the audio book. Usually it is the other way around.

One of the better ringworld books

Enjoyed this book more than the last. The story telling was more on point which made it more enjoyable

a heading is required

Great series, though it diminishes as it stretches on. This is not a childrens book. So what gives with the tony the tiger voice? Where did the lisp on the protectors go? Why is the pronounment of every unique word different then the previous three books?

I dislike changing the reader(s).

this readers pronunciations and personalizations of the characters are incredibly different from the previous book. it's incredibly difficult to get used to. I don't know if I can continue listening after 4 chapters. I'm most likely going to switch to print version.

Not with this narrator

I loved the first 3 books, and was anxious to continue my journey in order. Imagine my horror when there was a new narrator, pronouncing names completely differently, and making huge, ferocious cat warriors sound like scared kittens. I tried to get through it. I sped it up. I slowed it down. Sometimes that works when a narrator needs some help. Not with this. I finally gave up and didn't finish. I will just read the book.

Good story, bad performance.

It is obvious that the narrator did not do his research prior to his performance. A Kazin child should not sound like a petulant whining youth. Some of the voices were inaccurate (Tunesmith should not sound like a cheerful gentleman). I think the story is worth listening too even with the disservice the narrator did to it.

Great book, not great performance.

In the Ringworld series, this is a good entry. The performance, however, it lacking. It's a different reader than the past three books, and this reader didn't see how the last three books were performed at all. I understand wanting to give one's own performance, but aside from the bad performance choices, the reader mispronounces a large number of character names, races, and other words.

Then there's the completely out of place ways the reader has some of the characters speak. Again, I understand wanting to do your own performance, but a race of 8 foot tall, man eating tiger-people should not sound like Goofy from a Mickey Mouse cartoon, and a two hundred year old man would not whine like a 10 year old. The different pronunciation is one thing, but the voices for some characters is just completely out of place, makes no sense for the story, and are distracting.

But if you're a Niven fan, power through it because it's a god book at leads into the next, final book in the Ringworld saga!

I wish they kept the previous narrator

while the story itself was consistent with the previous books, the change in narrator made the characterizations quite different and therefore jarring. This is especially true if you listen to the series in binge fashion. be warned.

Standard sequel to a sequel to a sequel

I read Ring World many years ago, and I’ve always wanted to read the follow up books, which thanks to Audible I was able to do. However, it follows the standard pattern of quality of most sequels the farther away it gets from the original book the worse they get. this was an acceptable wrapup to the saga, although far from the best book I’ve ever read. Did not care for the narration either. Spoiler alert: the fifth book is by far worse.