The Ringworld Engineers

The Ringworld Series, Book 2

By: Larry Niven

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

It’s been 20 years since the quixotic and worldsweary Louis Wu discovered the Ringworld. Now he and SpeakertoAnimals are going back, captives of the Hindmost, a deposed puppeteer leader.

With Louis’ help, the Hindmost intends to regain his status by bringing back such extraordinary treasures from the Ringworld that his fellow puppeteers will have to be impressed. But when they arrive, Louis discovers that the Ringworld is no longer stable - and will destroy itself within months. To survive, he must locate the control center of the legendary engineers who built the planet.

His quest becomes a wild and gripping venture blended with the mysteries and spectacular technologies that only Larry Niven can conjure.

©1980 Larry Niven (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The Ringworld Engineers has all the imaginativeness, convincing detail, and narrative vivacity that have come to be associated with the works of Larry Niven. Furthermore, it answers a lot of questions that have been tantalizing his readers for a long time. Most highly recommended!” (Poul Anderson)

Great Listening!

I really loved having this faithfully amazing tale read to me. Creates a much different vibe than just reading words.

well written

strong characters ,very good story line, inventive and interesting and keep me engaged highly recommend by friends did not disappoint

excellent tech sci-fi

great story, well told. finally, tech sci-fi without much fantasy. I loved it! wish there would be more!

Way better than the first book

the book does a better job explaining and answering you questions than the first one did. if you read the first one you have to read this one.

Good Story, Wrong Narrator. Way Wrong.

Short review - long winded soapbox.

Casting picked the wrong narrator for this book. Mr.Garcia speaks with a clear voice that might be a pleasure to listen to if given the right story. His voice has a pleading quality to it - sometimes a whining quality. I see Mr. Garcia reading the classics or maybe some genre I don't listen to such as childrens books.

After listening to the first book in this series my impression was serious fictional science with fun banter, appropriate sarcasm, and witty conversation. Mr. Parker nailed the first book with his outstanding performance. I mean he nailed it. His voice, inflections, emphasis were all spot on. I was able to laugh in the right places, be shocked in other places and follow along with the story very easily.

In the second book much was lost. Too much. I would have to listen to something multiple times to realize that was supposed to be a funny part or the characters picking on each other or some serious encounter. But instead the whole book is lost in an incorrect emotional interpretation. All sense of tension countered by comic relief is lost. Instead all the characters seem to be whining or complaining to each other.

This is one of the fails when converting a series into audible content. Publishers need to realize the narrator is a huge part of the book. They can turn a wonderful book into a painful drag or even turn a mediocre book into something worth listening to. With Mr. Parker they found the right narrator - then immediately changed for someone so wrong for the part. I notice in future books Mr. Parker does not return. Unfortunate. I'm not sure I can go through one more book with Mr. Garcia only to be facing another change in narrators. Ugh.

As a parallel - Jim Butcher has a series called The Dresden Files. It is outstanding! For 13 volumes the narrator, Mr. Glover, gave an outstanding performance. Voice perfect. In volume 13 they brought in a new narrator and I almost lost interest in the whole series. Maybe I was totally used to Mr. Marsters by that time but I don't think I would have listened to the whole series if it was read by the narrator of volume 13. Fortunately this publisher realized the situation and brought out volume 14 with the original narrator. Outstanding!

If all publishers would realize their narrators are bringing their books to life and their voice must be matched to the character then I think the audible world would be much better. If they find the right voice in the early volumes of a series - stick with it! Pay him or her more if you have to but don't swap voices without due consideration for the impact on the listener. Narrators are celebrities in a real sense. If my favorite artist (narrator) is reading in a genre I listen to (or one I want to try) I jump on it because of the narrator and I'm generally pleased with the outcome.

Wonderful 2nd Ringworld book.

Wonderful follow-up to Ring World. The ending broke my heart a little. The narrator did the book Justice.

Like OG Star Trek but longer and with more physics

To me this is a story of a man overcoming addiction with empathy. I found that very powerful.

There is a lot of sci-fi physics in this book (which I enjoyed). There is also a fair bit of sex, which the book is trying to pass of as philosophical. The characters are easy to love. Louie Wu feels alien enough that it doesn't seem impossible when he predicts the behavior of aliens generations removed from him. The narrator's unidentifiable accent and the odd vernacular help sell it. The Puppeteer makes a brave coward.

I enjoined this book more than the first. Both books examine the world in unusual ways without presenting a strong agenda, which I consider the best part of science fiction.

Fun Continuation Of The Ringworld Story

This is an overall enjoyable Ringworld story. It's become a little dated with the misogyny and, honestly, weird interspecies sex as a negotiating tactic but it still holds up.
The narration is good. All characters have consistent, well spoken individual voices.

A very inventive world!

Having read the first book of the series, I had to continue on. It’s a captivating story even if the dialog of each character sounds too much like each other. It’s a great sci-fi considering when it was written.

Great continuation for what was never a series

First let me say that the Narrator isn't as good as the one on the first book but not as bad as the one for the 4th book Ringworld's Children, it should be the same narrator for all the books in a series but I guess its not possible every time

This is the start of a series of books that the author never set out to make a series, this was never planed but after 10 years and many fans point out errors with the Ringworld as well as wanting more he made this book and I am glad he did.

The author says that MIT students attending the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention chanted, "The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable!" Niven says that one reason he wrote The Ringworld Engineers was to address these engineering problems.

In the first book you are introduced to the Ringworld and there are some inaccurate or overlooked features about the Ringworld that were corrected in this book or at least helped to explain them better, if you read the first book and loved it then this is a must read.

Louis Wu went to the Ringworld 20 years ago and now he goes back with his friend Chmeee (the "ch" is pronounced like a guttural German "ch", as in "ach" the narrator does it correct in this book but the one for the 4th one Ringworld's Children don't) "Speaker-to-Animals" from the first book who has a name.

This book explores some of the Ringworld and you get to see more of how it works, it has become unstable in its orbit and if not corrected it will brush against its sun and obliterate everything on the surface and probably destroy the Ringworld itself but Louie Wu and hos motley crew are back to help fix the problem.

There must be a control or repair center on the Ringworld to fix the problem and they must find it, but who made the Ringworld and how long ago is still a mystery that will be discovered in this book.

There are whole maps of planets in a 1:1 scale on the Ringworld that are of Worlds in Known Space including Earth and Mars, others are unknown but you find out its the home world of the makers of the Ringworld.

other questions still remain after reading this book, some will be answered in the following books and others can be found in the prequels, still others remain a mystery for the reader to infer.

This is pretty much a must read if you liked the first book, now some people say the next one isn't that good and that the 4th one is also not so good, I have read them all and they aren't bad, you can read my reviews of them also if you look them up