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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
Boring. Crude. Unimaginative. All the necessary qualities for something to be popular nowadays.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It's 1875, and at a table in a long-distance train car there are two old philosophers with corncob pipes and horn-rimmed glasses having a dense scholarly debate about the nature of life on other planets. The third person at the table is a retired railway executive, who is mildly interested in the debate but is more interested in the fourth person: his new, inappropriately young girlfriend. After a while the train breaks down, so they go out and try to fix it. They walk through some scenery. They talk to some people. There may be an episode of them getting captured and/or uncaptured - I dunno, I had kind of lost interest at this point.
Congratulations, you've just read Ringworld.
I mean, sure, the train is moving at a hundred thousand times the speed of light, and the philosophers are aliens, but the sad thing is, none of that matters. As I see it, Ringworld is a story about four people who go on an adventure and are too preoccupied with their own relationships and internal conflicts to let anything interesting happen on said adventure. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of these people, and the "adventures" they go on are pretty inconsequential. I know it's supposed to be a classic and all, but this book sucked all the joy out of reading for me; it's the closest I've ever come to not finishing a book because of how much I didn't like it.
Congratulations, you've just read Ringworld.
I mean, sure, the train is moving at a hundred thousand times the speed of light, and the philosophers are aliens, but the sad thing is, none of that matters. As I see it, Ringworld is a story about four people who go on an adventure and are too preoccupied with their own relationships and internal conflicts to let anything interesting happen on said adventure. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of these people, and the "adventures" they go on are pretty inconsequential. I know it's supposed to be a classic and all, but this book sucked all the joy out of reading for me; it's the closest I've ever come to not finishing a book because of how much I didn't like it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Confinement, Death, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence
Worth reading because the premise is good. The writing quality, casual sexism and racism take a lot of energy to plow through. however. Those are rough even by 1970 standards.
Down for the adventure and the concept of Ringworld - which is W I L D, 3 million x the surface area of Earth??? So fucking neat. I appreciate the thought that went into the logistics. But, man, am I bored of the way sci-fi dudes write women into their stories. Not sure if anybody told them, but we can advance story lines in other ways outside of sex and being in love with the main guy. Also... we have brains? Anyways, luckily the world is fascinating enough to keep me hooked.
adventurous
challenging
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Horrifically sexist and boring. Kept reading until they reached Ringworld but even the descriptions from space were so uninteresting (and I love descriptions of large space structures! Rendezvous with Rama is one of my favorite sci fi books!!!) I had no faith that Larry Niven would do anything interesting enough to make reading the rest of the book worth putting up with the terrible writing and excessive sexism (worse than pretty much all of the other sci fi I've read from this period and earlier - I've read enough books with product-of-its-time sexism in the early-mid 20th century and this is worse than the typical 60s/70s fare, and a fair amount of the 40s/50s that I've read as well)
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is considered a classic but I honestly found it way too sexist in every way.
For such a foundational book to the sci fi genre, this book really does not hold up well. The main character is utterly insufferable in his ego, and the only females characters are so one dimensional. While one of the women does serve a grander part of the lesson/plot, it is entirely outside of her agency, and for most of the book she (and the other woman) serve as little more than sexual fodder for the main character, and constantly portrayed as dumb and naive. I appreciate what Ringworld contributed to the sci fi genre, but it was really not worth my time reading.
It’s a stupid reason: I just hated the name of the MC.
Enjoyable straightforward story with excellent world building. It is reminiscent of Asimov's work unfortunately that includes his dryness.