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Hoo boy. While I haven't yet finished the book, I have so many thoughts that I want to get out. Basically, this now over 50-year-old book truly shows its age, and I highly recommend proceeding at your own risk, if you decide you want to take a foray into this old school sci-fi. Possibly the most egregious, continuing issue is that the main character is an elderly, know-it-all man who jokes about (CW) as a next resort if he can't sleep with a willing woman. Throughout the book, he is a smarmy jerk to his current girlfriend, a woman literally a tenth his age. He's continually amazed she has any type of intelligence, and makes the most breath-takingly insulting observations about her. Beyond this consistent sexism that turns up on every page, there are some pretty horrendous racial comments by the narrator, and casual homphobia with the main character's unwillingness to accept that one of the other characters (he/him) is engaged to marry a he/him. Reading this, I'm amazed that it was ever published, and even more amazed that it (thankfully!) didn't influence the subsequent generations of sci-fi writers, who have been a million times more thoughtful and insightful.
Pros: very good writing, and some fascinating world-building (but generally couched through the narration of the smarmy main character, so it's annoying to read).
Book/series to read instead: Ninefox Gambit, the first book of the Machineries of Empire series. As I'm reading Ringworld, I keep drawing parallels to that incredible sci-fi offering, and wishing I was re-reading that instead.
Spoiler
rapePros: very good writing, and some fascinating world-building (but generally couched through the narration of the smarmy main character, so it's annoying to read).
Book/series to read instead: Ninefox Gambit, the first book of the Machineries of Empire series. As I'm reading Ringworld, I keep drawing parallels to that incredible sci-fi offering, and wishing I was re-reading that instead.