The Ringworld Engineers - Larry Niven

The Ringworld Engineers

By Larry Niven

  • Release Date: 2015-08-17
  • Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 115 Ratings

Description

Over twenty years after returning to Earth from the Ringworld, Louis Wu is kidnapped, along with a warrior kzin named Chmeee, by a Pierson's puppeteer, a brilliant 2-headed alien who calls himself the "Hindmost". The puppeteer hopes to regain status with his fellow citizens by traveling to the Ringworld to bring back treasures. Upon reaching the vast and mysterious Ringworld, Louis and his companions find many surprises, including that the Ringworld is unstable. Its billions of inhabitants will die within months if Louis and his companions do not find a way to locate the Control Center of its mysterious builders, the Ringworld engineers, and fix the problem. 

"THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS has all the inventiveness, convincing detail and narrative vivacity that have come to be associated with the works of Larry Niven." 
- Poul Anderson

"Fans of the original novel will not be disappointed, and newcomers will have no trouble following the plot, in this adventurous exploration of a mind-boggling landscape." 
- Publishers Weekly

"Another fine masterpiece from a master of science fiction...The Ringworld itself is a dazzling notion, carrying the future evolution of technology about as far as possible."
- Jack Williamson, author of THE HUMANOIDS and DARKER THAN YOU THINK

Born April 30, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. Attended California Institute of Technology; flunked out after discovering a book store jammed with used science fiction magazines.  Graduated Washburn University, Kansas, June 1962: BA in Mathematics with a Minor in Psychology, and later received an honorary doctorate in Letters from Washburn. Interests: Science fiction conventions, role playing games, AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edges of science. Comics. Filk singing. Yoga and other approaches to longevity. Moving mankind into space by any means, but particularly by making space endeavors attractive to commercial interests.  Several times we’ve hosted The Citizens Advisory Council for a National Space Policy. I grew up with dogs. I live with a cat, and borrow dogs to hike with. I have passing acquaintance with raccoons and ferrets. Associating with nonhumans has certainly gained me insight into alien intelligences. www.larryniven.net

Reviews

  • Poor Sequel

    3
    By Ecuasage
    Bought audiobook through iTunes. Had little of the first book’s wonder. The author was already obsessed with mating Louis Wu to every female he came across in the first book and took it to a new level of silliness here. Inventing a culture that requires sex to seal business deals comes across as a contrived and needlessly lurid plot device. After this book, I don't have the desire to read more of the series.
  • Classic book, but terrible ebook version.

    1
    By T. Roach
    The low rating is not for the book itself - Ringworld Engineers is classic Niven and required reading for any scifi fan. But this ebook rendition is awful, the worst I have ever seen. Missing words and phrases, punctuation missing and inserted seemingly at random, words so badly misspelled I couldn’t even figure out what they were supposed to be. As an example, the word “you” appears as “yon” dozens of times. It’s clear that this version wasn’t given even a cursory read-through by an English-speaking editor, and it is amazing someone is charging money for such a butchering of a great book.
  • Bad rendition of a great book

    3
    By Fezaru
    It's pretty clear from the number of typos that the e-book version of this was never proof-read. Giving this three stars after averaging five for the story vs. one for the typo-ridden mess of an e-book.
  • The Adventure Continues!

    5
    By Dwardeng
    This is my review for the book. It's a great follow up to the first novel. The interaction between the top three characters is brilliant, and sometimes quite humorous. Don't miss this series.
  • Tanj typos!

    1
    By stanthejeep
    I actually loved the book. But I think this version of it was scanned with a text reader. There's more than one typo per page throughout the entire book. Some of them make it hard to follow in parts.

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