Ringworld

Larry Niven and I have a troubled relationship to say the least, and though I had debated being done with his work entirely, I was resolved to read what many consider to be his mega-classic. At the outset, Ringworld was surpassing my expectations, though these expectations were about on the floor. At its heart, this is an adventure story about a group of unlikely companions that set out to explore an enormous engineering marvel that was recently found outside of "Known Space". The first fiftyish pages are highly propellant and focused, which made me optimistic.

There are perhaps two things that Niven does consistently well in his magnum opus. First, and probably what the book is most well known for, is his ability to communicate the scale of the Ringworld. There are many scenes of the characters struggling to grasp just how monumentally large it is which inspired a true sense of spectacle for me. Sometimes these moments are bogged down in Niven's engineering jargon, but if that kind of things appeal to you, you shouldn't have any problems. Niven also has some intelligent dialogue between the main characters.

Unfortunately I don't have much else positive to say about it. While the two aliens in the main foursome are at least passable, I can't say the same for the two humans. Louis Wu, despite being several hundred years old, acts with the wisdom and intelligence of a twenty year old college dropout. I found him, for the most part, insufferable. Even worse was the depiction of Teela Brown, the one woman in the crew. Across all of Niven's work that I've read he's always had a lecherous and incel-like perspective on women, and unfortunately that's no different here. At one point Louis attempts to calm Teela down as she struggles to understand her purpose on the crew by saying that she's here so that Louis doesn't have to rape one of the aliens to release his sexual frustration. Because of Teela's innate luck, she's consistently depicted as having no skills, no ability to battle hardship, no emotional strength, no real intelligence. There's a gratuitous amount of sex between Louis and the two women that he comes across, mostly because both of them are inexplicably drawn towards him. It's these kind of sophomoric sensibilities that have a habit of dragging Niven's work into the mud.

Upon its very rushed conclusion, I was left feeling like the plot of Ringworld was.... pointless? Indeed, most of the book felt rudderless to me. The characters wander across mostly empty space on an endless world with ill-defined plans. There are a lot of ideas in Ringworld that could've been actually compelling had they been explored with more skill. Specifically, the idea of selecting for luck is a neat idea to me, one that I haven't encountered before in SF though I'm sure it's been done. As it stands, I struggled to push through to the end, and I doubt that Niven will make any other appearances in my TBR.