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Ringworld - by Larry Niven
I read the 1970 book club ediiton, which was sadly fraught with typos. The saving grace being that the
typos were often amusing, and I now have a new appreciate for the blistering speed of "March 2" - wonder
what that sound barrier is like?
I read this book ages ago, and Niven became one of the only authors I've ever made an effort to follow
through their complete written work. I think this was largely due to a lack of exposure to more
options, as reading this now shows that the writing is clumsy and slow in spots. However, what still
stands the test of time, and still will delight speculative scientists out there, are his Big Ideas, which
is really what he's most interested in. It's clear that the crafting of a story around his desire to
talk about the benefits and challenges of a Ringworld were totally secondary, but he does manage to
throw together 300 fairly coherent pages and some fun characters.
His aliens are a fantastic departure from the stock humanoid-with-different-skin trope, and the
puppeteers give us the impression of a deep well to be explored, with many hints to their backstory
given in this volume. Years back I read all the books in the Ringworld series, though admit i don't
remember them at all. I'm not entirely inclined to do so on the strength of this volume, but it has
been fun revisiting an important title in the history of scifi literature, and I think it should be
on anyone's reading list.
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