Ringworld by Larry Niven is the first
Hugo Winner in a long time that really puts the science in science fiction. By that
I don’t mean that Ringworld is completely
scientifically accurate, there is faster-then-light travel and all manner of
currently impossible technology, but rather the book has a much stronger veneer
of science and makes a consecrated effort to explain its fantastic elements in
actual scientific principles. That and it’s a pretty good adventure as well.
I have
mentioned before on this blog that scientific rigor is not terrible important
to me. It is more important that a work follows its own rules rather than be
completely accurate. That has made me wary of more “hard” science fiction. I
worry, perhaps unjustly, that the rigor and the science will get in the way of
a good story and that the writing will be dry and boring. I am not sure why I
hold this prejudice except that I imagine that people who are into the hard
science are not as interested in stories.
If Ringworld is one of the better examples
of “hard” science fiction than I have little to worry about. Niven has crafted
an interesting story about a man named Louis Wu that has been hired by an alien
named Nessus to travel to an unknown star system. Louis just turned 200 years
old and is getting bored with life so he accepts the job. He and Nessus are
joined by different type of alien named Speaker to Animals (usually just
referred to as Speaker) and a young human girl named Teela Brown who Louis had
met at his 200th birthday party. Nessus has hired them to explore a
strange object called the ring world. To picture the ring world just think of
the Halo from the Halo games series. The Halos are exactly like the ring world.
The only difference I noticed was the scale. While Halo, to my recollection,
never stated how big the Halos were, Niven is fairly exact about the enormity
of ring world. The width of ring world is about 1 million miles from edge to
edge and the ring is approximately the same diameter of earth’s orbit. Put these two figures together and the ring
world has the equivalent surface area of 3 million earths.
I am a
sucker for ancient civilizations and mysterious objects so all this about Ringworld appealed to me. The idea of a
strange object that has the surface area of 3 million Earths is a pretth great
hook for me. Niven’s detail sells the size of the structure and dimensions of
the world. It was fun exploring the planet with Louis Wu and his crew. It
becomes more interesting as they discover people and ruins of a pervious
advanced civilization. Niven has an easy to read style that helps the story
move at a brisk pace.
Ringworld is not the first Hugo Winner
to feature aliens but it is one of the first to have aliens as main characters.
Nessus and Speaker and interesting characters but they fall short of the depth
and complexity of the Estraven from The
Left Hand of Darkness. Part of this stems from Niven’s aliens suffering
from what I have heard called “Star Trek
syndrome”. “Star Trek syndrome”
basically means that aliens are built around one defined characteristic such as
Vulcans being logical and Klingons being warlike. In the case of Ringworld we
have Nessus, who as a Pierson’s Puppeteer, is a coward and their entire
advanced civilization seems to be built around cowardice and Speaker, who as a
Kzin, is aggressive and violent. Perhaps it is unfair to the characters. They
are fairly well developed but the societies they come from are so one dimensional
that it is difficult from them to be as deep as they could be. I still liked
them though. Pierson’s Puppeteers are one of the stranger aliens I have read
about. They are a four legged creature with what appears to be two heads coming
out of its back. While these heads have one each and lips, they are not heads
as we would think of them. Instead they are more like hands with eyes with the
Pierson’s Puppeteers’ brain located
inside its body. It is a strange configuration but it works. The Kzin are far
more conventional. They are essentially 8 foot fall cat people. The Kzin fought
a series of wars with humans in the past and lost most of their empire. There
is a whole series of books about the Man-Kzin wars but I haven’t read them. It
should be noted that Speaker is the second cat-esque alien to appear in a Hugo
Winner and he is much better than the creepy overly sexualized Tigerishka from The Wanderer. Even his name is much
better.
There
really was only one thing that rubbed me the wrong way about this book and that
was its sexual content. It is not overly graphic but it feels bit juvenile like
what a stereotypical teenage boy would like sex to be. Teela Brown seems to be
in the story only for sex and her innate luck. Again it’s not over the top but
it can seem a tad strained.
All and
all this leaves Ringworld as a pretty good adventure story. It is certainly not
my favorite Hugo Winner but I liked it quite a bit. I didn’t need all of the
scientific details that Niven but it didn’t detract from the story. If you are looking
for a good science fiction novel, look no further than Ringworld.
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