Ringworld larry niven Continue This may well prove to be one of the most controversial reviews on this site as Ringworld is one of the staple foods of every SF reader. But a bit of perspective is called, I think. Ringworld itself, a colossal manufactured world circling the sun, containing enough space to solve the problem of overpopulation of any planet, is a conceptual gobsmacker. This may well be the most amazing period of the SF concept. For its influence and brilliance of ideas, Ringworld richly deserves its classic status. However, pass the Big Idea, and the actual ringworld story is a whisper of a subtle thing, a surprisingly low-key tale of extraterrestrial discoveries in which not the whole heck of a lot really happens to capture you for short and curlies, and with enough unanswered questions that Niven was essentially putting in the position of having to write a sequel a decade later in order to settle them and stop his fans from grousing. (Later, he'll turn the entire shebang into a franchise.) Ringworld is a good but not great novel that almost rises to its premise, but runs rings around delivering full satisfaction. Louis Wu, a frustrated countryman, was approached on his 200th birthday by Nessus, a quasi-horse alien known as a puppeteer because of the two flat heads he sports on his long necks. Ness is looking for a small team of aliens to accompany him on a deep space journey, the purpose of which he annoyingly secretive. Another crew speaker-to-animal, a member of Niven's hugely popular feline race Kzin, and Teela Brown, a young Earth girl who is included for reasons that constitute an almost abuse suspension of disbelief. Puppeteers run from the wave front of radiation emanating from the chain reaction of supernovae, which occurred in the galactic nucleus. Now we are told that the species of puppeteers are known primarily for their timidity. At the slightest threat, they twist into a small ball like doodles, and they are so afraid of spaceships that they designed their worlds to fly through space. Niven here strains credulity to the tipping point. It's not so unimaginable what kind of species can come up to turn its own planet into a spaceship, but wouldn't the kind of that balls at the slightest provocation do just that when presented armageddon itself? Transforming, not just one, but five worlds into the formation of flying spacecraft takes just a little gut, grit and determination, the attributes niven goes to great effort to assure us the puppeteers do not possess. Well, Niven solves this issue by breaking his own rules. Nessus was chosen by Hindmost, the puppeteer leader (and the witty title he is too) to undertake this journey, because by puppeteer standards he is crazy: Nessus shows no fear of response in the way normal puppeteers are expected. So Nessus, and company head into the blackness of the void aboard long shot, a puppet ship puppeteer by FTL Drive (Nessus offered Wu and Speaker technology to drive as an incentive to come), and soon flat they arrive at Ringworld. The novel is a pleasant escapism up to this point, even when Niven asks readers to cut his heap of slack. Once we're down on the Ringworld surface, however, readers' expectations are challenging in both a good and a bad way. On the one hand, it's good that Niven sticks to his hard SF roots and doesn't turn the story into a Star Trek episode once the characters are forced to crash the ground. Ringworld is staggeringly huge, a million miles wide (about four times the distance from Earth to the moon), and so our heroes cover very little land as the story progresses. Much of the action of the second half of the book involves a lot of lightning around on little personal flycycles, and our only real goal is our characters to find a way to save their spacecraft and get away. Abstaining from the real expectation, the ingredient one might consider essential to any good adventure yarn, is notable. After all, the inhabitants of Ringworld are discovered living in the ruins of a once great but decidedly short-lived civilization. Niven devotes an appropriate narrative space to speculation about why Ringworld's civilization failed, but the craziest thing in the book is that we will never know anything about Ringworld engineers of any significance. (How is it that they are almost human!?) Which, as I mentioned above, why Niven eventually had to cave in the pressure to write a sequel. Yes, there are miracles here. A brief detour of the characters of the puppet native world more than adequately evokes a sense of alien exoticism. As mentioned earlier, Ringworld itself is the mother of all SFnal concepts. And our quartet of heroes is well drawn. They attract us if some aspects of the plot are not present, and we follow the story for their sake. You should definitely read this book (hell, you should definitely read Niven Period). Books that take both Hugo and Nebula are generally considered sacred, so I'm sure there will be many who disagree with my nitpicks. As always, your mileage can vary. This was my third time to read this book when I reread it for review on this site, and my opinion didn't noticeably change, although some areas of confusion from past readings have been cleared for me. I found myself comparing Ringworld to a similar novel, Arthur C. Clarke's rendezvous with Rama. Both tales about the discovery and exploration of a dazzling alien artifact, an independent world. Clark, I thought better conveyed that sense of otherworldly mystery, suspense, and wonder, though Niven would surely beat him on a scale. The fact is that size doesn't always matter. Followed by Ringworld Engineers. Last September Goldsman made a first-look deal for MGM that encouraged him to write and executive A series adaptation of Larry Niven's classic sci-fi novel Ringworld, and in a recent interview with Collider, he revealed that Game of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor will direct the pilot. First published in 1970, Ringworld followed Ringworld Engineers in 1980, Ringworld Throne in 1996, Ringworld Kids in 2004 and 2012 Destiny of the Worlds, which Niven first with Edward M. Lerner. Fate of Worlds is also a sequel to the four-book Fleet of Worlds series, which is set in the same famous space universe as Ringworld. Image via Paramount Ringworld tells the story of Louis Gridley Wu, who is celebrating his 200th birthday in a technologically advanced Earth in the distant future. Constantly bored, he accepts an offer to join a young woman and two aliens on a thriller journey to explore Ringworld, a remote artificial ring behind a famous space, and uncover the mysteries of the ring. Goldsman told The Collider he was actively working on writing a Ringworld pilot, having just jumped off a note call with Amazon and MGM executives. Alan Taylor is attached to the straight, and we hope to turn into an actual set of moving photos, but God knows, said Goldsman, who, like all writer-producers in Hollywood, is no stranger to having projects get stuck in the development of hell. Ringworld has been in the works at Amazon since September 2017, and it seems to be finally moving forward now that Goldsman has started writing and Taylor is on board to direct. Amazon has certainly been focused on finding its next breakout hit, investing hundreds of millions in the Lord of the Rings series and another based on Wheel of Time books. The streamer has Utopia and the Underground Railroad on the horizon. Goldsman declined to answer a question about Amazon's strategy, but seemed confident of Ringworld's potential to lure fans of the genre. I don't know what Amazon is looking for, but they seem like these are big objects that have scale and scale if you go all the way back, that original game with the man in the high castle, Goldsman said. I think these are big, comprehensive universes, there are very few of them still available, and I certainly think the famous space is one of them, for those of us who were Larry Niven fans in our school years. Niven's world, its universe, dare I say it, is incredibly complex and nuanced, and Ringworld has always been this entry point. Better minds than mine have tried to crack it, but hopefully we'll do it this time. Taylor is as sturdy a hand as you'll find to direct a pilot for a big-budget sci-fi/fantasy series. In addition to directing numerous episodes of Game of Thrones, he directed the top HBO series such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood, Carnival, Oz, Six Feet Under, Rome, Big Love, Boardwalk Empire, Bored to Death and In Treatment. They basically have it on on Over there. On the feature side, Taylor is best known for directing Thor: Dark World and Terminator: Genisys, and he's the soprano prequel to Newark's many Saints in Can awaiting release on March 12, 2021. It is presented by UTA. Check out what Akiva Goldsman told us below: For more from our exclusive interview with Goldsman, here's what he said about the possible Fringe reboot as his scrapping of the Batman v Superman movie was the darkest thing you've ever seen, and an update on the amazing adventures of Cavalier and Clay series in development on Showtime.