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Larry Niven
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Ringworld: A Novel Mass Market Paperback – September 12, 1985

by Larry Niven (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 7,305
See all formats and editions
Previous page
  1. Nebula AwardWinner, 1970
  2. Hugo AwardWinner, 1971
  3. Locus AwardWinner, 1971
Next page
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Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel

Four travelers come to the ringworld. . . 

Louis Wu: human and old; bored with having lived too fully for far too many years. Seeking a challenge, and all too capable of handling it.

Nessus: a trembling coward, a puppeteer with a built-in survival pattern of nonviolence. Except that this particular puppeteer is insane.

Teela Brown: human; a wide-eyed youngster with no allegiances, no experience, no abilities. And all the luck in the world.

Speaker-To-Animals: kzin; large, orange-furred, and carnivorous. And one of the most savage life-forms known in the galaxy.

Why did these disparate individuals come together? How could they possibly function together? 

And where, in the name of anything sane, were they headed?
Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 4
    Ringworld
  2. Print length
    352 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Del Rey
  5. Publication date
    September 12, 1985
  6. Dimensions
    4.23 x 0.86 x 6.89 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0345333926
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0345333926
  9. Lexile measure
    680L
  10. See all details
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Popular Highlights in this book
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Previous page
  1. The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
    Highlighted by 618 Kindle readers
  2. "Exercise is wonderful," said Louis. "I could sit and watch it all day."
    Highlighted by 326 Kindle readers
  3. "Remember the Finagle Laws. The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. The universe is hostile."
    Highlighted by 249 Kindle readers
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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

From the Back Cover

A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again!

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey; Reprint edition (September 12, 1985)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345333926
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345333926
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 680L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.23 x 0.86 x 6.89 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 7,305

About the author

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Larry Niven

Larry Niven

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LARRY NIVEN is the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of the Ringworld series, along with many other science fiction masterpieces. He lives in Chatsworth, California. JERRY POURNELLE is an essayist, journalist, and science fiction author. He has advanced degrees in psychology, statistics, engineering, and political science. Together Niven and Pournelle are the authors of many New York Times bestsellers including Inferno, The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall, and Lucifer's Hammer.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
7,305 global ratings
One of the twenty best books in sci-fi
5 Stars
One of the twenty best books in sci-fi
One of the twenty best books in sci-fi. I criticise to book for not ending well. But further "Ringworld" novels fill in some gaps.
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Top reviews from the United States

Julia M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Read Larry Niven's short story anthology "Neutron Star" first
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2024
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The short story anthology "Neutron Star" (1968) by the same author should be read first as it explains many aspects of the "Ringworld" (1970) universe. Also, this amazon ad for "Ringworld" doesn't make clear that it was first published in 1970 since the ad's title says 2005 (presumably because that's the paperback edition being sold). Since both books were written in the 1960s, they both do reflect those times in a myriad of different ways. It's interesting that the books portray elaborate means of space travel, but nobody has a cell phone or wifi. One thing I enjoyed was that Larry Niven has a unique take on what various alien species might be like, and what character traits they would value. Even though I made the mistake of reading "Ringworld" before "Neutron Star", "Ringworld" was fascinating and lots of fun!
4 people found this helpful
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Erik Martenson
4.0 out of 5 stars One Ring to Rule Them All
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2023
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First time I’m reading something considered a true sci-fi classic, and I have mixed feelings. The story starts out in a magnificent fashion, outlining a backdrop of future life on Earth, aliens, interstellar wars, and such. Our MC is Louis Wu, a 200 year old man haunted by ennui. He meets an alien known as a Pierson’s Puppeteer, and is chosen to be part of a team of four traveling to a newly discovered space artifact: The Ringworld. The other two team members are Louis’s girlfriend, Teela, and a Kzin (another alien species looking like a big cat person).

So far, so good. The story is rich in detail and quite fascinating. It’s easy to read, and it keeps you interested. However, a couple of things caught my eye early on; The author is way too fond of exclamation points, and the text is saturated with them up to the point where they lose their intended effect. Also, there are indents at the start of the chapters, which is very unusual, and it distracted me from the story.

The story is great and keeps a good pace up until the ending, where it suddenly stalls. Then there’s too much talk, and it feels like the author is unconsciously delaying the ending. The whole sequence at the Police Station should’ve been deleted. It adds nothing to the story. However, after that it picks up again, and the ending is great.

I can clearly see why the book is considered a classic, and it’s a good one, but a few things makes it a four instead of a five. For example, the author confuses meteor with meteorite, and spells millennia wrong. He sometimes mixes hyperspace with hyperdrive, and most people today are aware that quicksand and fossil fuel are myths.
2 people found this helpful
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Tim Nebergall
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, even after all these years
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2024
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I first read this book as a young man and absolutely loved it. Larry Niven is a Master storyteller and he absolutely crushed it with this one. Enough hard science to make you think, with enough human element to keep the juice flowing, Ringworld has it all.
One person found this helpful
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R. Drew
3.0 out of 5 stars Great Alien Characters. Story sadly just okay.
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2024
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The author has a great knack for creating compelling and unique alien characters that help the story. I got a bit lost (at times) when the story explained the technology and science here and there. I got tired of re-reading some parts and just figured I'd pick up on the gist later. Sometimes this worked. I really try to envision the world painted by the author's words in my mind's eye. I felt like I got most of it. The story was good enough but I struggled to be more thoroughly engaged with it. It just became a reading exercise along the worst parts. Enough reviewers here likely to provide more praise than I can as it is a noteworthy classic.
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Theodore Green
5.0 out of 5 stars Favorite Sci-Fi series with fascinating ideas and good science
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2024
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I have read hundreds of sci-fi books over the past 55 years, and the Ringworld series is by far my favorite. I reread them every 10 years or so. Sure there are silly parts, but the implications of something as big as Ringworld puts me deep in thought for hours. Obviously you have to read this book first, but "The Ringworld Engineers" is the best book in the series.
2 people found this helpful
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Patrick Mcnelis
4.0 out of 5 stars A story about an old man, a young woman, a monster cat, and a talking potholder.
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2015
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I liked this book, but I can't say that I loved it. It started a little slow, and Niven seemed stuck in a rut over how to move from introducing Louis Wu to actually having him engage in the intended story. In hard science fiction, I prefer the technology to be something that I can envision, even if only in the far off future, but I struggled with imagining how humanity could develop instantaneous point-to-point transportation on Earth only to need to spend weeks and months travelling between stars. And why would a civilization so advanced as to be capable of building a million-mile-wide ring around a star but be so incredibly stupid to build floating "castles" overtop urban centers. Still, it was entertaining enough, and I wanted to continue reading, so all is good there. The characters also set me off a little. The 200 year old man shacking up with the 20 year old girl...seemed to me more like Niven fantasizing on paper...but OK, I could get past that. Then the 20 year old girl disappearing and Louis not seeming to really care...thrn an alien humanoid coming along that he quickly has sex with...ooookay. The 8 foot 500 lb orange cat creature; OK, I could get past that. I could never get the image of a talking oven mitt out of my head whenever Nessus appeared on the page. I realize that evolution would create different creatures on different worlds best suited to their environments, but I could never imagine a 3-legged, 2-headed creature with prehensile lips for fingers not making it into the evolutionary failure bin. And to top it off they are the most advanced civilization currently in the galaxy (in this book) even though they are afraid to fly or go into space...but developed hyperdrive...? It doesn't make sense. People say this was not a comedy, and it is certainly not a comedy in the same sense that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy, but the cast of characters along with their interactions and reactions to one another indeed pushes this novel to the border of comedy at the very least. Just Niven's description of Nessus in various situations reeks of comedy. Some oif the arguments between characters are indeed humorous. Lastly, Niven was hit or miss with the technical details. In some areas he was very descriptive, in others he skipped a lot. I wanted to know more of Ringworld and what the characters were seeing, but instead I got a few superfluous sex scenes. And what happened to Nessus? Oh well. It is still a good book, and I do recommend it. Just know you are not getting Asimovian-styled hard science fiction.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cliente Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars Que criatividade !
Reviewed in Brazil on September 16, 2023
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O enredo é realmente fora da caixa. Os protagonistas, suas motivações, o ringworld em si (o mundo em forma de anel 3mm de vezes maior que a Terra). E por que ele é importante? Porque resolve problemas dos povos do futuro que remetem aos nossos problemas hoje.
Como toda boa ficção científica, refletimos sobre nossa própria realidade enquanto curtimos um bom thriller.
Não foram 5 estrelas porque o final não me agradou muito. Porém, já estou lendo a sequência: The Ringworld Engineers.
Obs: A versão original em inglês tem vocabulário bastante difícil.
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Adam c
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good, original sci-fi novel
Reviewed in Canada on February 27, 2022
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I liked that the characters are not normal, they are very original and creative. The story is good, again very original, and of course the ring itself is great.

The only negatives/annyoing things for me was that sometimes things seem to not be explained very well, or very vaugely. I kinda just shrug and move on. Also sex is a hobby and every character seems to be in the mood all the time in this series.
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Rotta_XL
5.0 out of 5 stars Clásico
Reviewed in Mexico on May 5, 2021
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Si te gusta Halo y la ciencia ficción, este es obligatorio de leer. Creo que fue la primera novela basada en un hipotético anillo en un punto de Lagrange, y los "titerotes" son una especie interesante aunque con un natural sesgo histórico-cultural en el autor. Recomendable.
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Andrew Weston
5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a story
Reviewed in Germany on October 25, 2023
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A classic from the past that is just as enjoyable today as its always been.
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Andreas Borell
4.0 out of 5 stars Classic good book, bad edition
Reviewed in Sweden on October 29, 2022
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This edition is printed on cheap paper and runny ink. Some might call it artistic or even rustic, and not enough the hustle of a return, but if you intend to keep it, pay for a better edition
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