Kemper's Reviews > Ringworld

I’d wanted to read this because I’m a fan of the Halo video games, and I’d heard that it was a big influence on those. I gotta say that I’d have liked it more if the Master Chief would have shown up and started chucking some plasma grenades around.

Set in 2855, human Louis Wu is recruited by an alien named Nessus to go on a hazardous mission to explore a strange structure that rings a distant star. Another alien called Speaker-To-Animals from a warrior race apparently descended from some really tough tomcats is also recruited. A human woman named Teela joins the group almost by accident.

When they get to their destination, they find a giant ring with a habitable inner surface that has an area many times greater than the earth. After an accident strands them on the world, they start exploring to find a way to get their ship back out into space.

This had some really big sci-fi ideas in it, most notably the Ringworld itself. But this is one of those books where the social attitudes of the time it was written have become really painful to read. Because even though it’s supposed to be 2855, the women in this book exist only to: 1) Sleep with Louis. 2) Be good luck charms. 3) Act as ship’s whores on long space flights.

You’ve come a long way, baby!

I generally try to avoid judging a book by the era it was written, but 1970 couldn’t have been this bad, could it? And if so, I’d expect a guy who could come up with concepts this big to have put a little thought into gender roles in 800 years. Plus, while the Ringworld idea is pretty clever, I found the rest of the sci-fi kind of crude and dated. Maybe that’s just because there’s been 40 years of material since it was published, but I didn’t get much enjoyment out of reading this.