This is another book featured in all of the "Best Sci-Fi Books EVVARRRR!" lists. At the time of publication it was an introduction to the concept of a Dyson Ring, which is something I was interested in long before I knew this book existed. The concept is fairly simple, and for those not in the know I'll attempt to describe it. There is a zone around any given star known as the Goldilocks zone. We're in it right now. It's a variable band around a star where if a planet exists and if the planet has water on it, the water is going to be in liquid form. We call it the Goldilocks zone because it's a "just right" environment for organic molecules to form and eventually turn into life. That's what happened here and that's why scientists are more interested in planets in the Goldilocks zones around their respective stars than other planets. These planets might actually have life on them or could at least be a potential habitat for us once we destroy this lovely planet. Now given any modern society with a reproductive rate faster than its death rate, two major problems present themselves: habitat scarcity and energy scarcity.
The perfect solution to this problem is the concept of a Dyson Sphere. A Dyson Sphere is a gigantic structure that completely encapsulates a star. The entire region inside the shell of the sphere is potential habitat because the Sphere would be built in the Goldilocks zone. And since the star is completely encapsulated, every photon of energy emitted by the star would be captured by the inside of the sphere. So you have a whole lot of space with a whole lot of energy to sustain a civilization for a very long time. But, the sphere has a problem. There is no possible rotation of the sphere which would provide uniform gravity for all regions of the inner shell. To address this problem Larry Niven came along and came up with a similar and slightly more feasible structure, the Dyson Ring. A Dyson Ring is a thin band around a star in the Goldilocks zone with a normal rotation which could provide uniform gravity for all regions on the inside of the ring. The ring would obviously have less space than a sphere, but we're still talking about a land mass millions of times more vast than that of a planet.
This is a brilliant idea and it provides for the setting of the book Ringworld. Now, I'll start my review of the book with a very simple observation. Niven is a really smart guy and within this book there are several really fascinating technological concepts which may very well show up in the distant future. For that alone, Niven gets a few gold stars, but that doesn't mean the book is perfect, there are certainly flaws. Some are forgivable: occasional clunky description leading to confusion, character quirks with no other purpose than to provide for conflicts, and conflict resolutions that seemed a little too convenient. There was one flaw, however, which for me, was unforgivable and I'll provide an excerpt from the book as an example:
"Seeker stood at bay with his black iron sword. Three men were down before him, and others stood back, and the sword dripped. Seeker was a dangerous, skillful swordsmen. The natives knew about swords. Teela stood behind him, safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine."
Let me repeat that for the people in the cheap seats, "Safe for the moment, looking worried, like a good heroine."
This is really hard for me to read in a book about the future from a supposedly forward thinking guy and this isn't the only absurdly sexist detail in the book. Teela's entire character is ridiculously constructed to form the ultimate sexist stereotype. She's physically weak, weak-willed, temperamental, moody, and is used primarily throughout the novel as the protagonist's sex toy. I can see a handful of people making the argument that this isn't an example of sexism, this is just dumb luck for Niven to pick out a character that best fills a void in his narrative. He needed Teela to be weak because the other characters were strong and there needs to be balance somewhere. Nope, wrong, the only other female in the novel was equally as absurd. Her name was Prill, and her one skill was being really good at sex, manipulating men not through reasonable argument or passionate presentation, but because she had a reasonably comfortable hole. Prill eventually became the protagonist's new sex toy after Teela was traded out. And, one last example just in case you're not convinced. The females of the other two alien species featured in the novel were non-sentient.
This costs you points Niven. No matter how much I wanted to keep turning the pages and no matter how fascinated I was with some of your ideas about speculative technology, I can't recommend this book to anyone because I can't support the objectification of women.
2/5
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