If you want a good lesson in pacing look no further than Ringworld. It hits the ground running and does not let up until the very last page, yet it is never rushed, and the brisk pace makes the slower moments even more impactful. Not a word is wasted here; the book takes all of two and a half pages for the plot to kick into high gear when the veteran space pilot Louis Wu is accosted by an alien named Nessus who invites him to join him on a mysterious mission in an uncharted region of the galaxy. Nessus is one of a species known as Pierson's puppeteers, a race known for their utter devotion to caution, and he is the first puppeteer to appear on Earth in over 200 years. Driven by curiosity, Louis agrees to be the mission's pilot, and soon after we meet Speaker-To-Animals, one of the war-loving kzin species who is hired to be the group's muscle. The final member of their crew is Louis' lover Teela Brown, a young girl who is selected by Nessus for her incredible luck (more on that later).
Louis and his crew discover and crash land on the titular Ringworld (it's exactly what it sounds like; see cover), and then must explore the vast landscape around them in order to repair their ship and find some way to escape. The story is an adventure, but the majority of the plot is driven by the characters and their reactions to the environment around them.
Entwined with its excellent pacing is a good sense of character building. At first the aliens of Louis' crew are rather archetypal: the kzin is a proud warrior from a proud warrior race and jumps to violence at the drop of needle; and Nessus is cautious to a fault, just like every other person from his species. It would be easy to write such alines as one-note cutouts of their respective races, but instead Larry Niven uses this foundation to build complex characters that both subvert their archetype and fufill it to its logical extreme. For example, the bloodthirsty kzin have historically warred with humanity to the point of near-extinction, and are now peaceable enough to send ambassadors and establish treaties with other civilizations, while the puppeteers, though considered weak cowards, have practiced caution and safety to such an extreme that their technology is vastly superior to any other species in the galaxy (except the builders of the ringword, hence why they want Louis to investigate it). There are more individual examples as the story progresses, for we see that each character has a much greater depths than the stereotype of their species would suggest. The kzin Speaker proves himself to be the most reasonable of the group in many cases, while Nessus's is revealed to be 'mad' for his species, as no one else would have dared to go on such a mission in the first place.
As with all good science fiction, the characters are vessels for ideas, but they are characters first, and though many scientific concepts are discussed such conversations are always logical consequences of the story--there are no random lectures or tangents. Even the most technical aspects of the book are character-driven, as who is presenting an idea is just as important to a scene as the idea itself. We are right with our cast as they try to reason out the wonders they encounter.
The ringworld is vast and mysterious, but perhaps the most interesting part of the narrative is the character of Teela Brown. On a surface level, her character is underwritten and, as the only female character in the book, unfortunately flat. Louis laments that she is too naive to really know what she is signing up for (she has never been 'hurt' as he puts it), and he does his best to dissuade her from joining him on Nessus' mission. There were several scenes early on where I feared she might end up as just a trophy for Louis but by the end of the book all of these aspects feel like intentional choices. Her character seems to be the central idea. Teela might lack any agency whatsoever, or her choices and desires might be the sole reason anything happens in the book at all.
As stated earlier, Teela was selected by Nessus for her "luck." In the future of Ringworld, aging has been halted almost completely (Louis Wu is around 200 years old), and as a consequence the Earth has become incredibly overpopulated. Only winners of a lottery system are allowed to have children, and Teela is the descendant of several generations of consecutive lottery winners (she is only 20). Teela, Nessus reasons, has been genetically selected for luck by the evolutionary pressure of the lottery system--only people who are lucky will get selected, so only lucky people will pass on their genes, so their offspring will have those "luck" genes, and then only the luckiest of the next generation will pass on their luckier genes, etc.--and so if she accompanies them, she will ensure they will not encounter any trouble. She is their "good luck charm."
Louis, at first, finds the idea ridiculous, and after their ship crashes both he and Nessus abandon the notion that luck can be selected for through evolution. But then Louis keeps pondering the idea. He had complained that Teela had never been hurt, either emotionally or physically, and he was envious of her innocence before they left Earth. This would be very lucky, he knows. Soon the idea works its way back into his mind, and as Teela survives more and more perilous situations he becomes convinced that she is indeed the luckiest person alive. Teela's character, we come to realize, is an exploration of luck as a physical concept--and it is taken to its logical extreme. I will not go into the details, as that is part of the fun of the book, but suffice it to say that 'being lucky' does not mean the same as 'being safe.' Her luck drives her to become a more complete person, and by the end of the novel Teela chooses to stay and explore the ringworld on her own.
I don't have too much more to say without turning this into a full-blown analysis (and I don't really have the patience to build something like that right now), but I have a few closing comments. There is a good deal of humor here, all arising from the interplay of Louis Wu's motley crew, and enough worldbuilding to make the world feel real while leaving you wanting more.
A few elements could be construed as problematic, but they are minor blemishes. There are a few racist word choices that jump out as simply dated and unnecessary, but they are only one-off bad descriptors. There are no insidious ideas or degrading situations like those in Stranger in a Strange Land, and even if you read Teela Brown as more of an idea than a character, there is at least a lot of nuance and intrigue in the discussion to be had around her.
Overall, a very good book, and an easy read. If you enjoy science fiction, definitely pick it up.
Ringworld is available on Amazon in print, ebook, and audiobook formats, and wherever books are sold.
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