Book Review: Ringworld by Larry Niven
(Note: comments have been disabled on this post due to spammers.) I just finished listening to this book. So here is my review of it. This is not one of my favorites by Larry Niven. The idea is awesome, the descriptions and characters are great and well drawn, but it’s what he does with all that that I don’t much like. Here’s the basic premise: Four explorers (two humans–Louis and Tila–one Kzin–Speaker–and one Puppeteer–Nessus) set off to explore a mysterious ring around a star. When they get there they discover that there is life on this unnatural ring (unnatural because it was built by aliens of some sort). Now, the idea of there being this huge flat ring around a star that can support life is really rather cool. But Niven just takes way too long in the novel to get to the Ringworld to show it to us and when he actually gets there it just sort of drags on with not a whole lot of really fascinating things happening. As far as you know, civilization on the Ringworld has reverted back to savage times and you know nothing about the people who built it, except that the natives refer to them as gods. Given that, my favorite parts of the book were the characters. Louis is a fun character, and so is the Kzin (a sort of super evolved tiger that can talk and is intelligent and such). Even the Puppeteer (this strange creature with two heads and mouths that he uses for hands) is entertaining. All the little tidbits about human, Kzin, and Puppeteer culture are fascinating (such as the fact that any Puppeteer that shows courage considers him or herself to be insane and the rest of Puppeteer society things the same). I thought Saturn’s Race was much better than this particular book. The Gripping Hand was better too. I just didn’t like the pace and where the novel ends. So, Sunday is when I’ll post Chapter Two of The World in the Satin Bag. I also just started another audiobook (The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman) that should prove to be rather interesting. Look forward to the lovely weekend then. You’ll have something to do Sunday 😛
TGIFF
What exactly is TGIFF (a.k.a. tiggiff)? It stands for Thank God It’s Finally Friday. The general consensus among my multiple personalities is that Friday is the best day of the week. Why? It’s the first day of my weekend (I get 3 days off, four 10’s…) and it means that I don’t have work for two days. It’s in the best position because it’s the first day I get to sleep in, and it’s just an all around happy day. I figure with this post, as I prepare to post the first chapter to The World in the Satin Bag, I can do a little book review of something I read recently and do a little talking about my writing in general. So here goes. Eon by Greg BearIf you haven’t read this book and you like hard scifi, then you should read this. It was originally printed in 1986 by Tor and has been reprinted a few times now. I found it at Walmart and bought it sort of on impulse. I’ve never read Bear’s works before, nor heard much about him other than the few times I have seen his name. After reading the back, something I rarely ever do, I had to give it a shot.This book is by far one of my favorite books of all time. It revolves around a couple of characters set in a slightly futuristic Earth (we’re talking only slightly more advanced than where we are at now, but not so much so that it’s too fantastical). This giant asteroid swings in and sets up orbit around Earth, on purpose mind you. It actually slows down and sets up orbit. Anyway, this is in an Earth where the Cold War hasn’t yet ended (and when this bookwas written the Berlin Wall hadn’t been torn down yet, so it makes sense). Inside the Stone they find humanesque cities and mankind begins exploring it, well certain people do because most of the info is kept pretty secret on purpose. So, basically it starts there with the research and there is a big plot twist that comes and such.I can’t ruin how the book goes. I just can’t. All I can say is they find out that the Stone is from an alternate future and it parallels the events happening on Earth only it shows what happens in their future. Does that make sense? The explorers basically are reading about a future that has not happened yet on their Earth but something that had happened on the Earth where the stone is from.The book tells you a lot more about what is going on and how all that is possible and some other amazing aspects that you can’t miss. Seriously, give this one a thought. It’s a great book. Alright, so writing has been interesting. I have some stuff up on Critique Circle, this great website that gives critiques obviously. I was also reading some previously written things and really enjoying them. Some of my stuff is a lot more complicated than what I am writing for this project, and rightly so as I write a lot of scifi shorts and such. This is more of a longer work obviously and since it is fantasy based it won’t be as complicated.Anyway, I think this is going to work really great for me. I think :).