Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Ringwelt

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Ringwelt by Larry Niven

19 reviews

saturnsent's review against another edition

This is one of the most sexist sci-fi novels I've ever had the displeasure of picking up. The concept is great but the characters are incredibly forgettable and I really can't see the vision in all of the female alien species being non-sentient.

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theobromo's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

In this riff on Wizard of Oz, the emotionless Looey Woo, takes his “Dorothy” to find the Ringworld full of flying cities and crazy locals. Unfortunately he never finds his heart, the lion-kzin is not without a brain(and may be the most likeable character), the cowardly bifurcated deer is an a-hole mastermind, and ultimately the Dorothy decides to run off with Conan the Barbarian, instead of making her way back home.

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angorarabbit's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.25

TW: Graphic blood, misogyny, sexual content, xenophobia. Moderate death, fire injury, homophobia, sexism, violence. Minor colonialism cursing (invented words substituted), slavery, war. There are two adults in a relationship with 180 year age difference. Spicy bits can be skipped with no loss to the story.

TLDR: Trying to read this in the early 1980’s caused me to turn to DrangonRiders of Pern.

Clarke tech: To much to type but for starters; transfer booths, ftl travel, tasps, stabis fields, General Product hulls, artificial gravity, sonic folds, food replicators, floating buildings, auto docs, the material for the ringworld, inherited psi.

Normally a 1 star book would be a DNF for me, I made an exception for this since it won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, has a 3.94 star rating on Goodreads and a .3.52 on StoryGraph. Also it is only 313 pages.

Firstly let’s talk about the book itself. Written in the third person the narrator knows the thoughts of one of the main characters. People technology, and places are not well described, the flora and fauna of the ringworld is described as “earth like”. The main characters seem to meander through the story without much idea of what they are doing or why. They also have little to no backstory and are not very interesting. The book ends on a cliffhanger. All in all, frustraing.

Next the science. Ringworld is still praised for the audacity of it’s science, but when you look at his shiny tech it is mostly borrowed from Star Trek. Which is hardly a surprise since Mr Niven did write for the show and the Kzin did appear in one episode, that I remember vaguely. of the animated series. Of the non-Star Trek tech the flycycles are cool, but their sonic fields, food replicators, and auto docs are basicaly magic dressed up in techno words. Floating buildings make absolutely no sense in a world with that much land. And of course the ringwood itself as written is unstable.

Lastly the elephant in the book. The problem of Teela. Of four crew members there is one female. When she expresses her feelings of inadequacy and failure to the crew member who is her partner he says,

“I’ll grant you blew that one. As a good luck charm, you’re fired. Come on, smile. We need you. We need you to keep me happy, so I don’t rape Nessus.…”

Basically Teela exists so we can get mild sex scenes. And a strange subplot about luck.

Finally at page 260 we get another female with a speaking part. This is the conversation that two of the male crew mates have about her after one character’s first conversation with her.

“Did you think to ask about the ratio of sexes abroad ship? How many of the thirty-six were women?”

“She told me that. Three.”

You might as well forget about her profession.”

A few pages later we get a scene that leaves no doubt as to what her profession was on her former ship.

To top it off the other two alien species female’s are non-sentient and for breeding purposes only. A quick check on the interwebs tells me that Mr Niven was husband to an wife who was an MIT graduate and active in many science fiction clubs as well as being a writer herself. I would love to know what her thoughts regarding Teela’s role in the Ringworld novel was. Unfortunately in my quick troll around I found nothing.

There must be something worthwhile in this novel for it to win the accolades it did. I just never found it.

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defcon's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

There is no reason to read this book in the 21st century (or beyond). SFF has come so far, society has come so far.

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ellwell's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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fraebae66's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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swoodo's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Interesting enough concept that quickly turns into a pulpy adventure story of an enemies to friends motley crew.

The prose isn’t anything special, there are some funny and lighthearted character moments, but there are also so moments of sexism (Niven is woeful with his female characters), and it all comes to a somewhat dwindling end.

It’s good enough, if only in concept, and he’s got a decent grasp on the hard science of some elements, but it’s never engaging enough or beautiful enough to be anything more than decent. Add on the sexism and you’ve got a novel that brought to life an interesting concept that has since been outdone in many other iterations in other franchises.

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taotechump's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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cdbaker's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I understand that this is a “classic” of sci-fi and I tried to appreciate it from that perspective. But it’s just terrible and so damned sexist. The “big dumb object” isn’t that interesting and all of the characters are just so unlikeable that it’s difficult to care about what’s happening to them. The central conceit of the book (about luck) is incredibly irritating. As my partner put it, it’s neither magic nor science, it’s just bad.

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bookishchef's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

Many creative world building ideas but I would rather eat glass than read this again

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