A review by deadsearisen
Ringworld by Larry Niven

Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
I was recommended this book as a classic work of sci-fi by a few friends - while I can certainly see the importance of Ringworld within the genre (I believe it was the first to come up with the ringworld concept), I wouldn’t recommend anyone read this. It certainly started out strong, to me - beginning with a 200-year-old protagonist hopping through transport booths to follow the midnight line and extend his 200th birthday as long as possible, before realizing he was already bored with his life yet again. However, interesting concepts and beats are quickly ruined - Niven is apparently unable to resist lacing the text with racism and misogyny. I saw someone else describe their experience with the text as Niven dry heaving his misogyny onto the page, and I certainly agree. The descriptions of the main character, Louis Wu, are racist (I believe in Ch. 2 his skin is literally described as “Fu Manchu yellow” or something along those lines), Teela’s entire character is reeking of misogyny, not one but two alien species have “nonsentient females”; the interesting moments and concepts are, bluntly, not enough to propel this book through Niven’s racism & misogyny, and his middling writing style didn’t help much at all either. Niven’s personal misogyny & racism (as well as, in a few instances, homophobia and cissexism) rendered this text, for me, too much to slog through.
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