A review by diazona
Ringworld by Larry Niven

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

It's 1875, and at a table in a long-distance train car there are two old philosophers with corncob pipes and horn-rimmed glasses having a dense scholarly debate about the nature of life on other planets. The third person at the table is a retired railway executive, who is mildly interested in the debate but is more interested in the fourth person: his new, inappropriately young girlfriend. After a while the train breaks down, so they go out and try to fix it. They walk through some scenery. They talk to some people. There may be an episode of them getting captured and/or uncaptured - I dunno, I had kind of lost interest at this point.

Congratulations, you've just read Ringworld. 

I mean, sure, the train is moving at a hundred thousand times the speed of light, and the philosophers are aliens, but the sad thing is, none of that matters. As I see it, Ringworld is a story about four people who go on an adventure and are too preoccupied with their own relationships and internal conflicts to let anything interesting happen on said adventure. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of these people, and the "adventures" they go on are pretty inconsequential. I know it's supposed to be a classic and all, but this book sucked all the joy out of reading for me; it's the closest I've ever come to not finishing a book because of how much I didn't like it.
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