Interesting but unrewarding
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The Ringworld Throne is the third instalment of Larry Niven's Ringworld series, published in 1996.
This is a very strange book, it's a book of two halves which are barely related; and both of them seem to be simply chronicles of events rather than an actual story. Very few new ideas are brought into the picture and the effect is one of bemused disappointment come the end.
The first half follows various species of hominids as they attack and destroy a shadow nest (a vampire den) below a large floating city. In my opinion this is the better half of the book - there is a section where this city is explored by one of the protagonists - and it is found to be ancient and ruined within. It really does provide an enthralling read for a few pages at least.
The second half focuses more on the Pak Protectors of various races and their struggle to save the Ringworld. The main problem is that even towards the end, there is no real single story thread - instead the book seems to take a sort of "wait and see where this goes" approach.
Although I enjoyed reading it, I found the lack of purpose or direction frustrating and disappointing. Hopefully the next instalment will be better. If you enjoyed the first two, read this one, but heed warning that it's not in the same league.
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Don't bother
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Definitely the third best of the "Ringworld" books. A potboiler cashing in on the merited success of its predecessors. Too long, repetitive, too many characters, but no charaterisation. If you have trouble sleeping, buy this.
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don't ring us...
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Larry Niven (in my humble opinion) is one of the premier writers of science fiction, up there with the Heinliens and Clarkes of the SF world. His ideas are without parallel and the "known space" franchise is one of the best imagined and constructed since Tolkien created middle earth. On the down side, he has a habit of writing in a fashion that keeps readers at arms-length and makes them feel as they they are constantly missing important directions to plot and character development. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "the ringworld throne". Even after 300 pages, I was still left wondering where the story was going and what it's focus was. This book is a real disappointment after the ultra-brilliant "ringworld" and it's worthy successor "the ringworld engineers". It's lack of direction and "in the know" writing style still leaves me frustrated and unfulfilled even after having read it several times. Read the first two books and stop there is my advice.
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Larry, what have you done?
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Over the years I have read many Niven books. Mostly I have been captivated by his ability to introduce staggering ideas or just follow seemingly simple premises to surprising conclusions. Sadly Ringworld Throne is not one of his better efforts. There seems to be little focus, an unnecessary proliferation of characters, and a meandering plot. There also appear to be anomalies that are not explained. Maybe Ringworld's Children will make up for it . .
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lacklustre and disappointing
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15+ years since the brilliance of Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers and *this* was the best Larry Niven could do? The most striking thing about this story is how listless it is - Louis Wu et al are absent for most of the first part of the book and instead we get a not-especially-interesting story involving some of the minor players from Ringworld Engineers that reads more like fan fiction than anything else. The second half is back to Louis Wu and the Hindmost fighting Pak Protectors again, but it's a lot less involving than last time and - while there's a clever take on the origins of the Fist-Of-God mountain - Ringworld Throne is a overall a weak coda to the previous two books. As of 2004, there's now a fourth Ringworld book. Here's hoping that it's a more worthy addition to the series than Ringoworld Throne was.
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